Point of View | Application Development and Modernization
Rewards and Risks
of Mainframe
Modernization
Rewards - and Risks - of Mainframe Modernization
Contents
4 Retiring
5 Resourcing
6 Rehosting
7 Recoding and rewriting
8 Re-architecting
9 Conclusion
9 Let’s get started
10 Sources
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NTT Ltd. and its affiliates are NTT DATA, Inc. companies.
Rewards - and Risks - of Mainframe Modernization
Mainframes have always played an integral role at the However, it’s not easy to retire what has successfully driven
crossroads between industry and technology. Whether business for decades. But beyond the associated retiring
healthcare, manufacturing, financial services, transportation workforce, mainframes often generate technical debt that
or government, every industry has benefited from its squeezes budgets, squelches modernization initiatives
widespread, behind-the-scenes use. and directs funds away from what drives every industry —
The Digital Revolution — commonly referred to as the innovation.
Third Industrial Revolution — has ushered in technological The need for modernized architectures has never been more
advancements that have IT leaders questioning the role the pressing. Making it an “I’ll get around to it” proposition isn’t
still widely used mainframe should play in the future of their an option. Your organization must move these initiatives
organizations. Key business drivers point industry leaders to front-and-center to remain competitive in the marketplace,
one goal: modernization. Rising operating and maintenance bring products to market faster, and maximize spend and
costs, limited scalability and agility, and the need to glean technological advancements.
insights more easily from collected data have outpaced We’ll help you evaluate the risks and rewards of mainframe
mainframe capabilities. modernization through the six Rs — retiring, resourcing,
Adding to that, professionals with mainframe experience rehosting, recoding and rewriting, and re-architecting.
are at or near retirement age. Even though mainframes still
widely use COBOL, the next generation of technologists
aren’t learning it. Their focus is the cloud, automation and
smart technologies, to name a few. In fact, the shortage of
legacy skillsets is so pronounced that in 2020 New Jersey
Governor Phil Murphy made it an urgent mission to secure
COBOL programmers to help overcome the state’s inability
to process unemployment benefits.¹ And the issue certainly
isn’t limited to New Jersey. It’s estimated that over 220 billion
lines of COBOL are currently in use.²
3 | © 2023 NTT DATA, Inc.
NTT Ltd. and its affiliates are NTT DATA, Inc. companies.
Rewards - and Risks - of Mainframe Modernization
Retiring Risk
We’re approximately 25 years into the Digital Revolution, Mainframes and other outdated applications represent
and it’s just getting started. That fact isn’t lost on IT leaders, considerable risk. These systems limit agility, scalability
regardless of their industry. Among IT decision-makers, and responsiveness. And don’t forget the cost of maintaining
80% believe we’ll see a century’s worth of technological them. It’s estimated that as much as 80% of
advancements in the next five years.3 In healthcare, IT budgets are spent on maintaining and operating existing
technology makes it easier for patients to access medical IT investments.4 This means a limited amount of money
care. Financial services firms use automation to replace is available to spend on modernization and innovation.
time-consuming and error-prone tasks, bringing security Technical debt reduces expenditures on innovation
and peace of mind to customers. Technology helps and prevents your organization from leveraging new
government agencies process documentation faster, applications, technologies and cybersecurity measures.
getting benefits into the hands of citizens sooner. Artificial We’re in an age when data is king; being unable to easily
intelligence and the use of sensors and smart technologies glean insightful information from the massive amounts of
help make the transportation industry safer, more efficient data you collect is the cardinal sin of today’s IT organization.
and environmentally friendly. In a 2021 survey, 75% of manufacturers stated that data
To keep up with technological advancements and enjoy mastery will be essential for future competitiveness.5
what they (and future options) offer, your organization Without question, it’s a critical element for every
must upgrade existing architectures. Right now, that means organization to master.
leveraging the cloud, smart technologies, internet of things Reward
(IoT) and other cutting-edge technologies. Mainframes can’t
Saying goodbye to the mainframe will help your
deliver what you need to remain competitive in today’s
organization realize both hard and soft savings in time,
marketplace; the target moves too fast.
resources and dollars, while benefitting from everything
Although it can mean different things to different that modernization can offer.
organizations and industries, everyone agrees that
modernization is necessary. Many organizations are
modernized to varying degrees, but most still struggle with
the concept of modernization — and wonder which systems
Unemployment systems
to retire and which to keep running. Then there are the risks
— mainframe shame
and financial ramifications of modernizing legacy systems.
