The CIO’s Dilemma

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ROI can often be achieved within a few months, redirecting funds to new value-enabling projects. The move may also avoid serious risk as hardware vendors withdraw support for many older mainframes. Software is preserved, and business continuity is no more disturbed than a conventional mainframe upgrade.

New technology makes it possible to unlock the value of legacy while at the same time innovate for an agile future by:

  • Re-using and extending COBOL applications in service oriented architectures (SOA).
  • Deploying COBOL applications in Microsoft’s .NET framework.
  • Integrating COBOL applications with the Internet, Web services and J2EE.

    • Mainframe IT staff can now team up with the Java, Linux and .NET developer communities. Traditional applications can be developed and extended using Visual Studio, bringing unrivaled ease-of-use features to help IT become more agile. COBOL developer teams can enjoy the productivity of new paradigms of development including UML and model-driven architecture, bringing together best practices for rapid innovation and rigorous processes across the IT organization. New user communities (such as Web clients) can now access the same business logic and traditional data via the Internet, XML and Web services.

    To understand the value locked up in legacy applications, simply estimate the cost of doing business without them. Alternatively, estimate how much it would cost to rebuild that legacy from scratch. The risks associated with such large-scale projects are well documented. Few CIOs would put their jobs on the line for such projects, and fewer CFOs would sanction the costs in the current economy.

    Resolving the Dilemma

    CIOs can now upgrade to better, cheaper, faster new platforms, and re-use existing business processes and skills. This means they can avoid the high costs and risks of ‘ripping and replacing’ several thousand volumes of business ‘scripts’. Business applications can be readily adjusted by an agile IT organization to become more agile business ‘services’ used over and again in new business initiatives.

    Today’s CIOs can address all three challenges in a single stroke by:

  • Reducing costs through moving the IT operation to a new (better, cheaper, faster) platform.
  • Increasing agility by modernizing software infrastructure to an SOA and merging traditional and contemporary languages and tools to construct new business applications.
  • Resolving the legacy issue by unlocking core business applications from their legacy platform to become agile services running within the new infrastructure.

    • This is good news and a clear path forward to resolve the dilemma faced by many CIOs — to hold down costs while innovating for the future. In 2004, the CIO’s dilemma can be answered by viewing legacy applications as an asset that can help drive down costs and increase agility with minimum risk.

    Mike Gilbert is director of product strategy at Micro Focus, a leading provider of legacy application development and deployment software for contemporary platforms.

    This article appears courtesy of Loosely Coupled.com.