Mainframe, MVS and zOS Discussion

Hi,

Have someone used 'Heirloom Computing'? They seem to claim a lot for mainframe migration - https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/apn/tag/he ... computing/

For that matter have someone used any of such migration tools to build a solution to migrate away from mainframes? I've read that a lot of CIOs want to do that for many years but failed. Have you been successful? Or it's like a futile exercise?

A former employer migrated their two CICS applications off the mainframe to Unix servers. It took about 5 years for one application and 8 years for the other application. The first application was migrated before I left the company and when I left, the hardware had been upgraded to 400% of the original specification and users were consistently complaining about slow response times. I heard similar stories about the second application's migration. So yes the migration was successful in that they got off the mainframe, but it was a slow process and very expensive (the first application cost about 7 years worth of the total IT budget to migrate and I think the second application was more than that). I have heard of quite a few cases where companies attempted to get off the mainframe and the migration failed for one reason or another. While it can be done, the odds of a successful migration are not high.

I have not heard of Heirloom Computing and know nothing of the validity of their claims.

Thanks Robert. This is the feedback I usually hear but when we read the articles online they claim success stories. All the top management also wants to get away from the mainframes, why is that a theme in companies according to you?

There is a perception that mainframes are expensive. I suspect this is mostly because the budget impact is one lump sum whereas the budget impact for servers tends to be spread out, but it is also because mainframe software is so expensive. It is easy to find software running on the mainframe that costs $100,000 to $500,000 (or more); managers may not understand that 1,000 (or 10,000) people are using that software and that the per-user cost is comparable to server-based software. If you look at the total life cycle cost (especially per user), mainframes are cost-competitive to servers (and in some cases even cheaper per user).

Thanks Robert. Is there a way I can do comparison study of software prices?

Thanks for sharing your experience with migrating applications off the mainframe. It can definitely be a challenging and expensive process, with potential performance issues along the way. I haven't heard of Heirloom Computing either, but it sounds intriguing. It might be worth checking out to see if they offer any solutions or insights that could help with mainframe migration. By the way, I recently stumbled upon the Microsoft Learning Partner program online. They offer resources and training that could be beneficial in expanding your knowledge in this area. Just thought I'd throw that out there!

Hi inderkumar,

What Microsoft Learning Partner program has to do with this thread, please share your perspective.