Mainframe modernization means different things to different people. Many apply a plain-meaning rule: If you're modernizing your mainframe, strictly speaking, you're modernizing it in place—updating it with new applications and integrations. To yet others, modernization necessarily involves ridding oneself of all of that pesky COBOL and replatforming elsewhere (for instance, on the cloud or a distributed system).
Misty Decker, director of worldwide AMC product marketing at Micro Focus, characterizes the dichotomy as confusing and not entirely helpful. Decker calls for moving to a broader definition of mainframe modernization that is based on goals and outcomes instead of tools.
"The broadest way to define modernization is not about the technology you're using, but by [how you are] meeting modern business needs," said Decker. "It's really about how well [an] application or infrastructure is meeting the needs of the business."
From this point of view, the mainframe component of mainframe modernization is almost incidental. Instead, for Decker, the doctrine of meeting business needs is everything.
"Modernization is not about the age of the application or the infrastructure," said Decker. "A lot of [modernization] techniques apply the same to an application that is only six months old and is no longer serving the needs of the business."