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There are several compelling reasons to migrate off a mainframe and make the leap to open systems. One driving force may be corporate consolidation or acquisition, where one company must leave its mainframe to accommodate the data center integration with a new owner or parent company. A second important driver is time. Mainframes and their applications can be challenging to maintain. As the number of mainframe hardware and software maintainers dwindles, it is increasingly difficult to find qualified personnel to keep older systems and software running in a timely fashion.
But without a doubt, the most powerful force pushing users away from mainframes is money. A mid-level mainframe can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars; a top-tier mainframe can exceed $1 million. And beyond the initial acquisition, hardware upgrades, hardware maintenance, and software licensing are a substantial cost item. For example, Simon & Schuster Inc. expects $1 million a year in hardware and licensing savings by moving off its old IBM mainframes. Similarly, Tulane University in New Orleans sought to relieve $250,000 per year in software licensing fees.
Organizations that choose to migrate from mainframes to open systems will need to start by selecting the applications to migrate first. The choice is typically motivated by the biggest pain point. In some cases, an application may simply not be maintainable, and a new version for open systems is mandatory. Otherwise it's usually just a matter of which application(s) will save the most money, or yield the best performance improvement, by shifting them to open systems. |
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