John McKenny, BMC | BMC Exchange VIP

This is texturong TV. Hey guys, we're at BMC exchange and we're talking about application modernization. We've been talking about this concept since the first terminal emulator showed up on a PC.

So what is different about application modernization today than we've been talking about for the last three decades? Yeah. I think that's one.

That's the one constant nit. And in life right is things are always changing. So we're always going to be talking about modernization.

So if you and I are still chatting in five years from now, you'll be asking me the same question, but you know what I would say today, right? So what's different today is, you know, some of the tools and processes are continue to evolve right? We've been talking about Agile development for a long time.

We've been talking about, you know, modern cicd pipelines and how organizations are doing continuous integration and continues deployment and the tools that they're using to do that, you know continue to change so regardless of what platform you're on, you know, if you're on the Mainframe platform increasingly, you know organizations want to be doing things, you know in a consistent way in a standard way across all their Farmers in the Mainframe is included in that that's the biggest difference. I think versus when we were chatting five years ago, right each of different platforms had different approaches very different processes. That's probably the biggest change that I would say when we talk about modernization today.

So are we going to see a consistent set of devops processes across all those platforms? Is that the ultimate goal? Yeah, I think it really Is you know, I think in terms of the best practices around developing and deploying and delivering software, you know, those processes are the same whether you're talking about the application that's on our mobile device or the backend processing that might be running on a Mainframe platform or middleware platform, you know, the same processes are tried and true, right?

So they want to use those same types of processes so that they have a consistent great user experience. And that's really why you see such a push around standardization of the tools and processes because it's about delivering the best outcome to whatever they're in client happens to be do we have too many specialists for all the different platforms and that kind of when you think about it is what raises the cost of it. We just have so many different types of people that we need to get and maybe we need to just simplify some things.

Yeah, you know, I I think that there's always a desire to simplify things, but I think there is always going to be something new and different. That that's always going to be the case. So I think the challenges you know, how do we incorporate the new and how do we do it in a way that we can assimilate that into some of our existing processes and/or begin to change some of those processes?

So they're better able to adapt new technologies or different ways of working than how we do it today, right? Because there's always going to be something new and different you're always going to need, you know, some expertise in that new area. But then how do we manage that?

How do we control that in a similar fashion? You and BMC kind of support both distributed computing platforms and mainframes. So you don't necessarily have a dog in the race and right side.

But on the Mainframe side from what you've seen what is it that leads people to want to modernize the application versus leave the Mainframe one of the decisions that go into that. Yeah. I think it's a few things, right?

So one and you and I've had this conversation before, you know, when we think about today's business service and applications. To think of it as existing in one platform really isn't the case, right? So the individuals and teams that are involved in delivering today's, you know, modern applications to Business Services, whether you're talking about your insurance application, you know, you're looking up and handling a claim on your phone, whether you're you know, checking your you know, where's your seat on the airplane or you're depositing a check, you know by taking a photo with your phone all of those have obviously a mobile application, but they all have a back-end application that runs on the Mainframe so our clients, you know, look at you know, how do we continue to create the best user experience?

That's the front end how you and I interact with it. But at the same time make that seamless so that we can seamlessly interact with our systems or record that might reside in the Mainframe. They might be on a distributed environment or some of the Systems records, you know for some applications might be in the cloud.

So how do we interact with that in a way that seamless for that and user experience and manage that? So that's what clients are really interested in. How do we continue to do that in a way that enables us to bring new capabilities to our clients more rapidly than we've ever done it before.

Do you think the economy in the cyclical factors play a role in deciding what platform to stay within modernize because we are in a downturn and if I already have a Mainframe, maybe I should get more out of it. I think short answer is is yes, I think it does have an impact right? I think you know when we're in a downturn right when there's you know, in a recession.

I think the appetite for what I'll call really large scale transformational projects shrinks, right? So what they're looking for is okay. What are some of the incremental changes I can make that can help me achieve the business outcome that I want and and more often than that is the types of things.

I was just describing, you know, they're looking at really from the application perspective. What do I need? Well, I might need to change.

You know what and how the user is interacting. Right? What capabilities I'm providing them.

But that's maybe around the data that's there the data entry the interface but I don't need to change the entire back office system, right? I don't need to change the systems of record. So I think that is something that organizations have found they've been able to do quite well over the last five years which is why you know when we talk about the Mainframe.

That BMC does every year we saw the the largest 95% of the respondents over 1300 worldwide said that the Mainframe is you know has the strongest healthiest Outlook that we've ever seen in the 17 years. We've been surveying clients and I think that's why they see that you know, what they can have a little bit of their cake and eat it too. They can bring new capabilities, you know on whatever input output device they want to use to their clients but maintain the integrity and the security of the systems of record, which may be residing on a Mainframe.

