Microsoft Sees Legacy Mainframe Modernization as Driving Opportunities Across the Enterprise and Creating New Pathways for Sustained Growth

Ask Michael Dee Hester, mainframe modernization program manager at Microsoft, for his “get-right-to-the point” message and he’ll answer, “Microsoft technology can run mainframe workloads better, faster and cheaper.” Then again, being the technical evangelist he is, Dee will add that mainframe modernization can range from supplementing legacy systems with new servers that perform new tasks such as data warehousing and analysis, to moving complete workloads to a lower cost environment.

He has the experience to back up what he says, having spent 20 years in the enterprise application space. A graduate of California State University Fresno and Long Beach, his career experience covers application and product development plus product and program management for EDS, Micro Focus and Microsoft Corporation, respectively.

WFS: Dee, why mainframe modernization?

DH: Forgive me if this initially comes off as a bit of a PowerPoint presentation but simply stated, modernization drives opportunities across the financial enterprise, creating new pathways for growth. We see IT as a strategic asset to the business, a process of converting ideas into new or improved products and services, a process for improved efficiency and effectiveness and frankly, better ways of doing business. Mainframe modernization is just a logical extension of modernizing IT to be a strategic asset.

WFS: How does it deliver the goods, so to speak?

DH: It starts by helping IT move beyond the mainframe, freeing organizations from legacy silos and putting market forces to work for the CIO.

WFS: Do the benefits center primarily around cost savings?

DH: Mainframe modernization benefits include, of course, significant cost savings, plus increased business agility and improved supportability. There are four main strategies to mainframe modernization but all four fall under the general concepts of either integration or migration. Migration-based approaches provide the best long-term benefit and the flexibility to migrate a single application or all the applications based on cost benefit. Integration-based approaches involve combining components of different platforms to create a coherent system.

WFS: Can they be migrated?

DH: Anything can be migrated. However, sometimes the most prudent approach is to modernize by adding a Windows user interface front end to a mainframe application.

WFS: What do you say to a CIO who’s unsure about funding a mainframe migration?

DH: Organizations need to evolve to thrive and business applications are no different. From a business standpoint, modernization drives innovation, develops customer relationships and reduces costs. For example, better access to data allows sales teams to react faster and managers gain better insight to opportunities. Modernization aligns with business goals.

WFS: And from an operations level?

DH: Let’s break it down. Day-to-day concerns about IT operations include reducing costs, improving supportability, and increasing agility. If you can cut 15% or more off your IT budget by reducing the number of supported platforms and eliminating legacy architectures you end up simplifying operations and freeing budget to drive innovation. If you can eliminate redundant and obsolete environments, you improve supportability. If you can provide an agile development environ-ment, you can deliver new functionality faster.

WFS: That’s the short version. Can you give us greater detail?

DH: Windows systems are far less expensive than mainframe systems with comparable processing power, even for entry-level mainframes. For example, an entry-level z9 BC A01 system runs over $100,000. An HP Proliant DL580 G4 is $15,000. An 8-gigabyte RAM upgrade runs tens of thousands as compared to a few thousand.

WFS: Both systems can run comparable workloads, correct?

DH: Yes. Then there are reduced software costs for OS and applications.

WFS: Give us an example.

DH: Mainframe software costs are many times the competition. Anyone can do the math; mainframes are an expensive method of information processing.

Taking this further yet, using modern development environments such as Microsoft Visual Studio improves developers’ productivity, reducing time needed to maintain applications. If you ever developed software using IBM TSO/ISPF, you know what I mean.

Modernization is like evolution and we all know what happens to things that don’t evolve. You get the point.

WFS: In preparing to talk to you today, I learned more about the mainframe project that Microsoft handled for the London Stock Exchange. Can you share the details?

DH: As part of its strategy to win more trading business and new customers, the London Stock Exchange needed a scalable, reliable, high-performance stock exchange ticker plant to replace its earlier system. This was in 2001. Roughly, 40% of the Exchange’s revenues at that time were generated by the sale of real-time information about stock prices. Using the Microsoft .NET Framework in Windows Server® 2003 and the Microsoft SQL Server™ 2000 database, their new Infolect® system has been built to achieve rather unprecedented levels of performance, availability and business agility.

WFS: When did it launch?

DH: Launched in September 2005, it is maintaining the London Stock Exchange’s world-leading service reliability record while reducing latency by a factor of 15. Its successful implementation, with support from Microsoft and Accenture, shows the LSE’s leadership in developing next-generation trading systems.

WFS: And it has been up and running successfully to everyone’s complete satisfaction?

DH: Yes. In the past six years, there have been no production outages. Today, they process on average well over 15 million real-time messages a day transmitted to more than 107,000 trading screens around the world.

WFS: Before you need to run off, how do you characterize the strategies of legacy modernization?

DH: It’s quite simple really, rather like the four legs of a table….

WFS: Meaning….

DH: Application extension, application replacement, application and platform migration and application redevelopment.

WFS: Explain extension.

DH: With extension, you can leave your data and application on the host.

WFS: That’s low risk and non-invasive.

DH: Yes. With replacement, you move data or interface back to the mainframe where needed, and rely on package applications such as Microsoft Dynamics, SAP, PeopleSoft, etc. With application and platform migration, you move your data and recompile your apps for Windows.

WFS: In what way?

DH: For example, COBOL and DB2 become COBOL .NET and SQL Server.

WFS: What’s the risk factor with this?

DH: This is very low risk due to the reuse of both skills and logic and results in significant cost reduction. With redevelopment, you reengineer or develop new apps on .NET, gaining a new agile architecture and tools supported by a vibrant partner ecosystem. In addition, if redevelopment follows application and platform migration your application can evolve with very low risk and impact to an organization.

WFS: Start to finish, what’s the process?

DH: Just what an IT professional would expect. Assessment and discovery, modernization strategy development, ROI and risk analysis, leading to a proof-of-concept, the pilot project, the go/no go decision, signing off on a detailed project plan, a schedule and resource allocation and assignment all ending up with testing, deployment and post implementation review.

WFS: To wrap it all up, that leaves testing and deployment, correct?

DH: That plus a post-implementation review.

WFS: Thanks for your time, Dee.

DH: You’re welcome. And we didn’t even use a PowerPoint presentation.