What is AWS Mainframe Modernization?
AWS Mainframe Modernization helps you modernize your mainframe applications to AWS managed runtime environments. It provides tools and resources to help you plan and implement migration and modernization. You can analyze your existing mainframe applications, develop or update them using COBOL or PL/I, and implement an automated pipeline for continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) of the applications. You can choose between automated refactoring and replatforming patterns, depending on your clients' needs. If you are a consultant helping a client migrate their mainframe workloads, you can use AWS Mainframe Modernization tools for all phases of the migration and modernization journey, from initial planning to post-migration cloud operations.
You can use AWS Mainframe Modernization to help you efficiently create and manage the runtime environment on AWS for your mainframe applications, as well as to manage and monitor your modernized applications.
Topics
Note
Have you engaged with AWS Mainframe Migration Competency Partners or AWS Professional Services for your mainframe modernization project? If not, we highly recommend that you engage experts for your project.
The features and use cases of AWS Mainframe Modernization support an evolutionary modernization approach, which provides short-term wins by improving agility and plenty of opportunities to optimize and innovate later on. For more information, see Modernization approach.
Features of AWS Mainframe Modernization
AWS Mainframe Modernization features support the following use cases:
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Assess: AWS Mainframe Modernization's assessment capability can help you assess, scope, and plan a migration and modernization project.
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Refactor: powered by AWS Blu Age, you can use refactoring to convert legacy application programming languages, to create macroservices or microservices, and to modernize user interfaces (UIs) and application software stacks.
AWS Blu Insights is now available from the AWS Management Console through single sign-on. You do not have to manage separate AWS Blu Insights credentials any longer. You can access both the AWS AWS Blu Age Codebase and Transformation Center features directly from the AWS Management Console.
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Replatform: powered by the Micro Focus Enterprise solution, you can port the application where much of the application source code is recompiled without changes.
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Developer IDE: AWS Mainframe Modernization offers an on-demand integrated development environment (IDE) so developers can write code quicker with smart editing and debugging, instant code compilation, and unit testing.
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Managed runtime: The AWS Mainframe Modernization managed runtime environment continually monitors your clusters to keep enterprise workloads running with self-healing compute and automated scaling.
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Continuous integration and delivery (CI/CD): AWS Mainframe Modernization's CI/CD feature helps application development teams deliver code changes more frequently and reliably, which accelerates migration speed, increases quality, and helps reduce time-to-market for releasing new business functions.
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Integrations with other AWS services: AWS Mainframe Modernization supports AWS CloudFormation, AWS PrivateLink, and AWS Key Management Service for repeatable deployment and greater security and compliance.
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Expanded availability: AWS Mainframe Modernization is now available in US East (Ohio), US West (N. California), Asia Pacific (Mumbai), Asia Pacific (Seoul), Asia Pacific (Singapore), Asia Pacific (Tokyo), Europe (London), and Europe (Paris).
For more information on AWS Mainframe Modernization features, see https://aws.amazon.com/mainframe-modernization/features/
Patterns
The Automated Refactoring pattern, powered by AWS Blu Age, is focused on accelerating
modernization by converting the complete legacy application stack and its data layer into a
modern Java-based application while preserving functional equivalence. During this automated
transformation, it creates a multi-tier application with an Angular-based front-end, an
API-enabled Java backend and a data layer accessing modern data stores. The refactoring process
provides equivalent functionality to the legacy stack to increase project automation resulting
in speed, quality, and lower cost for achieving business benefits quicker. For more information,
see AWS Mainframe Modernization Automated Refactor
The Replatforming pattern, powered by Micro Focus Enterprise suite, is focused on
preserving the application language, code, and artifacts in order to minimize the impact to the
application assets and teams. It helps customers maintain the application knowledge and skills.
While the application changes are limited, this pattern also facilitates a modernization of the
infrastructure and the processes. The infrastructure is changed to a modern cloud-based managed
service while the processes are changed to follow best practices for application development and
IT operations. For more information, see AWS Mainframe Modernization
Replatform
How to get started with AWS Mainframe Modernization
Try it! We offer tutorials and sample applications to help you get a sense of what AWS Mainframe Modernization offers. Choose either the Tutorial: Set up managed runtime for AWS Blu Age or the Tutorial: Set up managed runtime for Micro Focus for a complete, step-by-step tutorial.
If you are interested in automated refactoring, check out the AWS Blu Age tools
at BluInsights
The tutorials and sample applications only give you a sense of what AWS Mainframe Modernization provides. When you are ready to start a modernization project, see Modernization approach for details about the stages and tasks of a modernization project.
The following diagram shows the workflow of the AWS Mainframe Modernization service to analyze, transform, develop, test, and deploy and operate mainframe applications.
Related services
In addition to Blu Insights for automated refactoring, you can use the following AWS services with AWS Mainframe Modernization.
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Amazon RDS for hosting your migrated databases
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Amazon S3 for storing application binaries and definition files
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Amazon FSx or Amazon EFS for storing application data
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Amazon AppStream for access to the Micro Focus Enterprise Analyzer and Micro Focus Enterprise Developer tools
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AWS CloudFormation for the automated DevOps pipeline that you can use to set up CI/CD for your migrated applications
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AWS Migration Hub
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AWS DMS for migrating your databases
Accessing AWS Mainframe Modernization
Currently, you can access AWS Mainframe Modernization through the console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/m2/
Are you a first-time AWS Mainframe Modernization user?
If you are a first-time user of AWS Mainframe Modernization, we recommend that you begin by reading the following sections:
Pricing for AWS Mainframe Modernization
AWS Mainframe Modernization charges for the usage of instances supporting the managed runtime environments. In
addition, AWS Mainframe Modernization offers some tools without additional charges. You are responsible for fees
incurred for other AWS services that you use in connection with AWS Mainframe Modernization. AWS will provide 30
days' notice before any pricing changes take effect for use of AWS Mainframe Modernization. For more information, see
Mainframe Modernization with AWS
With AWS Blu Insights, you pay for Transformation Center usage.
For more information, see AWS Mainframe Modernization pricing