A lot of the data that we're also using in these larger Enterprises resides on the Mainframe and data has gravity. So does that factor into the thought process too? Because everybody I ever talked to said, you know the minute you want to move an application somewhere.

You got to move the data and moving data as a career threatening decision. Right? Right.

Yeah. No, I think I think absolutely I think that you know, if if I were to open up my crystal ball, you know, one of the things that I think that we'll see that will may change of the next few years is absolutely around data gravity, you know, so for many years many organizations have been taking the system of record data. And they've been moving it transforming it, you know ETL type processing to other platforms where they're doing analytics.

I think increasingly we're seeing organizations looking at you know, how can they do analytics on the platform maybe eliminate some of that ETL processing that data duplication if you will, so I think that's something that you know won't surprise me. If we see more of that type of workload actually running on The mainframes Today versus moving the moving it off the platform. What has been the level of adoption of devops in those mainframes environments because you know a lot of people running out there say, you know old dogs won't learn new tricks, but maybe they do and what are you seeing?

Yeah, you know, I I a couple things I would say, you know, as you said we're here in Miami At The BMC exchange event and I was talking with the client two different clients this morning one received an innovation award for their devops implementation Mainframe environment and they you know, shared their story in less than 18 months, you know, they are light years ahead of the kind of capabilities. They had a year ago as a development organization and then a few hours ago. I talked to one who was just in the early stages of their devops Journey, right?

So, you know, they built an architecture team. They're looking at the devops practices and their Consulting and working with us on how they begin their journey and referencing our Mainframe survey. You know, what we see is more than 60% of organizations say they are at some stage in their devops Journey, right?

So that might be in the very beginning stages. Or it may be in that we're never ended because it's a continuous Journey. If that's the case also, we hear a lot about AI Ops.

When where does that fit in this Continuum of things because a lot of things that we do do today in devops might become even more automated than they are today. The goal is always ruthless automation. Absolutely.

Where are we on that curve? Yeah AI Ops is a little behind devops. Right?

I think aops is a little bit behind we do hear organizations and our survey. I think more than 50% said they are beginning to implement aiops, right? So a little bit behind but I think that's an area where organizations absolutely are looking at.

How can they leverage, you know a Ops and the promise of you know, Predictive Analytics more predictive automation to help them root out problems and speed up the resolution of problems when they occur within their environment. And the reason for that is the environment is only increasingly complex, right there's more and more things that are coming into it. So that's why you know dynamic discovery of your environment using AI to help you understand.

and you know what normal is and then when you're out of you know normal bounds help you identify that root cause very quickly Are you seeing organizations either a put new workloads on mainframes are actually go out and get a Mainframe and then deploy that alongside their distributed computing environments and as the whole thing becoming a lot more hybrid. Yeah, I I think what we see is, you know organizations the majority of organizations that have mainframes in their environments their Mainframe ecosystem is growing right they're adding more capacity because they have more other existing workloads are growing. There's more transactions.

There's more data and then most of them are also adding new applications, right? So new front-end applications that drive new back-end requirements. So that's why we see that the ongoing capacity of the mainframement increasing and you know, we also see another client.

I was talking today was talking about a recent acquisition. Usually, you know when we're talking about it Acquisitions, it's usually a larger organization picking up a smaller organization and you know, they will work through the process of taking their existing systems of records and their applications and then bringing them into the the new company that they you know that the mother company if you will right so that creates more growth within that that you know older company or the smaller company, you know didn't have a mainframatic core of what they were doing. But now that processing will become part of the larger organization as well.

We're also seeing a lot more Linux on Mainframe is the devops is Big among the open source community. So is that how some of this stuff initially Finds Its way into Mainframe environments where they start running a Linux workload and then they start playing around with that in the next thing, you know, they're like, hey, there's something here. Yeah, I you know, I think that Lennox has been available on the Mainframe for for many years is as we've been talking about and there are definitely really strong footholds of Linux and use of Linux 1 that's growing and I think we will see more clients, you know, evaluating that looking at the strengths of the platform how they can get more availability, you know, using the Linux one platform.

So I think that's an area that I expect to see more growth in as well. Once your best advice to people who are making this transition or otherwise known as the question is, you know, what's that one thing that makes you shake your head every day and go I can't believe we're still doing this. Yeah.

Yeah. It's a couple of things that but the one thing I would say is, you know, get some outside expertise. Right?

Don't try to do it yourself right chances are there's other organizations other areas of expertise that can maybe provide some helpful guidance, right? Maybe give you a second opinion, right? And I think that's always a good thing to to and there's a lot of different areas where you can where you can go and solicit that type of second opinion.

All right folks. I think the first Mainframe prediction is going to be dead in 10 years was made 40 years ago. So I suspect that we may be still having this conversation in 40 years from now, but it won't be with us.

We'll be with us. Thanks guys for watching.