This white paper aims at helping organizations understand the life cycle and challenges associated with the migration of a legacy mainframe application to a more cost effective yet stable environment like Linux.

1. www.niit-tech.com
Linux Migration
Ashish Massey
NIIT Technologies White Paper

2. CONTENTS
Introduction
3
Mainframe Technology
3
Challenges Associated with Mainframe Technology
3
Linux Migration
3
Advantages of Linux Technology
4
Migration Challenges
4
Conclusion
5

3. Introduction
Insurance industry is undergoing a phenomenal transformation. The
continuous sluggishness of top line growth is steering the industry
towards newer business models and requisite technologies to
• Support thousands of users and application programs
concurrently accessing numerous resources
• Manage terabytes of information in databases
• Handle large-bandwidth communication.
support them. Time-to-market, though a perpetual need, has today
become a real imperative for businesses to break through this
Because of these capabilities, the mainframe is often used by IT
stagnation. Bringing the consumer closer to the business, providing
organizations to host the most important, mission-critical
facilities to easily access information, transact, and ensuring
applications. These applications typically include customer order
continual commitment from distributors are some of the key growth
processing, financial transactions, production and inventory
factors that drive this industry. To support this business change, the
control, payroll, as well as many other types of work.
underlying IT landscape is also undergoing a rapid transformation.
In today’s world, technology is advancing at a very high pace,
new technologies are providing improved business logic and
increased productivity. Migrating to new technology is very
necessary for an organization.
Challenges Associated with
Mainframe Technology
Below are the challenges associated with mainframe technology:
• High cost of system hardware
This white paper aims at helping organizations understand the life
cycle and challenges associated with the migration of a legacy
mainframe application to a more cost effective yet stable
• Since millions of transaction process in a business day the
operating and maintenance cost which includes both CPU and
space (DASD/Tape) is high
environment like Linux.
• Organizations face an ever increasing Staffing cost as very few
people are left with expertise in old technologies.
Mainframe Technology
It is because of the high infrastructure/operational cost and with
Today, mainframe computers play a central role in the daily
introduction of new technologies many of the big organizations
operations of most of the world's largest corporations. While
have taken a strategic direction of migrating their business
other forms of computing are used extensively in business in
applications to a less expensive but competitive platform, hence
various capacities, mainframe occupies a coveted place in
saving millions of dollar from infrastructure maintenance and
today's e-business environment. In banking, finance, health care,
utilizing the same in new business opportunities.
insurance, government, and a multitude of other public and
private enterprises.
Various languages associated with the mainframe technology are
Linux Migration
Assembler, COBOL, PL/I, REXX, JCL, DB2, Eazytrive, and CICS.
The successful migration of applications across platforms cannot
Businesses today rely on the mainframe to:
be accomplished without extensive pre-planning and analysis.
• Perform large-scale transaction processing (thousands of
transactions per second)
This white paper addresses the steps require to migrate
established statistical applications and their associated data from
Mainframe to LINUX.
3

