New capabilities align with increasing customer appetite for modernization
Driving to Digital
In an era of digital transformation, not to mention economic and regulatory change, many organizations face unprecedented pressure to deliver new innovation, remain relevant and competitive. With only 5% of organizations saying that they are winning at digital transformation, it clearly isn’t easy. Indeed continued reliance on core business systems means 90% of the incumbent IT apps will still be in use 5 years from now.
Imagine an IT world where you could protect what already works while also accelerating the path towards new innovation. That strategy is called Modernization: to modernize what works, to support future needs. And with a growth rate of 20% each year, it is an increasingly popular idea.
Analysts Gartner are pretty clear about this. In their report from earlier this year, Gartner Group advocated a “continuous business driven modernization” approach. IDC are seeing a shift to Modernization strategies in much the same way. “IDC is seeing a shift from a “rip and replace” approach towards modernization strategies”.
Making Modern
Today, Micro Focus announced its further investment in Modernization technology with the newly-available release 4.0 of its COBOL and Mainframe product lines.
The drive towards digital requires a smarter strategy for transformation: a strategy that enables adaptability and change while managing cost and risk. As the updated web page outlines, “Core business applications, often COBOL-based, are the lifeblood of organizations. Thriving in a competitive digital landscape means transforming the systems hosting core business processes. Micro Focus enables this transformation with the lowest cost and risk, through a comprehensive solution across three key pillars of modernization: application, prhocess and infrastructure”.
Beneath those simple statements lies an array of detail and significant supporting technological investment, built and improved over decades of support and thousands of customer successes. So what do we mean by those three pillars? What needs modernizing, and through what means?
Three Pillars
Of course the answer is dependent on the situation, so the Micro Focus solution has been designed to provide the choices required for genuine flexibility. Our modernization pillars include:
The What – namely the Application itself
– Extending the application code or experience via web, mobile, micro-services or REST-ful APIs.
– Connecting COBOL based systems to the world of .NET or Java.
– Re-energizing existing core business systems for the digital era.
The How – The software development delivery process
– Transforming IT to respond faster to business change.
– Improving the velocity by which new features are delivered to the customer.
– Leveraging on-demand and scalable resources to manage cost.
– Ensure and end to end security model for enterprise systems.
The Where – the underlying infrastructure
– Deploy fit for purpose workloads as aligned to business strategic and cost model.
– Take advantage of the latest technology platforms while leveraging decades of valued business logic and data.
– Deliver an integrated and industry standard security model designed for the digital enterprise.
A Pragmatic Solution
Regardless of the challenge faced by any of our customers, there are usually elements of each modernization pillar woven in to each individual scenario faced, and it’s resolution. In the rare situation that one strategy alone might work, Micro Focus has that covered. This new approach can also pull from a broader, comprehensive, flexible modernization solution that encompasses the vast majority of real examples we’ve encountered over many succesful projects we’ve been involved in. This makes the Micro Focus Application Modernisation and Connectivity solution comprehensive AND modular, enabling you to start with simple bite sized chunks before building upon that initial success.
The holistic nature of the Micro Focus solution was one of the key observations made in the accompanying white paper, authored by analysts IDC, who state “There is an emerging realization that modernization can and needs to take many forms. Micro Focus represents that kind of flexibility with a portfolio of solutions that allow customers to implement the most valuable approach to modernization based on their specific needs.” The full IDC white paper is available here.
Speaking of the launch, Joe Garber – head of AMC Product Marketing – explained “We have been advocates of an incremental modernization approach for years, and our technology supports a variety of use cases. Our latest releases and supporting messages underscore the profound importance of a pragmatic approach to IT modernization that our customers, the market and Micro Focus all share.”
Want to learn more? Feel free to watch our introductory video on the new AMC page here or if you want to speak to me personally about anything send me a tweet …..
