Modern Mainframe Development

Chapter 12. Mainframe Modernization Strategies

Large enterprises are very interested in modernizing their systems and are willing to make the necessary investments. But some difficult problems exist. In a 2021 survey, 64% of respondents reported using mainframe applications that are between 10 and 20 years old, and 28% use ones that are 20 to 30 years old. In fact, the average mainframe application has a whopping 8.86 million lines of code.

Advanced, a global organization that helps companies with application modernization services, conducts the annual survey, which examines the current mainframe market and the challenges facing enterprises. The respondents are companies that have over $1 billion in revenues.

Results from the survey are published in Advance’s Mainframe Modernization Business Barometer Report. As the report notes, “Mainframe applications tend to pass through many hands over many decades, often without proper documentation of features or functional relationships. For many organizations, mainframes are like ‘black boxes’—vast entanglements of code written by developers who may have retired or left the business long ago.”

As a result, applications continue to fail or are difficult to upgrade. Finding talent with the right technical expertise to help with those efforts can also be difficult. Now, this is not to imply that the situation is hopeless. Many organizations have been successful with modernization. And in this chapter, we’ll take a look at the strategies as ...