MigrationWare Completes Project with Software AG at North Dakota State |
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The Information Technology Department (ITD) of North Dakota State in the United States contracted with Software AG in 2005 to migrate their legacy computer software applications, running on the mainframe computer, to a more cost effective Linux based environment.
MigrationWare, the specialist technology migrations company, were contracted through Software AG to assist in performing these migrations for the State. A substantial portion of the State’s mainframe applications have been successfully migrated onto the Linux platform, with this three year project now coming to completion with the final migration occurring during August 2008.
Mark Cooper, MigrationWare MD, says the company, as Software AG partners, was chosen to assist Software AG to perform this migration for the State.
“The contract involved moving more a significant portion of the State’s mainframe applications onto a Linux platform. The applications were written in a number of legacy languages including COBOL, FORTRAN, Assembler, Natural and DYL280 and were migrated onto Micro Focus COBOL and Natural for the Linux platform,” he says.
The original decision by the State to migrate was based on a lack of technical staff within the US market, with over 60 percent of people with mainframe skills aged 50 or over. The State’s mainframe support staff reflected this skill set demographic.
Secondly, Cooper says all new business applications in the State are being deployed on non-mainframe environments with the last new mainframe application being deployed in 1997. This forced the technical staff to divide skills and time between both the mainframe and non-mainframe environments.
Thirdly, there was an expectation that the State would benefit from a reduction in licensing costs by moving workloads away from the mainframe.
In addition, it derives considerable benefit from the introduction of an open and agile application development and deployment environment, Cooper adds.
Izak Botha, Practice Manager for Software AG, says MigrationWare’s technology facilitated the “lift and shift” approach enabling the re-hosting of the applications in a Linux environment without the need to change any significant aspect of the application or the deployment configuration.
“The State of North Dakota's inventory was vast and varied and in some cases part of the inventory needed conversion, requiring the use of tools that did not yet exist. MigrationWare therefore developed translation tools that would address the conversion of the mainframe applications to COBOL and, in some cases, to Natural,” he says.
Cooper says the project was split into three phases and involved migrating applications including those responsible for information management, HR, vehicle registrations, drivers licenses, payroll, telecoms billing and crime reporting.
“What was key about the project is that it enabled the State to continue utilising their applications on a different platform, which not only saved them the cost of re-writing the applications, but also the support costs on the mainframe itself,” he says.
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