Tag: Mainframes

Large mainframes have challenging non-functional requirements in order to process large volumes of data and users for core-business workloads. Micro Focus Enterprise Server mainframe capabilities, combined with AWS global infrastructure, provide the quality of service required by large applications. With this solution, enterprises and public institutions deploy mainframe workloads on AWS with high security, high availability, elasticity, and robust system management.

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.