4. Steps included in this migration life cycle are:
As part of testing strategy parallel testing was performed
• Organization senior management should believe in this migration
between mainframe and Linux environment in all the below
mentioned phases:
• Linux Server setup.Proof of Concept testing
• Determining the cost benefit analysis. Migration Framework
• Application programs and data Migration.Testing Strategy.
• Unit Testing
• Integration/Acceptance Testing
• Production Parallel Testing.
The proof of concepts performed:
The approach used as part of management during this migration
• Data Migration
• Replacing of COBOL/DB2 connectivity to Sybase/Micro focus
COBOL
project was agile methodology where each phase went through
iterative and incremental development. It promotes adaptive
planning, evolutionary development and delivery, an iterative
• Performance Testing (CPU Saves)
approach and encourages rapid and flexible response to change.
• Stress Testing (Processing huge transactions).
Migration Steps:
• Mainframe application COBOL programs were converted to
micro Focus COBOL and migrated to Linux platform
• JCL’s were converted Linux shell scripts. EZT’s, assembler codes
were converted to COBOL
• SORT was converted to micro Focus SORT utilities
• Various mainframe utilities such as IDCAMS, IEBGENER were
converted to Linux compatible tools and commands
• DB2 modules were updated to establish the Sybase connection
• Mainframe database (VSAM) files were migrated to Linux
Advantages of Linux Technology
Technology migration provides organizations a number of advantages including:
• Reduce operational and maintenance cost
• Usage of current business process along with modern
technology
• Successful migration without affecting the business activities and
functionality
• Less dependency on resources associated with legacy systems.
platform as indexed files.
Migration Challenges
Migration Framework:
Various challenges were encountered in this migration that NIIT
FTP
Technologies and our client were able to resolve successfully.
Outlined below are samples of how these challenges were met and
Baseline
Data
Mainframe
Components
(Cobl,JCL,
Files,
Tdols)
MF box
Linux Prod Box
Data Files
have become a basis for future migrations.
Application
Programs
(Cobol etc..)
JCLs, Procs,
Control Cards,
Tools etc
Data
Conversion
Utilities
Cobol
Conversion
Utilities
JCL
Conversion
Utilities
ASCII Data
MF Cobol
Shell Scripts
• One of the key challenges was to come up with an efficient
architecture design on the new technology so as to continue the
business activities and functionality without being impacted
• Several brainstorming session, workshops, JAD sessions were
initiated to evolve robust system architecture
• Since mainframe database consists of the VSAM files proper and
Shell Scripts,
MF Cobol,
Converted
Data Files
and Tools
efficient data transfer methodology was necessary. One of the
Converted
Source & Data
key challenges was the duration of the data transfer between the
Shell Execution
and Testing
two environments. Several data transfer tools were considered
during the POC to come up with an efficient and robust data
Production
Migration
transfer model
4

5. • Use of File Port tool resulted in efficient and quick data transfer
for both compressed and uncompressed data between
mainframe and Linux platform
Conclusion
The efficient approach to migrate applications from Mainframe to
LINUX requires a careful data transfer design, the redesign of
• Mainframe application components (COBOL, EZT’s, JCL, SORT
applications to run all processes in Linux environment, addressing
utility) were converted to Linux compatible elements using NIIT
data precision and data conversion problems, and creating an
proprietary tools
efficient space management.
• Issues were encountered and resolved during production parallel
which was part of the testing strategy. This enabled the team to
identify unknown issues using production data and resolve them
Applications redesign in the Linux environment also involves JCL and
JCL Procedure conversion from Mainframe to LINUX scripts, conversion of COBOL, EZT’s, assembler and other mainframe utilities.
before the project implementation
• Decommissioning of the application on mainframe platform after
Many companies in the industry have accepted and performed
successful migration without impacting the dependent systems.
technology migration which resulted in approximately 40 percent
In order to prevent this risk all the dependent applications were
reduction in infrastructure cost, thereby leading them to newer
involved during the entire migration cycle.
business and technical opportunities.
5

6. About the Author
Ashish Massey works as a Technical Specialist at NIIT Technologies. He has over 10 years of
experience, including 8 years in insurance domain.
He has been instrumental working as an architect and SME in Linux migration projects at NIIT
Technologies.
About NIIT Technologies
NIIT Technologies is a leading IT solutions organization, servicing customers in North America,
Europe, Asia and Australia. It offers services in Application Development and Maintenance,
Enterprise Solutions including Managed Services and Business Process Outsourcing to
organisations in the Financial Services, Travel & Transportation, Manufacturing/Distribution, and
Government sectors. With employees over 8,000 professionals, NIIT Technologies follows global
standards of software development processes.
Over the years the Company has forged extremely rewarding relationships with global majors, a
testimony to mutual commitment and its ability to retain marquee clients, drawing repeat
business from them. NIIT Technologies has been able to scale its interactions with marquee
India
clients in the BFSI sector, the Travel Transport & Logistics and Manufacturing & Distribution, into
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