Micro Focus at #SUSECon 2015
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The application dev tools market is billions of dollars each year, and COBOL is a big chunk of that. Did you know – the COBOL computer language remains responsible for 2/3 of the world’s business IT systems. Did you know there are many times more COBOL-based transactions executed each day than there are Google & YouTube searches. If some more recent technology gets more attention and makes more noise, well COBOL is by contrast the silent majority of corporate IT, which quietly, relentlessly gets on with running the world’s economy. On the IBM mainframe, COBOL is the standard for core business systems. Roughly 5,000 clients on z today, but IBM z Systems represent the majority of all the world’s COBOL. Hundreds of billions of LOCs. Hundreds of thousands of developers. However elsewhere COBOL is a huge concern and runs across hundreds of distributed platforms. Also there is a whole segment of proprietary environments where – although the platform itself may no longer be strategic – the applications on those platforms, which are often COBOL, have enduring business value. And COBOL users comprise the length and breadth of global big business, across a variety of industries. Over 90% of the fortune100 and fortune 500. a who’s who of big industry. Very strong in FS, insurance, retail, government, auto, and elsewhere. But also major ISVs and smaller organizations too. Literally thousands of organisations across dozens of countries use the Micro Focus brand to run and modernize their IT systems. If you have checked your bank account, got an insurance quote, booked a vacation, payed your mortgage, shipped a package… you’ve been using COBOL today. Taking those systems and providing a springboard to future environments, future technology, is what we do. KEEP IT, BUILD IT, RUN IT. By partnering with the best in today’s operating environments such as SUSE, we are providing efficiency, value and flexibility for our customers.
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Micro Focus at #SUSECon 2015
- 1. Ready for the Mobile-First and Cloud-First Economy: Micro Focus COBOL, SUSE Linux Enterprise and the IBM Mainframe Derek Britton Strategy Director | Micro Focus @DerekBrittonUK Ed Airey Solutions Marketing Director | Micro Focus @EdAirey
- 2. 2 AGENDA • The core application development market • Business drivers for change • Tackling change: Micro Focus • COBOL in an open future – Core workload consolidation to SUSE – Accelerating IBM z delivery
- 3. 3 AGENDA • The core application development market • Business drivers for change • Tackling change: Micro Focus • COBOL in an open future – Core workload consolidation to SUSE – Accelerating IBM z delivery
- 4. 4 CORE APP DEVELOPMENT WITH COBOL IBM Mainframe Z Systems Distributed Systems Linux/Unix/Windows Proprietary Systems Unisys, DEC, Tandem, … DISTRIBUTION [BY PLATFORM]
- 5. 5 IN GOOD COMPANY THE SILENT MAJORITY 91% Two thirds 300bn Google?
- 6. 6 THE COBOL MARKET …A CHANGING LANDSCAPE EVOLUTIONARY DevOps, agile The end user Commoditisation Cost management REVOLUTIONARY Mobile Big Data IoT
- 7. 7 AGENDA • The core application development market • Business drivers for change • Tackling change: Micro Focus • COBOL in an open future – Core workload consolidation to SUSE – Accelerating IBM z delivery
- 8. 8 APPLICATION CHANGE DRIVERS …A SPECTRUM OF CHALLENGES NEW SERVICES PACE OF CHANGE COMPETITIVE PRESSURE COMPLEXITY REGULATION INEFFICIENCY COST MANAGEMENT INFRASTRUCTURE LIMITATIONS SKILLS QUESTIONS
- 9. 9 SOLVING THE CHALLENGE REPLACE OR REUSE? Business logic and data remain an organization’s competitive advantage
- 10. 10 Micro Focus bridges the old and the new, enabling customers to unlock the value in their core business applications
- 11. 11 AGENDA • The core application development market • Business drivers for change • Tackling change: Micro Focus • COBOL in an open future – Core workload consolidation to SUSE – Accelerating IBM z delivery
- 12. 12 UNLOCKING VALUE TODAY’S IT CHALLENGE Private Cloud z/OS PL/I IMS COBOL CICS Public Cloud C# Web/Ajax/Flash C++/Java Linux Java 40+ years of innovation has delivered incredible returns. But at the cost of huge levels of complexity
