Gone are the days when running a legacy platform makes your company’s operations incompatible with the cloud. Even banks and other enterprises that are currently using mainframes can now migrate computing to the cloud, using services developed specifically to help them make the transition.
Companies with legacy platforms running meaningful portions of their businesses may now be able to embrace the cloud and modernize their IT environments.
Tech companies see the business opportunities and have invested in services that enable migration and management. For example, Amazon Web Services has opened its mainframe-migration service to help companies move mainframe-based applications to the cloud to reduce costs and eliminate technical debt. Some of the service offerings:
- Include tools to refactor workloads written in legacy programming languages
- Provide a managed runtime environment to run both refactored and re-platformed applications
- Help to automate the details of capacity provisioning, security, load balancing, scaling, and application-health monitoring
Banks, in particular, are paying attention. An Accenture survey found 80% of the 150 banking IT executives surveyed plan to migrate mainframe workloads to cloud environments. Two years ago, those numbers were at 20% to 30%.
- Banks saw clear advantages of cloud computing during the pandemic
- 91% reported mainframe maintenance costs had gone up over the past five years
- Tech service companies are investing in the technology required to move COBOL onto cloud-compatible platforms
Some service providers say that banks probably spend 50% less running a cloud environment than running a mainframe environment. Those are numbers that get attention, whether you’re in banking or any industry.
It’s clear that the advantages of the cloud are now outweighing the perceived disadvantages for businesses using mainframes. Risk and compliance concerns, along with the time and resources needed to make the move, are being addressed effectively through partnerships with tech service companies and IT partners.
Helping businesses modernize their infrastructure, including preparing environments that run legacy platforms to transition to the cloud, is one of Leapfrog’s core capabilities. We approach the migration process systematically — adhering to standards and working closely with your IT team — to ensure a smooth transition. Then we operate as your partner to co-manage your environment. As an MSSP that’s SSAE-18 SOC 2 and PCI compliant, meeting regulatory compliance while improving your ability to innovate is part of what we do every day.