4 Key Steps to Application Modernization A Customer Perspective Gartner Symposium ITxpo 2012

November 2012

Mainframe Value

Robust Scalable High-performance Platform choice Improved TCO

IT Ops Mgr Service Delivery Mgr

Head of Development

Strategy Manager Ops Mgr CTO QA Manager Chief

Architect CIO Technical Analyst

Mainframe IT challenges vary by role

IT Ops Mgr Service Delivery Mgr

Head of Development

Strategy Manager Ops Mgr CTO QA Manager Chief

Architect CIO Technical Analyst

We need first to identify the applications that are costing us the most money across a variety of indicators – these are the ones we need to assess first!

We know what we need to try to do, but it is difficult to decide where to start. Everything relates to everything else and there’s no easy way of managing our system atlas.

All studies we do are immediately out of date.

Which is the quickest way to build new services – what applications should we use?

I want to know how we can overtake our competition with superior IT functionality

Which applications are making us the most money – do we have the skills to take them forward?

We are stifled on 3270 and can’t meet demand because it takes too long to deliver any application changes

We won’t collaborate properly unless we can all use Eclipse

I can’t track changes made back to our original change request – there is simply no joined up process

My Java guys cut code well enough but they know nothing about our business processes

“Talent management is the #1 priority for corporate leaders, up from third on the list last year” - PWC

My teams just aren’t productive enough to meet the backlog of business requirements

We need to find ways to meet our Service commitments which are harder than ever

Our mainframe environment can’t support the new testing we need to do. All our composite applications need their front ends to test against the back-end – but our developers don’t have access or the knowledge.

All our testing is manual right now.

We are stifled on 3270 and can’t meet demand because it takes too long to get application changes delivered.

We have no test cases to speak of and use copies of production data – but there’s no automation or process behind it and it takes forever to set up.

Our production system takes priority and frequently impacts our test run schedules. We never hit test milestones.

I have 20% more service delivery projects to complete this year than last

Testing is hugely expensive in human costs but also because it consumes over 50% of mainframe resources

My 3rd party suppliers won’t change their pricing so we need to find a more cost-effective way of running the business

We need to stop spending nearly all our Op Ex on just keeping the lights on

We are running short of batch processing time and soon enough we won’t be able to run end-of-month in time – we don’t have budget for the upgrade plus everything else

My mainframe environment is costly because I need experts just to run the environment.

We need to find ways to meet our Service commitments which are harder than ever

I have a complex set of mainframe applications – nothing else would provide the same business function

I only have a couple of applications that needs this RAS but I’m paying a lot for it each year. We need to fix this.

Exhibiting common themes

Deployment Knowledge Development Quality

Which of our applications should we take forward?

We need factual insight to shape our IT strategy

What is the impact of this system change?

We must solve our skills shortage

My teams aren’t collaborating enough

We never hit our test and QA milestones

Our mainframe testing is hugely expensive

We need 20% more capacity for testing

We are running short of processing time

We need to budget for the mainframe upgrade

We need to replicate core systems quickly

We are stifled using 3270 software

IT Ops Mgr Service Delivery Mgr

Head of Development

Strategy Manager Ops Mgr CTO QA Manager Chief

Architect CIO Technical Analyst

Common themes

Knowledge Development Quality

Portfolio Knowledge and Management

Unified Mainframe Application

Development

Test Environment, Test Data

Management

Enterprise Analyzer Enterprise Developer Enterprise Test Server

Your Modernization Journey

Micro Focus Enterprise product set

Deployment

Application Service Deployment

Enterprise Server

Enterprise Server

Enterprise Test Server

Enterprise Developer

Enterprise Analyzer

Enterprise product set

Rapid, Cost-Effective Enterprise Application Deployment

Improved Service Delivery Cycles

Exploit contemporary technology for accelerated and agile workload delivery

Aligned and Effective Application Service Delivery

Reduce cost of maintenance improving development group efficiency and quality

Micro Focus Solutions Key Requirements Client Objectives

Understand the application landscape. Simplify complexity

Prioritization and cost containment of Modernization projects

Cut through traditional development processes and log jams

Application S

ervice Delivery

Modernization

Package

Rewrite

Modernize

COST

RISK

TIME TO VALUE

COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE (0 – 10)