- 13. 13 KEEP IT COBOL – WHEN CORE APPLICATIONS MEAN BUSINESS Mainframe Distributed Virtualized Cloud COBOL applications written yesterday run on today’s modern platforms COBOL applications written today will run on tomorrow’s leading platforms COBOL is already part of the next generation of platforms
- 14. 14 BUILD IT: DEVELOPING FOR THE FUTURE CLASS-LEADING #APPDEV TECHNOLOGY
- 15. 15 RUN IT: DEPLOYMENT FLEXIBILITY UNRIVALLED PLATFORM PORTABILITY UBIQUITOUS APPLICATION AVAILABILITY
- 16. 16 AN OPEN FUTURE Maximizing efficiency and value Minimizing unnecessary change Building in future flexibility SUSE AND MICRO FOCUS COBOL
- 17. 17 AGENDA • The core application development market • Business drivers for change • Tackling change: Micro Focus • COBOL in an open future – Core workload consolidation to SUSE – Accelerating IBM z delivery
- 18. 18 WORKLOAD CONSOLIDATION …THROUGH CORE APPLICATION REHOSTING
- 19. 19 Why rehost core applications? Customer success WORKLOAD CONSOLIDATION REHOSTING BENEFITS
- 20. 20 CORE APPLICATION REHOSTING COBOLCOBOL KEY DELIVERY COMPONENTS
- 21. 21 Optimize how business applications are built, tested and deployed Execute with the right balance of cost, flexibility and risk Access your applications on any device Cloud Distributed Virtualized Mainframe Core COBOL application PLATFORM CHANGE Take core COBOL applications to any platform MOVING FROM PROPRIETARY UNIX TO OPEN LINUX
- 22. 22 Why Change? A Platform for Business Success PLATFORM CHANGE MOVING FROM PROPRIETARY UNIX TO OPEN LINUX
- 23. 23 AGENDA • The core application development market • Business drivers for change • Tackling change: Micro Focus • COBOL in an open future – Core workload consolidation to SUSE – Accelerating IBM z delivery
- 24. 24 IBM Z WORKLOAD MANAGEMENT Fast – overcoming agile and DevOps challenges with highly collaborative, productive, available mainframe dev / test technology Future-proofed – today’s core applications have a robust and flexible future path, and the staff to support them Flexible – Standardized IDE enables instant mainframe connection or fully detached, distributed set up Distributed Virtualized Mainframe A unified, fully integrated toolset ACCELERATING Z SYSTEMS APP DEVELOPMENT
- 25. 25 User Acceptance Testing System Testing Functional Testing Integration Testing Unit Testing Development Efficient Service Delivery Low cost, scalable resources for continuous application testing Remove test capacity constraints with a scalable test execution environment Scale-up test capacity on demand Flexible access to mainframe applications, job steps and data where needed Faster time to delivery with less risk of production failure OPTIMIZING MAINFRAME TESTING IBM Z WORKLOAD MANAGEMENT
- 26. 26 Leverage Z System flexibility by managing workload across z/OS and SUSE Linux environments Consolidate disparate core systems into a single infrastructure Leverage performance gains on z13 or Linux One Distribute workload as needed to contain/reduce MIPS, replicate or offer new services, or support a “fit-for-purpose” strategy FLEXIBLE MAINFRAME APPLICATION DELIVERY IBM Z WORKLOAD MANAGEMENT
- 27. 27 Micro Focus bridges the old and the new, enabling customers to unlock the value in their core business applications SUMMARY FUTURE-PROOFED CORE SYSTEM DELIVERY Accelerate time to market Reduce IT costs Improve business agility Taking core business applications into the future
- 28. 28 Thank you. Learn more at microfocus.com/SUSEcon Derek Britton Strategy Director | Micro Focus @DerekBrittonUK Ed Airey Solutions Marketing Director | Micro Focus @EdAirey
- 29. Section Break Text Here (32pt)
Editor's Notes
- Hello and welcome to the session everybody. I am… and this is …. We have been technology supporters of SUSE and providers of Linux based solutions for years, but as many of you know, our relationship with SUSE is even stronger today, due to the merger between our two companies which was announced a year ago. However, our two companies operate as separate entities, but we are especially delighted to be here as sponsors of SUSECON 2015. In today’s session we are going to focus on the intersection of 3 great technologies – COBOL, SUSE Linux, and the IBM Mainframe. We are going to talk about ways in which the demands of the digital age can be met with confidence by using these 3 most trusted of technologies.
