IT is constantly under intense short-term pressures. Line of business (LOB) executives demand a competitive advantage in digital customer engagement now. Marketing leaders demand better customer analytics now. Legal demands better audit reporting now.
In fact, much of the investment that companies are making in Agile, DevOps and continuous delivery is due to the urgent, short-term demands of the business.
But short-term actions alone are insufficient for business success. IT leaders must also strategically navigate the vagaries of the digital economy over the long term—or, as Wayne Gretzky’s father taught him, to “skate to where the puck is going to be.” Otherwise, today’s small wins inevitably will lead to tomorrow’s egregious failures and inefficiencies.
And integration of your mainframe apps and data into your enterprise DevOps tool chain is central to that long-term digital strategy.
Here’s why.
The Mainframe: Big, Nimble Iron
A DevOps tool chain is only as fast as its slowest link. For most large enterprises, that slow link is the mainframe.
Slow, waterfall-bound and underautomated mainframe dev/test processes are non-trivial—because mainframe applications and data are non-trivial. They typically are an organization’s most important apps and data. So if you can’t modify your mainframe application logic quickly or leverage your mainframe data in new ways easily, you’re uncompetitive toast in today’s fast-moving markets.
Also, mainframe applications and data typically serve as the back-end systems of record for front-end mobile and web-based systems of engagement. Your ability to innovate and remain competitive when it comes to digital engagement and digital perceived value is, therefore, almost universally contingent on lessons learned from frequent and timely mainframe code drops.
In other words, everything IT is under pressure to deliver—new mobile apps, better analytics, fulfillment of increasingly stringent compliance mandates, etc.—depends on bringing Agile, DevOps and (ultimately) continuous delivery to the mainframe.
Just about everyone realizes this. Sure, there are some holdouts who still advocate something they call “bimodal IT”—which prescribes allowing the mainframe to languish in obsolete waterfall and dev/test practices while the rest of the enterprise moves forward. But bimodal lT has proven to be a mistake. An Oct. 31, 2016, Forrester Research report titled, “Predictions 2017: CIOs Push For Speed Amid Volatility,” shines a light on the fatal realities of bimodal IT:
“In early 2016, many CIOs fell for the false promise of a bimodal strategy. They only pushed part of their team to adopt an accelerated pace — and left others unchanged. But those CIOs are already experiencing the shortcomings of operating at two speeds. Business peer frustration, polarizing and deteriorating cultures, and unsustainable operational complexities will continue, ultimately spurring most of these CIOs to course correct in 2017.”
Given the explosion of mainframe-related innovation that has taken place in the past couple of years, enterprise IT leaders and industry analysts agree that “mainstreaming” it into enterprise DevOps is the right and necessary strategy (see as examples here and here).
Some Good Things Take Time
While instant gratification may be the order of the day—and gain without pain may be an all-too-frequent vendor promise—the reality is that great IT achievements all require effort, investment and time.
Inclusion of the mainframe into your cross-platform DevOps tool chain is no exception. No CIO can achieve mainframe agility and cross-platform DevOps orchestration by simply waving a magic wand. But there is a clear, practical path to these goals for those with the requisite foresight and leadership.
That path includes:
- Modernizing the developer workspace. Most mainframe development is still performed in “green screen” TSO/ISPF environments that require specialized knowledge and limit staff productivity. A modernized, graphical workspace as part of a preferred DevOps tool chain will allow staff at all experience levels to perform dev/test tasks on both mainframe and non-mainframe applications.
- Graphical visibility into existing code and data structures. Mainframe applications typically are large, complex and poorly documented. These attributes are a major impediment to mainframe transformation. The right tools enable new participants in mainframe DevOps to quickly and easily “read” existing application logic, program interdependencies and data relationships.
- QA “shift left.” Early detection and correction of quality issues is a central principle of modern programming—and it’s particularly important on the mainframe, where there’s an especially low tolerance for error.
- Initial Agile training and adoption. Once you put the right development environment in place, you can start shifting your process from a traditional waterfall model with large sets of requirements and long project timelines to a more incremental model that allows teams to quickly collaborate on user “stories” and “epics.”
- Use operational data throughout the dev/test life cycle. By using operational data in the dev/test life cycle, your DevOps team can ensure that applications perform optimally in production. They also can significantly reduce your MIPS/MSU-related costs by avoiding excessive CPU consumption caused by inefficient code.
- Agile-enable source code management (SCM) functions. Traditional mainframe SCM environments are inherently designed for waterfall development and thus are incapable of supporting Agile requirements such as parallel development on user stories. The shift to Agile-enabled SCM is, therefore, absolutely essential for mainframe transformation.
- Automated release management. To keep pace with today’s fast-moving markets, you must be able to quickly get new code into production. That means automating and coordinating deployment of all related development artifacts across all targeted environments.
- Cross-platform DevOps. Ultimately, you need to fully de-silo your enterprise environment so the mainframe becomes “just another platform”—albeit an especially scalable, reliable, high-performing, cost-efficient and secure one—that can be modified quickly as needed to meet the relentlessly evolving needs of the business.
‘What’s My Motivation?’
With as much as IT departments have on their plates, it’s easy to continue putting off mainframe DevOps integration. But, ultimately, there are only two alternatives to doing so:
- Re-platform your mainframe applications. This alternative has proven to be a costly and extremely risky undertaking that delivers zero benefits while it consumes resources and potentially disrupts IT operations, or
- Continue doing nothing. This alternative puts your company at further competitive disadvantage and hastens the day when you’ll experience total mainframe paralysis due to the loss by attrition of all your veteran mainframe developers, QA specialists and operations staff.
Viewed in this context, genuine investment in the mainframe—whether you call it modernization, mainstreaming or “Millennializing”—is the only reasonable course of action. Such investment starts improving your digital competitiveness immediately, while paving the way for a future where you can make the most of all your resources and confidently transfer platform responsibilities to your next generation of IT professionals. Including the mainframe in your broader DevOps efforts (while extremely valuable) does require commitment, and there are resources available to help. Just be wary of those who may talk a good game, but whose actions don’t really convey a strong commitment to users’ best interests. Fortunately, there are truly dedicated experts who can help every step of the way, and have direct experience modernizing on platform within their own organizations.
It’s the smart, viable long-term DevOps strategy every CIO of a mainframe-enabled enterprise needs to adopt ASAP.
About the Author / Christopher O’Malley
Christopher O’Malley is CEO of Compuware. He has nearly 30 years of IT experience with past positions including CEO of VelociData, CEO of Nimsoft, EVP of CA’s Cloud Products & Solutions and EVP/GM of CA’s Mainframe business unit, where he led the successful transformation of that division. Connect with him on LinkedIn and Twitter.
