Guidelines for Surviving IBM System i Modernization Provided by LANSA

June 3, 2008 Dan Burger

The pressures that a constantly changing business environment place on an IT department are only increasing. Discovering ways to improve the cooperative efforts between executive management and information technology is on everyone’s to-do list. And at the top of many of those lists is a project titled Application Modernization. A majority of IT department leaders say they are in the planning phases of such a project or will be very soon.

At the heart of the strategy are the existing dependable applications and a burning need to increase the productivity of end users. Determining how the modernization project meshes with business plans and deciding on the tools to use can be a daunting challenge.

On the i OS software side, the vendor community provides a variety of options for application modernization. One of them, LANSA, has just released a white paper titled the “System i Modernization Survival Guide” written by Paul Conte, a well-known author, speaker, and consultant among the System i (now Power Systems) community.

According to Conte, “A sound approach to modernization should embrace change, but minimize risk to the enterprise. The result must enable the IT organization to efficiently deliver the right information and capabilities to the right people at the right time, and to quickly adapt what’s delivered to support the enterprise’s evolving strategies and initiatives.”

Conte’s white paper for LANSA takes an internal view (within the enterprise) of the modernization process and examines the implementation steps. The report takes the view that the ideal modernized environment will comprise existing applications (whole or in part) alongside new applications with new navigation and interoperability frameworks. This combination provides a range of application capabilities that are available through flexible user interfaces on a variety of platforms. It also emphasizes the incorporation of service oriented architecture and Web services.

“Modernization requirements are becoming more common as companies look for a strategy to harness their current applications and enable them to meet modern day technology and business challenges,” says Steve Gapp, president of LANSA Americas. “This typically presents a faster and lower risk approach for companies when compared to a system replacement project. This provides some best practice advice on approaching these projects.”

The LANSA Web site has a downloadable version if its modernization survival guide available here.