Modernizing Mainframe Applications for Hybrid Cloud with AWS: An example

Got mainframes? You’re not the only one. Many organizations that have taken a phased approach to digitization are still working to modernize mainframe applications—and looking for the smartest, most efficient way to do it.

With worldwide spend on digital transformation expected to reach $1.78 trillion in 2022, there’s no denying that in order to increase agility, get the most from IT investments, and innovate faster, there’s only one path. Modernizing legacy mainframe applications must become a top priority for those wanting to remain competitive in a rapidly evolving market.

 

The path to modernization

As they move toward modernization, many organizations look to a hybrid cloud strategy. In March 2022, a report indicated that 80 percent of enterprise respondents had already deployed a hybrid cloud in their organization.

The hybrid cloud offers a great deal of flexibility, with a single integrated operating model, support for Agile practices, and ease of interoperability between mainframes and the cloud. For those seeking a way to access applications and data without making substantial changes to infrastructure, and optimizing operations and maintenance costs for apps, a hybrid approach the ideal way to accomplish that, while delivering the most ROI.

 

The hybrid cloud with IBM and AWS

One hybrid scenario we often work with involves IBM zSystems and Amazon AWS. IBM zSystems are known for high levels of uptime and having one of the best hardware security models in the market. They are used by nearly all of the top financial services providers worldwide, along with many government and healthcare agencies that require high-performance, reliable, and secure systems.

The AWS platform provides cloud computing services and APIs to organizations of all sizes, from small to enterprise. It delivers easy scalability as business needs evolve and offers an affordable “pay-as-you-go” on-demand service model.

The IBM-AWS approach offers a number of key benefits, including:

 

Cloud-native development for z/OS applications

• Use your integrated development environment (IDE) to modify existing COBOL, PL1, Java, or Assembler programs while using new z/OS programming languages like Python, Node.js, and Go
• Integrate with CI/CD toolchains, including Git and Jenkins, and open-source developer tools
• Utilize a pipeline from AWS CodePipeline  to work with AWS services and z/OS environments to facilitate application development, integration, and deployment across platforms and environments
• Accelerate application modernization with z/OS apps optimized to run on Red Hat OpenShift, deployed on AWS; the stack includes both containerized modernization tools and the option to connect to z/OS environments as an endpoint from OpenShift
• Get self-service access to z/OS dev and test environments in a containerized Wazi sandbox running on Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2), which delivers out-of-the-box automation to enable an IT team to easily provision environments and software developers need, into a personal sandbox
• Take advantage of containerized application analysis that can run on AWS to rapidly analyze code changes and reduce application changes

 

Real-Time Sharing Between z/OS Applications and AWS

• Use a real-time exchange of information between mainframe front-end digital business apps running on AWS to provide a personalized customer experience
• Get a faster, more efficient, and flexible way to share core business information in real time and deliver support to business analysts and app developers without disruption to business apps and related service-level agreements (SLAs)
• Curate key information and use mainframe-optimized technologies to communicate and store aggregated information in memory
• Surface information using standards-based interfaces, including event-based mechanisms like Kafka or open standard-based APIs
• Integrate with core systems applications, including those built on CICS and IMS, along with an in-memory, intra-day z/OS cache designed for smooth, rapid access of processing read-only requests from AWS cloud-based applications
• Utilize the IBM Z Digital Integration Hub, an optimized cache implementation on z/OS to flow information to cloud apps on AWS for standards-based interaction and improved performance, with minimal impact on core applications
• Empower customers to flow the events from the z/OS intra-day caches to an enterprise-wide architecture for event processing, API management, or AWS mediation
• Configure Kafka topics to automatically update when cached information changes, as topics can be used by AWS SaaS solutions to deliver real-time characteristics and faster time-to-value for cloud-native applications
• Use IBM Z Digital Integration Hub to leverage AWS cloud-native app services and gain access to real-time data and events using methods like JDBC, ODBC, Kafka, and REST—without impact on core app environments

 

Mainframe Augmentation with New Channels

• Extend the z/OS reach to the AWS Cloud by making z/OS business functions and data available via AWS services
• Enable new services to access mainframe applications and data with REST APIs that can be built quickly with IBM z/OS Connect to deliver secure access to mainframe applications and data using Open API
• Safely scale APIs and take advantage of the IBM zSystems platform while delivering seamless integration with enterprise management solutions like Amazon API Gateway
• Offer specific geographically located data center capacity using AWS to augment processing capabilities or AWS global infrastructure to process personal information
• Use the solution to offer new channels, in-country processing, and hybrid cloud deployments for COBOL/CICS applications on AWS, interoperate with the core CICS Transaction Server for z/OS, and share logic seamlessly across z/OS and AWS

 

Hybrid Storage with AWS Cloud Storage

• Use z/OS clients that integrate cloud object storage with disk and tape environments to create a hybrid storage architecture and enables clients to take advantage of the on-premises storage along with cloud solutions like AWS storage
• Transparently leverage AWS storage for use as an additional tier of cloud storage
• Create a hybrid storage environment using the IBM TS7700 cloud tier to enable data to be written to the TS7700 virtual tape cache and ensure that SLAs are maintained without application changes needed, allowing migration of colder virtual tape data to low-cost AWS storage
• Use IBM DS8900 for transparent cloud tiering and automated, policy-based data backup and archive directly from DS8900 disk to both the TS7700 object store and AWS storage, resulting in a measurable data management CPU reduction
• Utilize DFSMShsm and DFSMSdss for resiliency and cloud storage lifecycle management
• OAM enables you to use AWS storage as another tier of storage for unstructured data (PDFs, audio, video, etc.) served on z/OS, writing directly to AWS storage and transition data to cloud storage from disk or tape
• To get full-tape virtualization using software-only emulation, use IBM Cloud Tape Connector, featuring host-based compression and encryption

Enterprise Automation Across z/OS and AWS

• Run Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform as the foundation of automation throughout your IT environment
• Accelerate automation of z/OS, z/OS middleware products, and other IBM zSystems resources using Red Hat Ansible Certified Content for IBM Z to implement automation across hybrid applications and environments spanning AWS and zSystems

 

Want to talk mainframe modernization?

IBM and AWS are collaborating to extend application modernization options to enable customers to find the right fit for their needs. To learn more, visit the AWS IBM Services Partnership page and the IBM Z and the Cloud Modernization Center.

Still got questions? Contact us today to speak to one of our modernization experts.