Many Americans experienced first- hand the
Adding to the challenge are a host of other complications limitations of geriatric mainframes during the
that vex even the most dedicated CIOs. Many entrenched global pandemic. The surge in unemployment
infrastructure systems are mission critical and must remain claims caused many state mainframe systems to
functional even as new replacement systems are designed, buckle under the demand. These outdated systems
built and deployed. This lengthens many modernization couldn’t keep up and left as many a 10 million
projects, some of which can take years to complete. Americans waiting for their benefit checks.6
Yes, modernizing your organization’s infrastructure is
complicated, but you’d be hard pressed to find an
IT professional who hasn’t thought that it’s time to retire
the mainframe.
4 | © 2023 NTT DATA, Inc.
NTT Ltd. and its affiliates are NTT DATA, Inc. companies.
Rewards - and Risks - of Mainframe Modernization
UniKix mainframe rehosting
Resourcing • Lowers annual IT operating costs
Many talent resources who are familiar with the code,
• Reduces migration risk, time and complexity
patches, nuances and languages required to run aging
• Simplifies IT environments to accommodate
systems are at, or nearing, retirement age. And they’re
growing workloads and new demands
taking their empirical experience with them out the door.
Organizations that still rely on several-decades-old systems • Provides a native, mainframe-compatible
are now trying to find young talent who understand COBOL, processing environment on open systems
but it’s like giving a modern driver a Model A Ford — they • Delivers a proven platform for evolving
wouldn’t know how to start it. Working on ancient code has technologies, such as cloud computing,
little appeal to younger programmers, which adds to the mobility and virtualization
current technical labor shortage. For those trained in C#
or Java, working on a COBOL mainframe is like fixing that
Model A. You can learn it, but why, when legacy systems
aren’t going to drive your organization into the future
and spur innovation through IoT, cloud services, smart Risk
technologies, autonomous operations and Systems and those who service them are both aging.
augmented reality? Soon, the talent to fix and maintain these systems may not
be available, which puts any organization relying on them
If you’re looking for developers familiar with COBOL, that
at considerable risk.
process will be exacerbated by all the other challenges every
industry has finding talent. Consider the manufacturing Reward
industry. Among the manufacturers surveyed in the Moving to new technologies, infrastructures and
Manufacturers’ Association’s latest annual “Manufacturing applications opens the door to adding new talent,
Wage & Salary Report,” 88% found it difficult to hire new capabilities and security to your organization.
employees, especially skilled, hourly workers.7 Talented resources are now available for more pressing
The need to modernize affects most organizations across all modernization tasks and to implement newer technologies.
industries. Unless a company was founded within the past And that gives the IT leaders responsible for providing
few years, there’s a good chance any sizable operation has, the services these mission-critical systems deliver peace
or currently relies on, mainframe systems and architectures. of mind.
5 | © 2023 NTT DATA, Inc.
NTT Ltd. and its affiliates are NTT DATA, Inc. companies.
Rewards - and Risks - of Mainframe Modernization
Rehosting Risk
One of the first steps your organization can take toward With a comprehensive plan and an application roadmap,
modernization will likely involve moving applications to there’s little risk to beginning your modernization journey
the cloud. The quickest, easiest way to accomplish this is when rehosting to the cloud. Although rehosting doesn’t
through rehosting your existing applications to the cloud, leverage cloud-native benefits like elasticity and cost
also called re-platforming or lift and shift. optimization features, it’s a step in the right direction.
You redeploy existing applications and data in a like-for- Reward
like fashion; in other words, you retain the existing source With rehosting, your organization can unlock immediate
code and functionality. Lift and shift typically migrates on- savings in hardware costs and software licensing fees.
premises applications to the cloud with little or no changes Organizations that re-platform often see higher uptime,
to them. Many organizations consider rehosting the easy lower maintenance, better performance and labor savings.
way to move to the cloud; it can happen quickly and with At NTT DATA, we typically see organizations save up to 30%–
minimal disruption and planning. 70% by merely rehosting. We also recommend adopting
A lift-and-shift approach solves many scalability concerns DevSecOps practices and processes, such as continuous
and is often the best first step in a modernization initiative. integration/continuous delivery pipeline support, while
But by no means does this option represent a fully migrating workloads to the cloud.
modernized cloud-native solution that CIOs can leverage
for the features and functionalities they require to meet the
organization’s demands and challenges.
If you rehost, it’s imperative to select a vendor with
experience moving applications to the cloud. Your
organization must establish the business rigor it takes to
maintain Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure or
Google Cloud Mainframe competency and be confident that
your chosen vendor has the experience to deliver it, as well
as a proven track record of success.
Rehosting assumes that your applications satisfy the
needs of the business. Often, savings from this approach
can offset the cost of future modernization. Rehosting
applications may involve a small amount of up-versioning. In
this case, your organization should consider an application
architecture diagram or an on-premises application. When
rehosting, it’s best to begin by reviewing the application’s
architecture and determining — for each application tier —
what can be replaced with a cloud-native service.
6 | © 2023 NTT DATA, Inc.
