In my previous posts, Enterprise Application Modernization: Key focus areas and Modernization: The analysts’ view I outlined the view of key analysts on the current modernization trends. Let’s now look at how Micro Focus fits into this picture.
Micro Focus enables modernization and digital transformation through a broad solution portfolio, characterized in this IDC white paper as “a holistic view of the whole application.” This is the idea that the application includes both the code, the access experience, and importantly, security.
“[The] Micro Focus perspective is that customers can approach modernization in [different] ways, incrementally, and with or without the need to change the underlying code — all depending on the level of modernization required as dictated by business requirements and priorities.”
The Micro Focus solution portfolio supports a successful modernization strategy in different ways:
Mainframe and COBOL
Back to IDC; “[The] Micro Focus COBOL and mainframe product portfolio … provide[s] support across the application delivery lifecycle, and while it can … be deployed as a holistic solution, it comprises products designed specifically for the key technical phases involved.”
The technologies in this portfolio include; analyzer technology (Enterprise Analyzer and COBOL Analyzer), development technology (Enterprise Developer and Visual COBOL), flexible mainframe testing technology (Enterprise Test Server), deployment technology (COBOL Server and Enterprise Server), and application delivery management and control technology (ChangeMan ZMF and Enterprise Sync).
Host Connectivity
Micro Focus organizes its Host Connectivity portfolio into three groups of solutions: access, integration, and management and security. These solutions include Reflection, InfoConnect, Rumba+, Extra!, Verastream, Databridge, Reflection for Secure IT, Host Access for the Cloud (formerly ZFE), and Host Access Management and Security (MSS).
To quote IDC again “Micro Focus solutions for accessing host applications have long since moved beyond the origins of ‘terminal emulation.’ It is now about modernizing application access from user experience, security, and data protection perspectives.
“The Micro Focus Host Connectivity portfolio … is about modernizing and connecting core, business-critical applications to the rest of the organization, instead of replacing them, to create new value such as through digital transformation.”
In summary
To wrap up all three posts, let’s summarize the advice from Gartner, Forrester, and IDC about these modernization trends based on other organizations’ experiences. In Use Continuous Modernization to Build Digital Platforms from Legacy Applications, Gartner states “application leaders responsible for a strategy to build a digital business platform should exploit and extend the value of [their] legacy applications by removing obstacles, rather than viewing and treating those applications as a problem”. On a similar note, the Forrester report Exploring the Complexities of Cloud Migration and App Modernization opined that to keep pace with technology adoption, organizations must “consider how they manage transfer/move activities. Technology and business leaders must be laser-focused on what they want to achieve and remember to align business systems to the business strategy”.
So there seems to be a clear theme of making more of what an organization has now and aligning it with what they will need in the future.
IDC sum it up in their white paper Modernization: A Flexible Approach to Digital Transformation, acknowledging the “shift from a ‘rip and replace’ approach toward modernization strategies that are aimed at gaining significant business value in the form of agility, new business capabilities, and a reduction in TCO and risk.”
Why this matters
Assistance on the journey to digital transformation comes in two strands.
There are the analysts who offer guidance on modernization, while the Micro Focus portfolio of mainframe and COBOL solutions provide support across the application delivery lifecycle, while the host connectivity solutions give access to the mainframe, while providing security and data protection.
These solutions align with that guidance to offer organizations a way to modernize applications, IT infrastructure and processes, while maintaining access to legacy applications.
Next Steps
To begin your modernization journey today, review these essential resources:
Learn the Definition of Digital Tranformation
IDC White paper: Modernization: A Flexible Approach to Digital Transformation
Gartner Report: Use Continuous Modernization to Build Digital Platforms from Legacy Applications
Forrester: Exploring the Complexities of Cloud Migration and App Modernization
To learn more about Micro Focus modernization solutions offers, visit MicroFocus.com/AMC or find me on Twitter for a chat!
