MODERNIZATION POINT Of VIEw JULY 2015 Now Is the time to modernize Your ApplIcAtIoN portfolio
Now Is the time to modernize Your ApplIcAtIoN portfolio After a decade of false starts, CIOs are finally on their way to rationalizing their application portfolios, shifting their budgets from cost to investment, and bringing new life to their legacy applications. The CIO moves from being a chief information officer to a chief orchestration officer. Mike G. Williams, global general manager, Application Modernization and Cloud, CSC In the IT realm, the rules have changed dramatically. These changes affect not only the expectations of Generations X and Y, but also technology itself. Cloud computing, seamless mobility, connected devices, social media, big data analytics the list goes on and on. For CIOs and their organizations, these new technologies promise great benefits. Cloud computing delivers cost savings, speed and flexibility. Mobile devices improve productivity and accessibility. Social media makes possible new forms of customer relationships. And big data analytics strengthen predictive power. Unfortunately, many CIOs are too heavily burdened by their legacy applications cost and complexity to take advantage of these exciting new developments. In fact, essentially all large corporations and public agencies are filled to the brim with myriad aging applications whether custom, enterprise resource planning (ERP), or off-the-shelf representing a bewildering array of languages, platforms and standards. What s more, these large application portfolios, often seen as vital to maintain or simply too diffcult to tame, harbor genuine business risk. Some are unknown or lost, even though the organization continues to pay for their licenses and maintenance. Others may be out of support or have source code that is long since misplaced. Still others are ring fenced and locked down, unable to assume new functionalities requested by business users. A few applications will be unsupportable, with no one left in the organization who can maintain them. 1 NOW IS ThE TIME TO MOdERNIzE YOUR APPlICATION PORTFOlIO
Essentially all large corporations and public agencies are filled to the brim with myriad aging applications. These older applications variously labeled antique, legacy or obsolete are also disconnecting many organizations from the mobile, social, cloud and big data revolution, what Gartner analysts call the Nexus of Forces. Together, Gartner says, these technologies are both transforming user behavior and creating new business opportunities. leading companies use these technologies to create innovative products and services that reach customers in new contexts. For example, online retailer Amazon has extended its business with the Kindle reader. Gartner explains that this mobile device and accompanying applications have enlarged Amazon s portfolio of merchandise and extended its reach through new partner relationships. These new technologies can also render existing IT architectures obsolete. They expose the limitations of older applications, too. Because many older applications are inaccessible from mobile devices or portals, they hinder organizations from competing with other players that are using the latest technologies. how big is the problem? Big. large global organizations have over the years accumulated literally hundreds, sometimes thousands, of applications that collectively represent millions of lines of code. In a world where the CIO s role is changing rapidly to one of service orchestration across the enterprise, that s a major problem. One CIO summed up his predicament by saying, It s like competing in a Formula 1 race with a car that s 10 years old and trying to replace the engine at the same time. ROAD TO MODERNIZATION Fortunately, there s good news ahead, and CIOs can use the Nexus of Forces to navigate a path to the future. They can bring along their legacy applications by applying what we at CSC call application modernization. It s an approach that extends the life of applications through rationalization and innovation. This means CIOs can consolidate and eliminate some applications, transfer others to more modern platforms and languages, and ensure 2 NOW IS ThE TIME TO MOdERNIzE YOUR APPlICATION PORTFOlIO
that those that remain stay the course. The CIO moves from being a chief information offcer to a chief orchestration offcer, says Mike G. Williams, global general manager, Application Modernization and Cloud, at CSC. The best way to begin this application modernization journey will vary according to an organization s applications portfolio and business scenario. For some, the first step of the journey will be rationalization. This involves taking a rapid inventory of an organization s application portfolio, determining what s needed and what s not, discovering where money is being wasted and opportunity lies, and then deciding which modernization treatment to apply. For others, the best starting point may be to prove the value of modernization, whether through a proof-of-concept initiative, pilot test or full modernization treatment. Applications may be treated in different ways, too. They can be replatformed to gain the cloud s scale and elasticity. They can be revamped to simplify portfolio complexity, e.g., by simply reducing the number of applications in the portfolio or number of modules or lines of code. And they can be replaced or extended, e.g., by using middleware toolsets to either build new common user interfaces or add mobility extensions to older applications. In these various ways, application modernization breathes new life into older applications. In one treatment, known as replatforming, older applications can be modernized and migrated from legacy mainframes to newer x86-based distributed servers. Also, code written in older languages for example, COBOl, Pl/1 and Visual Basic can be converted to newer ones, such as Java or.net. An application can then be refactored to run on a lightweight middleware platform such as the Spring Framework, in either a public cloud service or a private managed cloud. The cloud, in fact, has a large and important role to play in almost any application modernization effort. So does a repeatable industrial process that we at CSC call a factory approach. Our modernization factory provides a range of services to help organizations discover, assess, replatform, revamp, replace and extend their legacy applications. It also features an acceleration tool called QTE (short for Quick Transformation Engine) that speeds up the modernization of legacy applications. Whether you as a CIO are looking to free up your IT budget for innovation, extend the lives of your mission-critical applications, or simply rationalize your applications portfolio, now is the time to take a good look at application modernization. It could help smooth your path to an innovative IT future. See how CSC can modernize your applications: csc.com/application_services. 3 NOW IS ThE TIME TO MOdERNIzE YOUR APPlICATION PORTFOlIO
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