Lowest cost

High risk

Medium risk

Low risk

2-3 years

3-5 years

4 months

4x cost

10x cost

1x cost

0/10 competitive advantage

6/10 competitive advantage

10/10 competitive advantage

Lowest risk

Shortest time

Greatest advantage

Package

Rewrite

Modernize

Package

Rewrite

Modernize

Package

Rewrite

Modernize

Modernization: sound practice

Thank you

Micro Focus and ICWA: Insuring a successful migration

ICWA: some context

The Insurance Commission of Western Australia (ICWA) is the sole compulsory Third Party Insurer for motor vehicle personal injuries in Western Australia

Provides unlimited cover to every owner and driver of a vehicle registered in Western Australia

RiskCover Division manages the self-insurance and risk management arrangements of Western Australian public authorities

A government trading enterprise with 360 staff

Own and manage $3.5b CTP fund and manage RiskCover fund on behalf of WA State Government

Context and Problem

Aging Z9 Mainframe platform

Specialised support and ‘black box’ mentality towards mainframe

Limited resource available in marketplace to support and maintain environment

High cost of ownership

Limiting impact on Disaster Recovery capability

Limited agility

Specific issues

High locked-in cost

Platform couldn’t easily support new initiatives

The need to protect existing systems to leverage longer

Need a contemporary platform on which systems could be easily leveraged and enhanced without requiring “legacy” skills

No mainframe in DR

Who identified and initiated the project?

IT Division identified options to re-use trusted mainframe applications, without replacing core systems, by re-hosting them to a new platform

Initiative driven by the Chief Information Officer

Project objectives

Reduced reliance on vendors

Cost savings

Productivity gains

Support of new business initiatives through improved integration capability

Enhanced Disaster Recovery capability

Specific goals and timelines

Improved internal understanding of environment resulting in reduced reliance on vendors

Approx 10% efficiency improvement in IT operating costs

Enhanced Disaster Recovery capability that exceeds organisational RPO and RTO

12 months to deliver and implement new Micro Focus platform

Options considered

Replace core systems with COTS solution

Re-write core systems

Re-host and leverage existing systems

What we did

What approaches/strategies used? Decided to move applications to a new platform

• with the COBOL code recompiled (but largely untouched) This would deliver the fastest benefits including cost savings and web services enablement

What technologies leveraged?

Micro Focus COBOL/CICS platform running on Linux Intel servers and a DB2 UDB database

Challenges faced

Aging unsupported platforms interfaced with the mainframe

Finding enough business resource

The ‘known unknowns’ and ‘unknown unknowns’

Introduce new security and printing systems to replace Z series specific software

Scepticism within the organisation!

How we overcame them

Ensured full Board and Executive support

Ensured commitment from business divisions

Additional resources fixed unanticipated issues

Assessed every COBOL program and all batch jobs

Continually documented the environment as we progressed

Encouraged project staff to push the limits

Leveraged Micro Focus skills and experience

Lessons learned

These are complex projects that need organisational commitment

Treat this as a priority and reduce the number of other projects

Focus resource on the project outcome – don’t try to do too much

Identify and secure commitment from key technical and business experts early on

Recommendations to other users

Treat it as a business, not an IT project

Thoroughly understand how all interfacing systems utilise the mainframe

Proof of concept needs to focus on interfacing systems not just the core platform

Make sure key people are identified

Don’t overtest!!!

What would we do differently?

Where possible, stop other projects requiring the same resources

Dedicate more technical and business division staff to the project than we initially had

Involve the business more in the upfront planning and Proof of Concept (confirmed technical feasibility)

Commit more project administration resource

Critical success factors

All core systems continue to operate as they did on the mainframe

No impact on system performance

Diminished reliance on outsource vendor

Improved Disaster Recovery capability

IT operating costs significantly reduced

Java and COBOL can co-exist happily

Small, committed, passionate team

Three month PoC before undertaking

Results

Significant cost savings

A faster, more streamlined platform

Higher online system availability

Better printing facilities and user self help

Faster web services enablement

Closer working relationship between IT and business divisions

12 month payback on ROI

Mainframe now switched off

In summary ...

We met all our initial goals

New system is supported and managed in house the same as all other systems

Significantly improved Disaster Recovery capability

We achieved the success criteria and business benefits proposed in the business case – Project was a success

This should have been done a long time ago...!

QUESTIONS?

Thank you