Current Blog Series: Answers to the top 10 Questions CIOs face when considering an IBM i Digital Transformation Project
We recently launched a new blog series. Over the next couple of months, we will be discussing the Top 10 questions CIOs face when considering the Digital Transformation of their IBM i application portfolio. Following is the sixth in the ten-part series.
Question 6: Why is it so challenging to digitally transform application portfolios on the IBM i?
As a Chief Information Officer in this unprecedented time of the global pandemic, you are confronted with a new, urgent demand to support your organization's digital transformation initiatives. These initiatives are essential in enabling your organizations' operations and its ability to compete and thrive in the post-pandemic world.
Though the IBM i has successfully served your organization for years, it has become isolated and ineffective in addressing today's requirements to support a remote workforce and integrate effectively with emerging technologies. Though enterprise software vendors offer powerful new technologies, none provides a meaningful digital transformation of IBM i legacy applications.
Ironically, the technology behind the platform that makes it such a valuable enterprise computer is precisely what makes it so difficult to modernize.
The IBM midrange platform was a revolutionary product of IBM's "future computing" think tank when released in the late 1970s. For decades it was hailed as a powerful, reliable, fully integrated, easy-to-operate business computer. At its peak, there were more than 700,000 systems in productive use around the world. Though the install base is less than half that many now, the IBM i, as it is currently called, successfully runs mission-critical applications for hundreds of thousands of installations today.
The closed, proprietary, fully integrated system architecture and OS/400 operating system is the secret to the power, ease of use, and reliability that made the platform so popular. All components of the ecosystem such as the programs, database, batch processing, interactive processing, work management, communications, and security capabilities are proprietary IBM technologies designed to be inextricably linked and fully integrated. There is no other platform like it, and therein lies the problem.
Unfortunately, as the platform has become isolated, the availability of IBM i experts has dwindled. Moreover, the primary programming language RPG, deployed in more than 90% of the systems, is not taught in schools. The average age of legacy IBM i developers is at or near retirement age.
So, how can today's IBM i CIO safely and effectively transform IBM i applications to meet his or her company's most urgent requirement?
The combination of the closed, proprietary nature of the platform and the shortage of available technical talent frustrates emerging technology vendors' efforts to understand and effectively integrate their offerings with the legacy IBM i application portfolio of their customers.
If yours is like most IBM i shops, the original authors and subject matter experts that developed and supported your system are gone, and you lack complete accurate documentation. Furthermore, it is difficult to find technical resources with expertise in the IBM i platform. Without resources or technology to provide this deep understanding of your legacy IBM i ecosystem, it is impossible to develop a clear path forward to a safe, efficient, and effective transformation project.
These issues leave the responsibility for the meaningful digital transformation of the legacy application portfolio squarely in your lap. Regardless of which option you choose for modernization, a deep understanding of your legacy applications' intricacies, functionality, dependencies, and interfaces is essential to a successful application modernization project.
Until you complete the migration of your critical legacy IBM i systems to a modern platform, you will not meet your company's directive of meaningful digital transformation.
#CIOs #digitaltransformation #modernization #migration #criticalinfrastructure #enterprisetechnology #ETS #enterprisetransformationspecialists
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