Mainframe modernisation
A broad name for changing how mainframe applications are built, connected or run, from adding new tools and APIs to moving work to other platforms.
Also written mainframe modernization, application modernisation, rehosting, refactoring, replatforming
Mainframe modernisation is a broad term, and people use it to mean very different things. Before discussing it, it helps to ask which kind is meant.
At one end, it means keeping applications on the mainframe and changing how teams work with them: using Git, modern editors and automated testing; adding APIs so mobile and web systems can use existing COBOL and CICS programs; and improving older code step by step.
At the other end, it means moving applications off the mainframe. That can be rehosting, running the same code on another platform with compatible software, or rewriting the application in another language. These projects are large, and their results vary a lot.
Many organisations do a mix: keep the core systems where they run reliably today and change what is around them. Whatever approach is taken, it needs people who understand the existing systems, which is why mainframe skills stay in demand during modernisation projects.
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Right here, at ZedBank. You take a junior job at a simulated bank and learn each part of the work by doing it, with Zed beside you. There's nothing to install.
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- Legacy systemAn older system still doing essential work. On the mainframe, usually code that has been correct and running for decades.
- MainframeA large, highly reliable computer built to run enormous volumes of transactions and batch work for an entire organisation at once.
- COBOLThe programming language most business logic on the mainframe is written in. Verbose by design, and still running the world's payments.
- ZoweOpen-source tools that let you work with z/OS from a laptop, an editor such as VS Code, or a script.
- Change controlThe process every change goes through before reaching production: reviewed, approved, scheduled and reversible.