Mainframe modernization gets a boost from Kyndryl, AWS collaboration

Amazon Web Services and Kyndryl have collaborated on new services aimed at helping enterprises integrate with or move mainframe applications and data to the AWS cloud. 

Under their expanded partnership, Kyndryl will now integrate its products with the AWS Mainframe Modernization service, which offers tools, infrastructure, and software to manage migration of mainframe applications to the cloud. The AWS service includes a managed runtime environment to provide compute, memory, and storage to run refactored and/or replatformed mainframe applications and helps automate the details of capacity provisioning, security, load balancing, scaling, and application-health monitoring.

For its part, Kyndryl will offer its own services on top of the AWS platform. Kyndryl’s new Cloud Native Services (KCNS) package for mainframe modernization, for example, lets customers streamline lifecycle management across their platforms and ensure consistent provisioning, backup, compliance, and monitoring for mainframe applications and infrastructure components. In addition, Kyndryl will help automate operations, track AWS runtime performance, and ensure system health, the company stated.

Both companies will offer tools to help customers integrate and manage app development, security, and operations (Dev/Sec/Ops) to help automate and streamline the mainframe modernization process, Kyndryl stated.

In addition, the partnership will enable near real-time data replication between the mainframe and AWS using Kyndryl Consult to tune and manage third-party products; this will help customers gain analytical insights from integrated data sources that customers use to address business challenges, Kyndryl stated.

The migration service will also utilize Kyndryl’s Bridge integration platform, which brings together a variety of management tools and applications that help control and manage enterprise infrastructure. Bridge also uses AI and ML to analyze the aggregated data in real time to provide IT operations teams with the intelligence and real-time visibility into operations they need to keep systems – in this case the mainframe applications – running at peak performance, Kyndryl said.

Demand for mainframe migration on the rise

Migrating mainframe applications is no easy task, experts say, but the market for such services is growing.

According to a recent survey from Credence Research, the market for mainframe modernization services is expected to grow to about $1 billion by 2030 and includes other players such as IBM, Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure, Accenture, Tata, Wipro and others.

“The mainframe modernization services market is driven by the need for businesses to adapt to evolving technology landscapes, lower operational costs, and embrace digital transformation,” Credence stated. “As more companies shift towards cloud-based solutions, microservices architecture, and agile development methodologies, the demand for mainframe modernization services continues to grow.”

A recent Gartner report found that mainframes continue to be prominent in many enterprise environments — they run critical workloads and enable business strategies. But many infrastructure/operations leaders focused on modernization struggle to identify the role of the mainframe in a hybrid environment. “Getting this wrong could result in problems ranging from underutilization of existing resources to cost inefficiencies, operational failures or compliance violations caused by improper placement of critical workloads,” Gartner stated. “There is a negative bias to deploying new and/or leaving existing workloads on the mainframe when in fact that may be the optimal place to put some of your critical workloads.”

In addition to the mainframe modernization service, the vendors also teamed up to further generative AI efforts by setting up the Kyndryl and AWS Innovation Factory, a co-development environment that will utilize data and both companies’ expertise to build ML and AI applications for customers. The idea is to speed modernization of ERP systems and other applications on AWS through a shared development plan designed to reduce costs, complexities and time, Kyndryl stated. 

A part of the agreement between the companies is to “deepen the expertise among Kyndryl’s technical specialists to rapidly expand the number of AWS-based certifications and specialist certifications on the 10,000+ AWS certifications already obtained to add thousands more certifications,” Kyndryl stated.