NTT Ltd. and its affiliates are NTT DATA, Inc. companies.
Rewards - and Risks - of Mainframe Modernization
Recoding and rewriting
When evaluating your IT environment for modernization,
recoding and rewriting go hand in hand. Both have benefits
once applications are operational in the cloud. And many
organizations choose an all-in approach to modernization
by recoding or rewriting applications at the same time they
move to the cloud.
Recoding converts legacy code to a more modern language,
such as moving from COBOL to Java or C#. Typically, this
approach retains functionality and results in code that’s
easier to maintain and enhance. Automated software tooling
can help, too, by converting one programming language to
another while retaining functionality.
Rewriting an application means starting from scratch using
traditional methods. Many organizations attempt to rewrite
legacy systems through traditional waterfall and agile
methodologies. Both effectively gather requirements as if
for a greenfield development project prior to attempting to
rewrite the systems.
Risk
The challenge with recoding and rewriting is to maintain
and enhance the results. Code conversion generally replaces
the existing source code asset on a line-by-line basis. This
implies that a COBOL program converted to Java retains
the procedural aspects of the COBOL program, but is now
written in Java syntax. The resulting solution will require
skills in both COBOL (to understand the program process
flow) and Java (to understand the syntax). Syntax changes
sometimes fail to take full advantage of the benefits of the
new language. In addition, many organizations that take this
approach spend several years rewriting converted programs
into a more elegant, or perfect, form of Java or C#.
Projects that involve rewriting applications often fail,
experience huge delays or result in major cost overruns
because the requirements gathered don’t represent all the
functionality the original system provided.
Reward
The benefits of code conversion are similar to rehosting.
You quickly leave the mainframe behind, eliminate
expensive software license fees and implement a more
modern infrastructure. And the solution is easy to enhance
and maintain in the future. On the bright side, rewriting
can produce crisp code that leverages features in the new
language and the cloud. The new application includes all
the desired features and functionalities.
7 | © 2023 NTT DATA, Inc.
NTT Ltd. and its affiliates are NTT DATA, Inc. companies.
Rewards - and Risks - of Mainframe Modernization
U.S. Air Force modernization success
The United States Air Force (USAF) needed to
modernize its 50-year-old legacy mainframe supply
chain platform to reduce operating costs, improve
system agility and ensure full mission readiness of its
bases around the world.
Throughout a partnership spanning nearly 20 years,
NTT DATA and the USAF have worked together
to modernize software development methods,
replatform a complex proprietary system and pivot
a mission-critical enterprise logistics platform to the
USAF cloud. The result:
Re-architecting • Supports $18 billion in inventory for over 100,000
Re-architecting extracts legacy knowledge by matching or direct and indirect users worldwide
enhancing functionality through the advanced tooling and • Accelerates platform modernization with transition
best practices you use in developing a modern architecture. from waterfall to agile
• Transforms the USAF system from customized
Sometimes referred to as refactoring, re-architecting retains
COBOL on a Unisys platform to Java on Red Hat
the best features of the original application while removing
Enterprise Linux
unnecessary functionality. Inherent to this approach is
• Migrates a hierarchical database to an Oracle
upgrading to a more robust programming language like Java
relational database
or C#. Re-architecting takes full advantage of cloud-native
• Eliminates the footprint on a cluster of five
benefits such as security, scalability and speed.
legacy mainframes
Using low-code/no-code tools will help you introduce a • Migrates a production environment with more
new, modern front-end for application services. Your than 120 servers and 5 terabytes of data to AWS
organization can benefit from a user-friendly interface GovCloud/USAF Cloud One
that helps ensure user satisfaction while reducing the • Saves $25 million annually on hosting costs
application’s resource drain. • Expands to monthly software releases using an
While each organization’s portfolio will have a mix of options agile delivery model
and workloads, we recommend conducting a thorough • Ensures future agility with security through
analysis before you begin. This will help your organization DevSecOps practices
assess the right path for each legacy application.
Risk
Re-architecting takes time and requires a comprehensive,
Reward
future-state architecture and strategic plan to achieve. In
With re-architecting, your organization can maximize
many cases, this can be the longest path to transforming
the inherent cost savings of the cloud, as well as create a
existing mainframes. It extends exposure to two of the
platform for digital innovation and operational excellence.
greatest risks to success — security vulnerabilities and the
This approach requires a greater upfront investment, but
ability to accommodate budget constraints, which linger
the benefits include the security features of an immutable
because mainframe costs aren’t reduced until the later
infrastructure, autoscaling, greater elasticity and more.
stages of the project.
