Banks Want to Know: Answers to Top Mainframe Modernization Questions

A closer look at mainframe modernization

My bookshelf used to be full of books about mainframes. When we encountered an unexpected issue, the books were an invaluable resource. Even seasoned mainframe gurus like me have put away the books in favor of search and vendors’ knowledgebases for answers to thorny questions. How we work with mainframes is far more agile than in the past. However, “more agile” is not the same as agile. The mainframes themselves? They will never be agile – and they make your whole bank less agile. It’s time to modernize, but that imperative raises new questions that it can be difficult to find clear answers for.

At Amdocs and Astadia, an Amdocs company, we regularly host roundtable discussions about mainframe modernization. Financial service IT leaders attend because they know all too well that mainframes limit your agility. They also know that today’s modern systems, especially cloud, deliver agility. Three common questions regularly surface that indicate a desire to know more about what banks can expect from the future state. Each revolves around a different aspect of what follows modernization.  

Do people get left behind?  

People, including me, have spent decades building mainframe expertise, and leaders wonder if loyal specialists will be relevant after modernization. When the mainframe modernization wave started about a decade ago, many smaller, less complex businesses took the lead. These first movers modernized everything; very often, mainframe specialists felt pushed out and irrelevant. Mainframe experts themselves want to know if they will still be necessary. Can their skills translate?  

Within banks and financial service industry players, mainframe expertise will remain relevant. These complex organizations usually maintain some functions on mainframes for a variety of reasons. For that reason alone, mainframe specialists – who are already in short supply – will be essential for the foreseeable future. Perhaps just as importantly, mainframe specialists will be able to use their skills within modernized environments. It’s much faster to master new paradigms than it was just a few years ago, thanks to advances like GenAI, which can help experts apply their knowledge across programming languages.  

Does mainframe modernization free your data?  

Mainframe modernization improves access to data in every organization, but how much will depend on your current state. Many banks already use tools that allow business users to access some data. Other banks may rely on older mainframe technologies that require IT assistance for even simple inquiries. In both cases, modernization lets business users access and work with data in ways that help them make better decisions.  

With modernization and migration to the cloud, you can empower business users with approaches, such as predictive analytics, that let them interrogate the data for insights. You can dig deeper into factors driving business and product performance. Why are branches in similar areas performing differently? How well do marketing tactics translate across lines of business? Modernization also positions you to make better use of your data as you explore GenAI and machine learning use cases.  

What are the benefits of modernization?  

As noted earlier, agility is an expected outcome of mainframe modernization. However, banks often want a clearer picture of what that means for their organization. Agility benefits include flexible integration with new technologies. You’ll also be able to tap a large pool of operations and development talent. Improved access to data and new technologies enhances your ability to make decisions quickly and accurately in response to ever-changing business needs.  

Banking leaders also ask about cost benefits. Will modernization pay for itself? The answer is a resounding yes. When moving modernized systems to the cloud, customers save as much as 70% on mainframe costs. Your results will depend on what you’re spending now and the cloud services that you use, but it’s common to experience dramatic cost savings. Recent surges in the licensing costs of common mainframe approaches, such as virtualization, may lead to even more dramatic savings with modernization and cloud migration.  

Automated modernization  

Many banks have been slow to explore mainframe modernization, as compared to other industries. Legacy core systems serve as the beating heart of financial services organizations. Thus, mainframe modernization can seem like open heart surgery – a daunting prospect. Advances like automation reduce the risk and time associated with modernization significantly, making the “surgery” safer and disruption unlikely.  

At Amdocs and Astadia, we’ve modernized more than one billion lines of legacy code and completed more than 300 mainframe modernization projects, many with financial services leaders. We’ve found that 100% automation of the migration process accelerates project schedules by as much as 90%. You can rapidly transform outdated code into maintainable Java or C#, and shift mainframe applications to cloud-native computing approaches without a code freeze. The result: Modernized systems that cost less and power agility throughout the organization.

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This article was originally published on Amdocs.com