Heirloom Computing

COBOL/CICS Hooks Up With Pivotal Cloud Foundry

Would you be skeptical of a claim from a vendor that stated you can take existing mainframe workloads (online and batch), and automatically transform them (with 100% accuracy) into instantly agile Java applications that can immediately be deployed to the cloud? You wouldn’t be alone. For many of our initial client meetings, there’s a palpable sense of disbelief (or healthy skepticism, if you prefer).

So, here’s another 3-minute video from Ian White, Heirloom Computing’s VP of Engineering, that demonstrates that claim, using Pivotal Cloud Foundry (PCF).

TL;DW? These are the (simplified) steps:

What happened? We took an online mainframe application and deployed it to PCF in 3 minutes. No misdirection, real code, real results, and a re-platforming project lifecycle that puts you in control (so you can avoid black-box solutions).

For us at Heirloom Computing, Cloud Foundry is a great example of how Heirloom maximizes the power of open-source stacks to provide clients with a way to include high-value mainframe workloads in strategic initiatives (e.g., cloud, digital transformation, etc.). One that protects existing functionality, but also one that is seamlessly integrated with an agile ecosystem.

Amazon Alexa Hooks Up With COBOL/CICS (On The Cloud)

Gary Crook, President & CEO

There’s a lot of chatter about how to make mainframe workloads agile. I have contributed to that chatter myself. The discourse is essential. Boiled down, my assertion is that the mainframe ecosystem is foundationally not agile (and never will be). No amount of DevOps tooling or vendor misdirection is going to change that.

In my last article, I made the following statement:

Mainframe workloads are an essential part of any digital transformation strategy, but those workloads will persist in a different form. One that protects existing function, but also one that is seamlessly integrated with an agile ecosystem.

Below is a (3-minute) video that implements the above statement. It was put together inside 2 hours by Heirloom Computing’s VP of Engineering, Ian White.