Unlike many mainframe systems, which often have outdated
Legacy systems represent a significant security risk. Older
technologies and known vulnerabilities, a cloud system is
applications and systems simply don’t have the security
updated continuously to protect against the latest threats.
protections and protocols you need to prevent today’s
And the shared responsibility model assures that your
sophisticated attacks.
cloud provider will deliver basic cloud functionalities. Cloud
Bad actors target weaknesses, as well as old architectures
providers also help ensure security best practices and
and applications, all of which can expose critical
guideline compliance. AWS and Google Cloud, for example,
infrastructures and broaden attack surfaces. This puts not
maintain responsibility for security from the host operating
only organizations but millions of customers, vendors and
system (OS) and virtualization layer. Users are responsible
supply chains at risk. Re-architecting can help you build a
for everything from the guest OS up to, and including,
system and a solid defense.
the firewall.
8 | © 2023 NTT DATA, Inc.
NTT Ltd. and its affiliates are NTT DATA, Inc. companies.
Rewards - and Risks - of Mainframe Modernization
Conclusion The idea of modernizing your mainframe infrastructure
may sound daunting. Change isn’t easy, especially when so
To build the organization of the future, modernization
much depends on success. But with a careful strategy and
efforts need to happen now. You simply can’t rely on
planning, weighed against the risks and rewards, you can
applications and infrastructures of the past. If you want to
pave the road to modernization.
win the Tour de France, you don’t pedal up to the starting
line on a 1969 Schwinn 10-speed. The rapid advancement Dereck Magill, executive director of the Association of High
of technologies, coupled with increasing customer demand Computing Professionals, provides sound advice to CIOs
for digital services and an enhanced user experience, means struggling with legacy systems: “Gather internal knowledge,
you must accelerate your organization’s modernization obtain the appropriate technology and process skills,
efforts; there are consequences from putting it off. and determine the best path for your specific monolithic
These include: application based on cost-benefit analysis, and you will be
ready to start the journey to monolith modernization.”8
• Slower time to market because new releases and resultant
revenue are put on hold Mainframe modernization is doable. More than that, it must
• A young workforce, without mainframe experience, hired be done. It’s time to take that first step.
to replace retiring talent resources
• Growth of crippling technical debt from hardware,
software and maintenance costs
• High total cost of ownership due to the resources spent Let’s get started
supporting and maintaining obsolete, If you would like to start your organization’s
antiquated technologies modernization journey, visit Application Development
• Inability to rapidly launch workloads that support and Modernization offering page to learn more
innovative products, services and features
9 | © 2023 NTT DATA, Inc.
NTT Ltd. and its affiliates are NTT DATA, Inc. companies.
Rewards - and Risks - of Mainframe Modernization
Sources
1. New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy. Press conference.
April 5, 2020. https://www.youtube.com/
watch?v=HSVgHlSTPYQ&t=3s
2. M. Lynn. “Open Mainframe Project Helps Fill the Need for
COBOL Resources.” Open Mainframe Project. April 9, 2020.
https://www.openmainframeproject.org/blog/2020/04/09/
openmainframe-project-helps-fill-the-need-for-
cobolresources
3. Quadrant Strategies and Lumen. “Global Trend Report: How
the 4th Industrial Revolution is Changing IT, Business and the
World.” July 2020.
https://discover.lumen.com/edge-computing/global-trend-
report-
4. Government Accountability Office. “Information Technology:
Agencies Need to Develop and Implement Modernization
Plans for Critical Systems.” Testimony before the
Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Spending Oversight
Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental
Affairs, U.S. Senate — Statement of Kevin Walsh, Director,
Information Technology and Cybersecurity. April 21, 2021.
https://www.gao.gov/assets/gao-21-524t.pdf
5. Penelope Brown. “Growing Pains.” Manufacturing Leadership
Journal. August 2021.
https://www.manufacturingleadershipcouncil.com/ growing-
pains-23175/?stream=survey
6. Amy Fontinelle. “Why Your Unemployment Check or Direct
Deposit Is Late (and What to Do About It).” Investopedia.
September 11, 2021. https://www.investopedia.com/why-
yourunemployment-check-or-direct-deposit-is-late-andwhat-
you-should-do-5186560
7. Manufacturers’ Association. “Manufacturers’ Association’s
Latest Annual Wage & Salary Survey Report Released.”
November 2, 2021. https://mascpa.org/2021/11/02/ma-latest-
wagesalary-report-released/
8. Derek Magill. “Map Your Journey to Monolith Modernization.”
The New Stack. April 14, 2021.
https://thenewstack.io/map-your-journey-tomonolith-
modernization/
NTT DATA Services is a recognized leader in IT and business services headquartered in Texas. A global division of
NTT DATA — a part of NTT Group — we use consulting and deep industry expertise to help clients accelerate and
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10 | © 2023 NTT DATA, Inc.
NTT Ltd. and its affiliates are NTT DATA, Inc. companies.
