There’s a problem in IT. All the older guys (sadly, not enough of them were women) who knew how to get their hands dirty inside the mainframe systems of the past are either no longer with us or are retiring.
That would be okay (sad too) if the mainframes were all being decommissioned too, but there’s this new thing called cloud computing and… ah-hem, actually, new and existing mainframe server systems are rather well suited to large-scale datacenter type environments. So what do we do?
Burial at C?
While it’s easy to confine older software systems, languages, methodologies and even entire platforms to the burial ground, it is comparatively rare to see any IT completely written off as a museum piece. Mainframe applications in particular remain (arguably) invaluable and irreplaceable as systems of record and as back-end support for customer engagement -- and, according to CIOs, will remain so for at least another decade.
As one famous technology evangelist once said: don’t knock legacy software, after all… it’s software that still works!
Anyway, there’s still a problem and this is how it breaks down:
Where we do use mainframe applications, they can no longer exist in a segmented cut off silo a) because the older programmers who know them are gone and b) because as powerful as they are, traditional mainframe processes are insufficiently Agile (CAPS A intended) for the new digital economy.
We sit on the edge of a new challenge then i.e. showing CIOs how they can empower DevOps teams with strong mainstream skills to manage mainframe code using Agile processes and popular DevOps toolsets.
This is the technology pain point that Compuware is attempting to address.
The firm is aiming to help transform mainframe DevOps with an initiative that includes integrations with Splunk, SonarSource, Atlassian, AppDynamics and other non-mainframe market leaders. In support of this strategy, Compuware has also acquired the assets of ISPW Benchmark Technologies, a firm known for its Agile source code management and release automation solution for cross-platform development
According to Compuware, “Unfortunately, despite decades of progress on other platforms, mainframe code is still managed by siloed teams using slow processes and obsolete tools. This situation is no longer tenable, because the digital economy demands software agility. Also, mainframe veterans are retiring and cannot be replaced in kind. Compuware is addressing this issue by allowing CIOs to shift responsibility for mainframe applications to enterprise DevOps staff with mainstream skills using popular tools within today’s mainstream culture of agility and innovation.”
COBOL, not dead yet
Once again we see that ‘older’ programming languages such as COBOL do still persist and this is the kind of technology that should allow existing implementations to carry on working -- and, crucially, still be of use to the users at the upper level and the profit bottom line on the lower lebel.
It’s all about trying to adaptively make use of mainframe application logic and associated data in concert with their other distributed/web/mobile software assets.
“If your mainframe application development isn’t Agile, your business can’t be agile,” asserts Compuware CEO Chris O’Malley. “Our mission is to help customers achieve that essential business agility by empowering Agile DevOps teams to master the mainframe just as they do other platforms in the multi-platform enterprise.”
Agile mainframes? Who’d have thunk it, eh?