- So here’s what we’ll cover We’ll give a little background on application development market before talking about how that market is changing and what is driving change today. We will then explain the fundamental principles of how Micro Focus is providing a platform for change in the enterprise… And towards the end we will then quickly explain some of the ways in which core applications can move to take advantage of your SUSE Enterprise Linux investments, as well as those you have made in IBM mainframe technology.
- Before all of that, let’s start with a couple of facts. The application dev tools market is billions of dollars each year, and COBOL is a big chunk of that. Did you know – the COBOL computer language remains responsible for 2/3 of the world’s business IT systems. Did you know there are many times more COBOL-based transactions executed each day than there are Google & YouTube searches. If some more recent technology gets more attention and makes more noise, well COBOL is by contrast the silent majority of corporate IT, which quietly, relentlessly gets on with running the world’s economy. On the IBM mainframe, COBOL is the standard for core business systems. Roughly 5,000 clients on z today, but IBM z Systems represent the majority of all the world’s COBOL. Hundreds of billions of LOCs. Hundreds of thousands of developers. However elsewhere COBOL is a huge concern and runs across hundreds of distributed platforms. Also there is a whole segment of proprietary environments where – although the platform itself may no longer be strategic – the applications on those platforms, which are often COBOL, have enduring business value.
- And COBOL users comprise the length and breadth of global big business, across a variety of industries. Over 90% of the fortune100 and fortune 500. a who’s who of big industry. Very strong in FS, insurance, retail, government, auto, and elsewhere. But also major ISVs and smaller organizations too. Literally thousands of organisations across dozens of countries use the Micro Focus brand to run and modernize their IT systems. If you have checked your bank account, got an insurance quote, booked a vacation, payed your mortgage, shipped a package… you’ve been using COBOL today.
- What’s important about that market – like many others – is that it is in flux; in a constant state of upheaval. And the digital world has created further change. In fact the only thing we can truly rely on in IT is that things change. The only constant is change. Now change within IT is happening for a variety of reasons, shaped by a range of drivers. Whether they are seismic shifts in how IT has to support the business or the user community; or whether evolutionary but important changes in operations, processes, user expectation and even underlying technology. What it means is that IT in 2015 is a far cry from even 2005, let alone 1995. And you can be sure of one thing – in 2025 it will be different again.
- OK but specifically what does that mean. This unique set of circumstances is putting an incredible amount of pressure on IT organisations . On the one hand they have a massive investment in business systems and data written in COBOL on the mainframe, that has evolved over many years, is complex and needs active maintenance and care. On the other, the market is demanding new services, on new devices and it wants these delivered as fast a possible IT organizations are under pressure. Pressure to tackle inefficiency, to comply with regulation Pressure to deliver services faster, pressure from competitors Pressure to manage costs, or manage the IT estate in the way we need to now Finally, do we have right people as an organization to tackle those pressures. Can we get the work done with the people we have?
- Lots and lots and lots of pressure. So how can you go about helping with this challenge. Our view is clear. You start with what already works. You build on existing success. And in the IT organizations we speak to there is a fundamental truth that unites them all. And that is in the value of their core IT systems. Not the machine, or the processes, nor the choice of operating system or language. No…. It is the business logic and the application data. What does it do? Well... It delivers the services and unique value that differentiates organisations from their competitors It helps them maintain market share and remain profitable It ensures the integrity of a transaction It’s too easy to take these core business systems for granted. It just works, right? Wrong. You only truly appreciate the importance of these applications and data when something goes wrong, then you realise how embedded these systems are in our every day life. So these applications are important. Now who can tell me what programming language most of this business logic is written in?
- And that’s what Micro Focus does… Bridge the Old AND the New Our core value is in helping organizations TAKE THAT VALUE that exists as a result of their investments over time - in their core business applications - and moving that forward to embrace new and emerging technologies, and market opportunities. Providing a bridge from what already works and what already runs the business, to the new innovations and new use cases, provides a low risk, pragmatic and high yield approach to delivering value through IT.
- So lets talk about “unlocking that value” … harnessing and reusing that secret sauce… Well first, lets be clear, unlocking that value, and bridging the old with the new… well that’s not always that easy. Lets look again at the market, and our customers. Many of them have been in business for decades if not longer. And during that time their IT has been relied upon to support that business. this has created what is now a very complex environment. Harnessing, unlocking, reusing that value is – clearly – not straightforward. BUT This is where we can help, 3 basic steps in unlocking that value…. Keep It Build It Run It
- So… KEEP IT (Leverage what already works) First, let’s think about the core applications, the critical systems, those which must not fail…. Buried in that IT estate. Remember - at the heart of this complex IT estate is the application engine that keeps ticking over, supporting everything around it. COBOL. Micro Focus has been market leader for the COBOL language, and supporting in our history over 500 platforms over the years we’ve been able to ensure our customers’ need for flexibility and choice. Simply put, we are investing in future of application deployment, so our customers don’t have to. Many of the most important internal systems have been important for years… our investment in COBOL ensures they can continue to be in the future.
