Tag: Mainframes

Mainframe proprietary storage solutions such as VTLs hold valuable data locked in a platform with complex tools. This can lead to higher compute and storage costs, and make it harder to retain existing employees or train new ones. When mainframe data is stored in a cloud storage service, however, it can be accessed by a rich ecosystem of applications and analytics tools. Model9 enables mainframe customers to backup and archive directly to AWS.

Many companies or institutions still possess legacy non-x86 systems in their datacenters: mainframe, midrange, or UNIX proprietary systems. Migrating these workloads across hardware architectures to the AWS Cloud requires advanced software technology. Short-term migration approaches mainly use hardware emulation, middleware emulation, automated refactoring, or middleware replatforming. This post highlights short-term migration options, their key technical differences, as well as their differentiated benefits.

The New York Times had a critical business workload running on a mainframe as the core IT system supporting the daily Home Delivery Platform of its newspaper. They collaborated with APN Partner Modern Systems to successfully transform their legacy COBOL-based application into a modern Java-based application, which today runs on AWS. This post describes the project, including the automated refactoring process and AWS architecture, as well as key lessons learned, business outcomes, and future technology plans.