Mlogica Thought Leaders: Migrating Legacy Mission-Critical Environments to the AWS Cloud

Increased Agility and Scalability: With Amazon EC2, users can dynamically and even automatically deploy virtual instances to meet their scalability demands. By enabling enterprises to scale up and down as needed, Amazon EC2 on-demand resources ensure mission-critical applications and databases support fluctuations in business activity while eliminating inefficiencies.

Cost Savings: Cloud migration can offer tremendous cost savings by eliminating the need for enterprises to spend time and money in modernizing and supporting end-of-life systems. AWS’s pay-as-you-go pricing model also enables efficient utilization of systems and reduces waste.

High Availability and Disaster Recovery (HADR): Two non-negotiable features of a secure, stable IT system are continuous availability and the ability to remain online during unforeseen events. The built-in HADR functionalities available on the AWS Cloud make it possible for an organization to be certain that even during disasters their data and business continuity are fully secured.

Ease of Internal and Regulatory Compliance: AWS Cloud offers a variety of compliance and security features and services, including CloudTrail and Identity and Access Management (IAM) to assist enterprises in meeting multinational regulatory requirements and safeguarding confidential business data.

Incomplete Assessment of Legacy Systems (The Last Mile Challenge):

COBOL, CICS, VSAM and Db2 databases are frequently the largest, most top-of-mind components of legacy systems. However, addressing only these technologies and failing to comprehensively assess and analyze their critical dependencies on exotic languages such as Assembler, Easytrieve, Telon and PL/1 can stop your project in its tracks. Even databases such as IMS and IDMS are often missed during assessments, however it’s critical that they also be analyzed and expertly addressed for the migration to be successful.

This lack of attention to critical underlying systems inevitably leads to one of the most common causes of modernization failure we see: The Last Mile Challenge. This occurs when major components of legacy systems are modernized correctly, but are ultimately unable to function in the new platform because critical supporting technologies have been ignored or migrated incorrectly.

Data Migration Accuracy Without Automated Technology:

There are two main methods of modernizing data to the cloud: manual conversion of millions of lines of code, which takes years and is highly prone to human error, and automated migration, which is faster, highly efficient and eliminates the need for large conversion teams.

Traditional manual migration also prevents users from accessing business data for lengthy periods, leaving leadership unable to leverage key information required to support strategic decision-making. By contrast, using automated solutions to move mission-critical mainframe and legacy systems to the cloud is much faster—ensuring data security in flight, minimal downtime and a seamless transition.

Data Security: An organization’s sensitive data is processed by mission-critical systems, and businesses are required to comply with strict security standards and procedures to ensure regulatory compliance. A comprehensive data security plan and governance policy are essential to protect business-critical information and meet regulatory standards.

Minimizing Downtime: Any interruption to vital applications and databases may have drastic implications on business continuity. Therefore, it is essential to collaborate with a veteran cloud migration services provider that can ensure minimal disruption during and after cloud migration.