- BUILD IT Secondly, and a big part of today, it our development technology. Very much at the heart of our proposition to the development community. We offer Industry Leading Development Environment for COBOL – Modern Tools, Integrated Dev Experience, for distributed and mainframe environments. These are unrivalled in terms of capability and are as powerful and feature rich as any other tool for another language. Indeed the IDEs are the same IDEs as used by the majority of other language developers. You can have multi language projects, collaborate between project teams, even hardness of the power of managed code frameworks - All of this, no problem. Maintaining and enhancing COBOL systems is as fast and contemporary as for any other language. And – of course – being built for business as the name suggests, COBOL applications are great at providing the backend logic, working alongside for example Java or HtML front ends. In fact, it can all be done from the same IDE.
- RUN IT Third, let’s talk about those applications being built, and where they might need to run. Let’s consider the changing face of our business and the changing needs in terms of WHERE these apps need to be run, or need to be accessed from. Micro Focus offers Unrivaled Application Deployment Choice and Flexibility for COBOL Applications – 50+ platforms. Of course there are a few emerging standards here where many of our customers are adopting their strategy. But strategy starts with choice and flexibility. Our mantra is any colour you like. And if, just by way of an example, your colour is green, you got it.
- So what have we said here. Fundamentally, this is the point – core applications have enduring value that must be protected and evolved to support future business need. Taking those systems and providing a springboard to future environments, future technology, is what we do. KEEP IT, BUILD IT, RUN IT. By partnering with the best in today’s operating environments such as SUSE, we are providing efficiency, value and flexibility for our customers. Let’s look at some examples of exactly how we can do this.
- Our first example is something we call workload consolidation. After all we spoke about a complex IT estate. Many organizations we speak are frustrated as they appear to have one of everything. And certainly the reliance on what might be termed proprietary environments, Unisys mainframes, I series machines form IBM, Bull or Tandem or DEC systems; these exist in greater numbers than anyone might think.
- Let’s guess what kind of applications systems they are running? Well not exclusively, but in huge numbers, these are COBOL systems. Interestingly, a lot of the COBOL is faithful to the indusrty standards. So moving it to another platform is extremely viable. Cost reduction stats are potentially astonishing, as is the speed of delivery. Take the City of Miami for instance which realized a 90% cost savings by moving their Unisys apps to a new flexible architecture. We saw that recently with SNS Bank who moved from a Unisys mainframe to open systems with help from Micro Focus and IBM. The clearing house of the Argentinian stock exchange, Caja de Valores, rehosted their Bull mainframe systems on to an open architecture Incidentally if you want the whole story, go to microfocus.com – these are all published.
- So how do we do it……… (Ed) The ‘rehost’ solution if you will is comprised of 4 key components. Expertise, the core tech, services personnel (those that do the work) and specialty tools aligned to the source platform. Micro Focus and its partners have delivered well over 1,000 of these projects in just last the ten years alone. The Micro Focus methodology and underlying core tech is the preferred choice for application re-host initiatives by a global network of system integrators and delivery partners. It’s an efficient, optimized process designed to deliver results quickly.
- Our 2nd facet is closely related. And equally important. Even in the so-called open systems world, there are shifting sands and increasing desire to standardise on Linux. Moving UNIX workloads across is potentially not as easy as we’d like to think. From a COBOL perspective, using Micro Focus tools, it’s easy! In the overwhelming majority of cases, this is just a re-compile and go. It might be that the environment included a bespoke COBOL product, HP COBOL, Microsoft COBOL or somesuch. Usually, you’ll find this was a rebadged Micro Focus product, as we did the engineering for those COBOL products. Micro Focus supports over 20 different dialects of the COBOL language, so we know the COBOL will come across easily.
- Of course do we recommend platform change, or indeed do we have a recommended platform? Well of course not, we are entirely agnostic. The choice is yours as aligned to your future state and desired IT strategy. Our slides here just happen to be in green, we just happen to be speaking at SUSEcon. What is important here is that the customer has a strategy, and our job is to support that strategy. We do, of course, certify (with our platform partners) against the latest releases. This is what these customers all needed to hear, that their strategic environment was supported.
