As the move towards modernising mainframes gathers momentum, an increasing number of organisations are opting to protect their investments in mission-critical legacy enterprise applications.
However, there are several approaches to such an exercise. Deciding which approach to follow should be based on the specific needs and challenges of the organisation and the requirements of the application to be modernised, says Devon Dalbock, Sales Director of Software AG South Africa.
"Whether this decision is due to consolidation because of a corporate merger, a need to integrate the system with a modern infrastructure, a lack of available technical skills, standardisation or integration requirements, one way to improve the operational efficiency of an enterprise application is to migrate the application, or functional components of the application, to another platform," Dalbock says.
For example, a company seeking to migrate several mission-critical enterprise systems from Unix to Linux turned to Software AG's Migration Services team to help manage these projects. The organisation has used Software AG's Adabas database management system and Natural development environment on Unix for more than 10 years.
The company determined that significant cost savings could be achieved if it switched to the Linux platform. Through Software AG's Migration Services, its conversion to the Linux platform has proven to be a great success. In addition, the company expects to further reduce ongoing costs for the operation of its servers by about 50% through migration to Linux.
Dalbock explains that, in general terms, migration is the moving of application systems to a new platform or technology. "The decision to migrate and how to migrate is challenging given the choices and the various ways to deploy technology today," he says.
"When it is time to migrate enterprise applications or products to a new platform, Software AG's Migration Services can help organisations manage and ease these challenges. With years of real-world, hands-on experience, Software AG professionals are experts in dealing with and managing the complexities of mission-critical enterprise applications and migration projects."
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Software AG provides a real-time single view of strategic business information by integrating applications and systems, in addition to modernising mainframe and open system IT environments. Its offerings are based on the product families Adabas, Natural, EntireX and Tamino. Over 2 500 employees in 59 countries support the mission-critical systems of 3 000 customers around the world. The company maintains four regional R&D facilities across three continents. Founded in 1969, Software AG today is Europe's largest and most established systems software provider. It is headquartered in Darmstadt, Germany and is listed on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange (TecDAX, ISIN DE 000330002 / SOW). In 2003 Software AG posted 422 million euros in total revenue. The Internet address is www.softwareag.com.
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