Dive Brief:
- Kyndryl expanded its Google Cloud partnership aimed at mainframe data and application modernization Thursday. The companies are launching a Mainframe Modernization with Gen AI Accelerator Program as part of the deal.
- The program leverages Google’s Gemini models to ease mainframe integrations with the hyperscaler’s BigQuery analytics platform, provide COBOL-to-Java application coding assistance, and enable AI training using on-prem data, the announcement said.
- The Google alliance is part of the infrastructure services provider’s broader mainframe modernization strategy, Kyndryl CEO Martin Schroeter said during a February earnings call. “We’re able to bring our mainframe modernization and application services skills and hyperscaler alliances together to migrate, manage, optimize and secure our customers’ IT environments across multiple cloud platforms.”
Dive Insight:
Despite a rush to the cloud, mainframes remain an integral part of the enterprise IT ecosystem. But modernizing legacy applications trapped on-prem is a crucial step in the technology’s lifecycle.
Third-party providers, along with generative AI programing copilots and coding assistants, have stepped in to provide the skills and technologies needed to ease complex modernization projects, according to research firm ISG.
“Service providers are using GenAI to open up new possibilities for clients,” John Schick, ISG consulting lead on mainframe computing, said in a Tuesday announcement. “The functions that mainframes have always performed are still essential to many enterprises, and GenAI provides new ways to maximize their value.”
As IBM gears up to roll out its next generation Z System hardware later this year, one-third of organizations with mainframes intend to upgrade processors or storage and 1 in 6 plan to purchase new units, according to ISG research.
Generative AI has opened two promising mainframe modernization avenues, the firm said in a separate report published Tuesday. The technology is accelerating migrations to cloud while also providing users with tools to extend the life of the mainframe applications.
“GenAI has improved application modernization techniques to the point where some U.S. companies are deciding to reengineer mainframe software rather than replatform it to the cloud,” the firm said in the report. The technology is also “boosting demand for reengineering with more efficient code inspection, documentation and testing,” according to ISG.
Kyndryl has cemented partnerships with the three largest cloud providers to help enterprises migrate and modernize. The company expanded its Azure alliance and added RISE with SAP ERP migration services for Microsoft customers to its portfolio in November. Kyndryl also partnered with AWS in February 2022, shortly after IBM spun off the company in November 2021.
