HP has unveiled a program designed to help clients move their aging
mainframe applications to more modern languages and platforms. Such efforts
to bring old COBOL applications into the rich Internet application (RIA)/Web
2.0 world are not unusual but it is rare to get a company the size of HP
behind it.
The HP Modernization Factory program, announced Tuesday, offers companies assistance in examining existing code and determining what can and must be done to port it. HP also offers offers the tools to accomplish the port. This new program is different from a similar project HP initiated a few years back that helps make vintages apps more SOA-friendly. With the Modernization Factory, HP actually helps companies migrate the apps to a new language and platform.
Paul Evans, worldwide director of application modernization at HP (NYSE:
HPQ), said that there is a growing interest at IT shops to move applications
off older systems and “modernize” them, although at this point, he conceded, there’s more
interest than actual work being done.
“Ten percent of the market is on the move toward modernizing their apps
and 80 percent is watching the 10 percent to see how it goes,” he told
InternetNews.com. “We did this because we’re seeing our customers
beginning to accelerate modernizing apps either to save money or for greater
agility and flexibility, with a high focus on legacy apps on the mainframe.”
He noted reports from research firms such as Gartner and IDC put application
and datacenter maintenance at around 70 percent of total IT spending. “Business wants
you to innovate. They don’t want you to stand still, but because they are
spending so much money on maintenance, that doesn’t leave them much money
for innovation,” said Evans.
HP will offer three tools for the assessment, but they will not be sold
to customers. Rather, the tools will be used by HP’s services unit to perform the
modernization process. The Modernization Profile tool analyzes an
application and breaks it down by subsystems based on their relative
complexity and I/O volume.
A grid with color-coded bars then shows which are the toughest to
modernize, the easiest, which apps would benefit the most and which would
gain the least.
The second tool is the Clone Set Analyzer, which looks for duplicate
blocks of code in the application. The third tool is the Clone Pattern
Analyzer, which shows “hidden patterns of code reuse” to help group together
similar applications.
HP’s “modernization centers” will be based in five SOA
company has set up around the world. The idea is that as customers become interested and
willing to talk modernization, they can visit these centers for a hands-on
look at what HP’s consultants and tools can do for them.
Staff at these centers will be experts at legacy technologies, such as
IBM’s CICS
system. They will perform the analysis and explain the test results to the
customers. The company charges $50,000 for an initial review and assessment
of a customer’s systems.
Do they then get sold HP hardware? Not necessarily, Evans said. “When we
do our first work with the customer, we try not to predetermine the
environment because that would (influence) our analysis. Of course we’d like them to
buy HP hardware, but first I want to examine the apps and what they want,”
he said.
