The apps and infrastructures that served IT’s needs for so long are straining to meet new sets of demands. Here’s how HPE services can help you revitalize them.
by Luis Javier Sanchez, HPE Hybrid Cloud Consultant
So, modernization is “priority one.” Problem is, it’s easier said than done.
Modernizing an application portfolio is challenging for a number of reasons. The complex dependencies tying together business processes and underlying IT services are hard to untangle. Workloads have to be targeted to the right platform based on cost, applicability and practicality to move. ROI models and business continuity have to be taken into account, and the sheer challenge of executing large migrations can’t be underestimated.
Plus, there are the human factors to consider. Ramping up a migration requires a steep organizational learning curve, corporate cultures need to be aligned, and all of this needs to happen in an environment where IT jobs are difficult to fill.
What’s an organization to do? One solution is to turn to a trusted partner with the deep industry expertise and the right approach to carry migrations forward.
HPE has those skills. And we have the plans in place to solve common challenges that, if not addressed correctly, can run migrations off the road.
Designing for success: 3 key principles
Within the services organization, we’ve been helping customers modernize and migrate their applications and IT environments for decades. We’ve helped organizations move large monolithic applications running on mainframes to distributed architectures on open platforms. We have experience migrating from physical to virtual and to containerized applications running on cloud-native microservice architectures.
HPE has an application workload-centric view, in which the required business benefits combined with application architecture, regulatory requirements and strategic direction, determine the targets that are suitable. This allows HPE to provide the right migration solution, ensuring that risk, user impact, agility, productivity SLA and cost model needs are met.
There are three key design principles that guide our approach.
First, no interruptions: Business continuity will be maintained during and after the modernization project. We do this by understanding the business and IT challenges, the desired outcomes and the underlying application dependencies. We make sure the customer’s staff has the right level of knowledge to maintain and support the modernized application and platform. And we ensure that the production environment meets SLAs through correct sizing of the target platforms.
Second, no mismatches. The choice of modernization options and platforms will match customers’ application and platform needs. This applies whether a customer is migrating legacy platforms; moving or upgrading virtualization technologies; modernizing a software stack; or containerizing or refactoring its applications.
Third, no shortfalls. The implementation will meet the business needs for improved agility, cost reduction and low-risk strategies.
Underneath these three design principles are several pillars that bolster HPE’s approach.
We have a proven services and migration approach. Our framework to scope, design and execute modernizations supports our core proven services, allowing us to address multiple scenarios.
We’re committed to IP and tools automation. HPE has a curated list of tools, including those developed internally and those provided by third parties. From this well-stocked shed we can select the right tooling for each scenario to optimize and automate the migration process for cost efficiencies.
Then there’s our migration expertise. Our proven services and methodology have been developed and enriched with the expertise of consultants executing these services for customers over many years, using factory delivery models to deliver at scale.
HPE has a proven methodology for taking customers from initial strategy to the roadmap, design and planning, migration, implementation, training, production and support – and even through to managed services.
Across the IT landscape – up and down the stack
We cover migrations across the landscape of platforms and applications. At the lowest level of the stack, we have a long track record in infrastructure-focused moves – the basic, but at times problematic, moves to “lift and shift.” We have 20+ years’ experience in migrating applications off mainframe systems and thereby helping to modernize applications written in COBOL or NATURAL.
What about aging midrange platforms? We can migrate Java/C/C++ and shell script applications running on UNIX systems to Linux, or refresh Windows and Linux systems to newer versions. We can modernize databases and applications themselves by upgrading frameworks and libraries. We can containerize application and databases and help customers achieve true agility by decomposing large monolith applications to mini or microservices.
One thing is clear: Application modernizations and migrations will be on the top of IT’s agenda for years to come. Organizations are under fire to deliver for their organizations, and their ultimate success will depend in large part on how effective they are in executing these moves.
Learn more about HPE technology services consulting and how we help you take your digital transformation to the next level.
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