- OK so much for moving things around from unwanted environments to a standard open system. Let’s think now about the other enterprise server of choice. The mainframe.
- Well so far we have considered unifying the operating environment where it makes sense. But what about the environment for building the systems in the first place. Right now we have a complex and diverse estate, but do we want separate development teams or environments for each one? Ideally not…. Especially when one of the largest deployment environments is the IBM mainframe. We want where possible to standardise on the approach, irrespective of platform. And here’s our answer, and it builds on the value of COBOL, of mainframes, and of Linux. The answer is a simple one of course. Ensure COBOL applications, alongside Java, PL/I and other key technology, including mainframe CICS and DB2 and IMS and JCL, can be built all using the same industry standard IDE technology. The very latest in developer efficiency, Eclipse and visual studio, can be used to maintain and modernize mainframe COBOL systems, just as easily as they can be used to build mobile, cloud and managed code apps for linux, unix windows or virtualised environments. That same IDE technology unifies the approach and the tooling used to build today’s and tomorrow’s environments, including those targeting the mainframe. One set of tools to manage your core apps and IT estate.
- But it’s not just about mainframe development. Building applications is not just about development, and one of the big bottlenecks in systems delivery is the testing….. Effectively how much time, resource, even budget can we dedicate to testing? And on the mainframe testing time is very precious, and quite costly, and usually not very flexible. If the test fails, the next test cycle isn’t immediate, it is pre-ordained … maybe weeks later. If more testing is needed than the time slot allows, then you have to run over the next slot, you don’t get more time. This isn’t viable in today’s digital world where end users just expect the app to be available now but also this approach doesn’t work for the dev teams either that are expected to deliver to the business, faster than ever before. Micro Focus makes this simple. We remove that resource bottleneck by moving testing to new environments that ARE available 24/7, without any hit on cost.
- So OK we’re building and testing systems faster now, which is great. But there’s that question about what the systems are, and who needs them. Indeed in many cases what defines a critical mainframe system is the value to the business. It is often that value that the organization also needs to be able to provide to other consumers through other channels. One major retailer needed to replicate its stock management system on non-mainframe systems because it was a unique system but needed to work on other servers to support market expansion. Where they were expanding to didn’t have z/OS. One bank needed to segment its core banking systems because of Chinese Data Privacy laws, which needed the system local to Shanghai, and not on the HK mainframe. Of course, Shanghai didn’t have a mainframe. Another ISV has sold its core banking application to a variety of mainframe clients, but wants to sell the same application source code to clients without mainframes. The fundamental flexibility provided by our workload management capability enables clients to look at a blended or balanced view around cost, performance and reliability. Cost savings are possible for customers looking at a broader range of changes, but any kind of workload balancing or deployment options may yield improvements in TCO depending on the situation. So what that means is while z/OS may be the bedrock. Linux may be the differentiator, the extra value, the competitive differentiator, the place for new innovation. Well Linux, including Linux One from IBM, could be that platform, sharing or replicating from z/OS, and also back to the earlier points potentially consolidating the workload from other environments that are no longer strategic. A consolidation platform based on leading platform technology, which has all the performance and reliability needed, but also has the flexibility to reduce that complexity once and for all. And, with our help, this can run these core application on SUSE Linux as well… the very same COBOL applications you depend on today.
- And that’s really the basic premise here. Take what works, the trusted, proven technology that runs the business today, the mainframe, COBOL, Linux, and build a future proof platform for stability and growth and a consolidation environment that simplifies the model. Specifically: For the mainframe user there is extra choice and flexibility based on trusted Linux and COBOL systems For those on proprietary systems or older unix platforms there is now a low-risk stategy to move to the future And for existing SUSE Linux users, well, we can see a future-proofed path for all core systems As the phrase goes, together we are adapting, so you can succeed.
- We don’t have time to cover every aspect of Micro Focus technology and our support of the SUSE environment today, but we hope this sessions content has been of interest. You can learn more about this exciting technology on our website microfocus dot com slash susecon. Here you’ll find resources, case studies and much more! Check it out. With that, on behalf of Derek and myself, we’d like to thank you for spending your <morning/afternoon> with Micro Focus. Enjoy the conference. Thank you. And of our course, we’d be delighted to talk to you directly about your specific use case as well.