Modernization Processes

Over the last several decades, I have spoken to many organizations about their mainframe application “modernization plans.” Many claim to HAVE plans, but few report any progress toward completion! Why is that? Why are modernization plans so difficult to start and complete? Perhaps it’s best summarized in the line from a Robert Burns poem – “The best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry”!  In other words, no matter how a project is planned,

Hopefully, you’ve been reading along in this series of articles on effective usage of the zIIP on the IBM System z mainframe. But even if you have not, this article focuses on a single topic that does not require in-depth knowledge of zIIP particulars. Herein we will discuss best practices for COBOL and Db2 users to bolster their usage of zIIPs. Why do this? As we have discussed in prior installations, the primary reason to

In our previous writings, we’ve discussed the scale of COBOL investment over the last several decades and the challenges of continuing to depend on this legendary programming language. The drivers for modernization remain, and COBOL can’t help but be caught up in the plans of many mainframe organizations.  ANY modernization approach has risks associated with it. The volume of that risk is directly related to the number of components, programs, and applications that need to

It’s clear that the volume and importance of COBOL-based applications remains high. Despite the variety and volume of “stones” thrown by the modern IT intelligentsia at this language and the mainframe platform, these technologies continue to provide valuable solutions that answer the technology demands of many organizations.  The reason to address an organization’s existing portfolio of legacy applications isn’t that some enterprise architects – many of whom were trained solely in modern tech stacks –