Coming Soon: The AWS Mainframe Modernization Competency

By Steve Steuart, Mainframe Business Lead at AWS
By Dee Hester, Mainframe Partner Lead at AWS
By Phil de Valence, Mainframe Technical Lead at AWS

More than 70% of the Fortune 500 companies still run business-critical applications on mainframes, and many companies and institutions still possess legacy mainframes in their data centers.

As a result of constantly evolving customer needs, the demand for modernization has accelerated as companies require increased agility to meet those needs.

Due to the slow development cycle of mainframes, more companies are migrating to the cloud to enable rapid development and innovation. Furthermore, as mainframe subject matter experts (SMEs) retire and leave the workforce, these companies face an increasing skills gap.

Coupled with high upgrade and development costs and expensive usage fees, CIOs with mainframes are well aware of the business risks to their enterprise. As a result, a growing number of companies are looking to modernize and migrate their mainframe workloads to Amazon Web Services (AWS). These migrations enable companies to realize business benefits like an average +70% savings in IT infrastructure costs.

Recognizing the complexity of a mainframe migration, our customers seek proven methodologies, tools, and best practices to empower successful migrations. The AWS Partner Network (APN) plays a critical role in these efforts by providing proven technology products and services for customers’ mainframe migrations.

We are excited to pre-announce the launch of the AWS Mainframe Modernization Competency which gives customers confidence in choosing AWS Partner solutions:

• AWS Mainframe Modernization Software Partners have proven technology and customer success, migrating both mainframe applications and data to AWS.
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• AWS Mainframe Modernization Services Partners have mature consulting practices and a track record of successful mainframe workload migrations.

Pre-Qualified Partners for Mainframe Modernization

The AWS Competency Program is designed to identify, validate, and promote AWS Partners with demonstrated technical expertise and proven customer success.

The Competency designation helps AWS Partners differentiate their business to customers by showcasing their products and services in specialized areas across industries, use cases, and workloads. AWS Partners are vetted, validated, and verified against a high bar to achieve the AWS Competency designation.

We are building the AWS Mainframe Modernization Competency with leading AWS Partners for both mainframe software and services capabilities.

AWS Software Partners

Four AWS ISV Partners are pre-qualified for the AWS Mainframe Modernization Competency:

Micro Focus

Micro Focus provided the deployment environment software for Kmart Australia to re-platform the core merchandise system, which comprised 34 mainframe applications and data, onto AWS. The new application delivery toolchain also included software from Micro Focus Enterprise product suite. The project met objectives for increased agility, cost savings with pay-as-you-go, and enhanced time-to-market.

Blu Age

Blu Age delivered the migration project to transform Pierre & Vacances RPG applications into Java on AWS using Blu Age’s automated refactoring toolset. It included six critical business applications with millions of lines of code. In addition to the cost savings, Pierre & Vacances now benefits from improved application stability, streamlined booking, and better performance.

Advanced – Modern Systems

Advanced – Modern Systems automatically refactored a New York Times mainframe workload now running on AWS. The newspaper mainframe was running a core-business billing and delivery workload that was expensive and difficult to evolve. The automated refactoring to AWS transformed the legacy application into a modern stack with an agile development and test life cycle. This provided 70 percent cost savings along with an acceleration of application development and release cycles.

TSRI

TSRI provided the automated modernization, documentation, and refactoring technology to migrate a U.S. Department of Defense mainframe to AWS. The mainframe was extremely difficult to change and manage, and also incurred high operating costs. The migration to AWS with TSRI technology modernized the stack to an open platform and modern multi-tier architecture, while retaining all functionality.

AWS Services Partners

Three AWS Services Partners are pre-qualified for the AWS Mainframe Modernization Competency:

Infosys

Infosys delivered the migration of the Kmart Australia mainframe merchandise system to AWS. Infosys completed the migration in record time—and entirely remotely—with a hard end-of-contract deadline. Kmart Australia estimates that in the next five years, the migration will save more than $30-$40 million for the company, and unlock significant value for its teams, business partners, and ultimately, customers.

Deloitte

Deloitte migrated a State of Utah child support system from a mainframe to AWS leveraging the Application Modernization Transformation solution powered by innoWake product suite. It used automated refactoring for transforming COBOL online and batch applications into Java on AWS GovCloud (US). This reduced infrastructure procurement from weeks to hours, improved performance, and facilitated the onboarding of new developers.

Tata Consultancy Services (TCS)

TCS re-architected the Avis Budget Group daily car rental rate application from a mainframe to AWS. This was combined within the next-generation platform in an effort to solve mileage optimization challenges. Avis Budget Group has successfully begun to optimize the mileage across their entire fleet.

How to Join the AWS Competency Program

AWS Partners with experience in mainframe migration can learn more about becoming an AWS Competency Partner.