Look Under the Hood: Modern, Cloud-Connected Mainframe for Azure

According to Gartner, over 70% of companies have now migrated at least some workloads into the public cloud. This momentum is expected to continue as companies plan to increase their cloud adoption.

The report also highlights the challenges associated with migration, with Gartner predicting that through 2024, 60% of infrastructure and operations (I&O) leaders will encounter public cloud cost overruns that negatively impact their on-premises budgets.

That’s because cloud adoption and migration is not a one-size-fits-all proposition. Migrating from a legacy system isn’t as simple as flipping a switch. And migration may not be the solution for every workload anyway – some are simply best kept on the mainframe.

Many migration efforts fail due to:

• Increased latency: When businesses move some applications to the cloud but leave others in their mainframe, they create space — and latency — between them. Resulting layers of security risk, cost, and complexity often stall mainframe migration projects.
• Application risk: Mainframe systems of record are typically mission-critical, and a migration to modern cloud technology can put data at risk. Many businesses opt for a “big bang” approach in which all applications are migrated at the same time, resulting in failed migrations for complex applications.
• Skill gaps: Mainframe experts are aging out of the workforce, and many cloud partners lack mainframe experience. As a result, businesses don’t have the technical expertise they need for a successful migration.
• High costs: Refactoring or moving applications introduces costs and complexity.

To help overcome these challenges, Ensono developed The Modern, Cloud Connected Mainframe, a truly hybrid operating model that integrates your mainframe applications with your cloud environment to reduce latency, risk, and complexity.

The Modern, Cloud-Connected Mainframe helps to:

• Increase flexibility and scalability by allowing applications to deploy across the hybrid environment with low latency
• Reduce risk by backing up mainframe data in Azure – enabling additional recovery options
• Transform mainframe data in the cloud, reducing mainframe resource consumption and costs
• Accelerate innovation and agility by embracing enterprise DevOps and modern programming languages
• Accelerate your x86 workload migration to the cloud while maintaining high-speed access to your mainframe infrastructure and applications.

Now available to view in our Demo Center, created with IBM and Microsoft

Developed in partnership with IBM and Microsoft, the Modern, Cloud-Connected Mainframe Demo Center combines the latest mainframe technology from IBM, Azure public cloud services from Microsoft, and mainframe to cloud expertise from Ensono to showcase the power of this approach.

It gives you the opportunity to look under the hood, see the common integration patterns in action, and understand how they can improve your modernization, simplification and migration initiatives.

Capabilities you’ll be able to explore include:

• Integrated DevOps: A single place for all developers to build, test, and deploy code for both mainframe and cloud – using a single, unified workflow. It enables a cloud-native development experience for everyone, even when working on mainframe applications. App changes are tested in Azure and deployed to the mainframe.
• Low latency connectivity: Ensuring that any cloud workloads communicating back to the mainframe meet user requirements is key. The Modern, Cloud-Connected Mainframe delivers a high-speed, low-latency connection between the cloud and your mainframe for high performance in an environment spanning the mainframe and cloud.
• Mainframe data integration: Maximize the value of your mainframe data by ingesting it into the cloud to be used by cloud services. An API connects your mainframe to the cloud, transforms it into a cloud-ingestible format, and feeds it into Azure’s data and AI services.

If you’d like to deepen your understanding of The Modern, Cloud-Connected Mainframe, and see what it really looks like in action, book your demo today.

Book your Demo Center engagement today, at no cost