Many enterprises experiencing disruption are eyeing the costs and complexities of migrating legacy applications and data, ISG Provider Lens™ report says
Mainframes are prime targets for digital transformation at many Canadian enterprises that want to increase data access, agility and automation, according to a new research report published today by Information Services Group (ISG) a leading global technology research and advisory firm.
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The 2022 ISG Provider Lens™ Mainframes – Services and Solutions report for Canada says a cloud migration trend that began in response to the COVID-19 crisis in 2020 has accelerated. Many companies disrupted by the pandemic have sought to migrate on-premises infrastructure to public clouds, and one of the most common challenges has been mainframe modernization.
“Mainframes, in some ways, have become a stumbling block to digital transformation,” said Victor Medeiros, market leader, ISG Canada. “Cloud migration of legacy applications promises higher performance and lower costs over time, but it is a complex, expensive process.”
Canadian government IT decision-makers have recognized the value of modernization and cloud adoption for cybersecurity, better government services and protection of citizens’ personal data, the report says. While there are fewer service providers to choose from in Canada, enterprises there are increasingly seeking help with transformation.
Most Canadian enterprises have three goals with mainframe modernization, the report says: making mainframe data accessible through cloud applications, improving agility using DevOps methods and automating operations with self-service and provisioning.
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The right strategy to reach these goals depends on the state of an enterprise’s digital transformation, ISG says. Companies in the early stages of digitalization may keep mainframe applications intact but run them on outsourced data centers or seek mainframe-as-a-service (MFaaS) engagements. More advanced firms may modernize their legacy COBOL applications to integrate mainframe data with modern solutions. The most aggressive modernizers use automated tools to convert mainframe applications to run in the cloud.
Preparing mainframe applications to run in the cloud can take months or years. Service providers can help make such projects feasible by helping clients plan phased transformations in which each stage delivers tangible results, ISG says.
“Some enterprises question whether the benefits of migration will compensate for the cost over time,” said Jan Erik Aase, partner and global leader, ISG Provider Lens Research. “Companies should consider self-financing modernization by taking savings from one phase to fund the next.”
The report offers an overview of time and cost estimates for application transformations, a description of automated tools commonly used in the process, and other details of how Canadian enterprises are pursuing mainframe modernization.
The 2022 ISG Provider Lens™ Mainframes – Services and Solutions report for Canada evaluates the capabilities of 45 providers across five quadrants: Mainframe Modernization Services, Mainframe Application Modernization and Transformation Services, Mainframe as a Service (MFaaS), Mainframe Operations, and Mainframe Application Modernization Software.
The report names Capgemini, Cognizant, Infosys, Kyndryl and TCS as Leaders in three quadrants each and Atos and HCL as Leaders in two quadrants each. Accenture, Advanced, Astadia, AWS (Blu Age), CGI, Google, Micro Focus, Mindtree, TmaxSoft and Wipro are named as Leaders in one quadrant each.
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