Linux MigrationLinux Migration

www.niit-tech.com

Ashish Massey

NIIT Technologies White Paper

CONTENTSIntroduction 3

Mainframe Technology 3

Challenges Associated with Mainframe Technology 3

Linux Migration 3

Advantages of Linux Technology 4

Migration Challenges 4

Conclusion 5

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 them. Time-to-market, though a perpetual need, has today

become a real imperative for businesses to break through this

stagnation. Bringing the consumer closer to the business, providing

facilities to easily access information, transact, and ensuring

continual commitment from distributors are some of the key growth

factors that drive this industry. To support this business change, the

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.

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.

Mainframe TechnologyToday, mainframe computers play a central role in the daily

operations of most of the world's largest corporations. While

other forms of computing are used extensively in business in

various capacities, mainframe occupies a coveted place in

today's e-business environment. In banking, finance, health care,

insurance, government, and a multitude of other public and

private enterprises.

Various languages associated with the mainframe technology are

Assembler, COBOL, PL/I, REXX, JCL, DB2, Eazytrive, and CICS.

Businesses today rely on the mainframe to:

• Perform large-scale transaction processing (thousands of

transactions per second)

Introduction

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• Support thousands of users and application programs

concurrently accessing numerous resources

• Manage terabytes of information in databases

• Handle large-bandwidth communication.

Because of these capabilities, the mainframe is often used by IT

organizations to host the most important, mission-critical

applications. These applications typically include customer order

processing, financial transactions, production and inventory

control, payroll, as well as many other types of work.

Challenges Associated with Mainframe TechnologyBelow are the challenges associated with mainframe technology:

• High cost of system hardware

• Since millions of transaction process in a business day the

operating and maintenance cost which includes both CPU and

space (DASD/Tape) is high

• Organizations face an ever increasing Staffing cost as very few

people are left with expertise in old technologies.

It is because of the high infrastructure/operational cost and with

introduction of new technologies many of the big organizations

have taken a strategic direction of migrating their business

applications to a less expensive but competitive platform, hence

saving millions of dollar from infrastructure maintenance and

utilizing the same in new business opportunities.

Linux MigrationThe successful migration of applications across platforms cannot

be accomplished without extensive pre-planning and analysis.

This white paper addresses the steps require to migrate

established statistical applications and their associated data from

Mainframe to LINUX.

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As part of testing strategy parallel testing was performed

between mainframe and Linux environment in all the below

mentioned phases:

• Unit Testing

• Integration/Acceptance Testing

• Production Parallel Testing.

The approach used as part of management during this migration

project was agile methodology where each phase went through

iterative and incremental development. It promotes adaptive

planning, evolutionary development and delivery, an iterative

approach and encourages rapid and flexible response to change.

Advantages of Linux TechnologyTechnology migration provides organizations a number of advan-

tages 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.

Migration ChallengesVarious challenges were encountered in this migration that NIIT

Technologies and our client were able to resolve successfully.

Outlined below are samples of how these challenges were met and

have become a basis for future migrations.

• 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

efficient data transfer methodology was necessary. One of the

key challenges was the duration of the data transfer between the

two environments. Several data transfer tools were considered

during the POC to come up with an efficient and robust data

transfer model

Steps included in this migration life cycle are:

• Organization senior management should believe in this migration

• Linux Server setup.Proof of Concept testing

• Determining the cost benefit analysis. Migration Framework

• Application programs and data Migration.Testing Strategy.

The proof of concepts performed:

• Data Migration

• Replacing of COBOL/DB2 connectivity to Sybase/Micro focus

COBOL

• Performance Testing (CPU Saves)

• 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

platform as indexed files.

Migration Framework:

FTP

MF box

Data Files

DataConversion

Utilities

ApplicationPrograms

(Cobol etc..)

BaselineData

JCLs, Procs, Control Cards,

Tools etc

JCL Conversion

Utilities

CobolConversion

Utilities

Shell ScriptsMF Cobol

ConvertedSource & Data

Shell Executionand Testing

MainframeComponents(Cobl,JCL,Files,Tdols)

Linux Prod Box

Shell Scripts,MF Cobol, ConvertedData Files and Tools

ProductionMigration

ASCII Data

ConclusionThe efficient approach to migrate applications from Mainframe to

LINUX requires a careful data transfer design, the redesign of

applications to run all processes in Linux environment, addressing

data precision and data conversion problems, and creating an

efficient space management.

Applications redesign in the Linux environment also involves JCL and

JCL Procedure conversion from Mainframe to LINUX scripts, conver-

sion of COBOL, EZT’s, assembler and other mainframe utilities.

Many companies in the industry have accepted and performed

technology migration which resulted in approximately 40 percent

reduction in infrastructure cost, thereby leading them to newer

business and technical opportunities.

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• Use of File Port tool resulted in efficient and quick data transfer

for both compressed and uncompressed data between

mainframe and Linux platform

• Mainframe application components (COBOL, EZT’s, JCL, SORT

utility) were converted to Linux compatible elements using NIIT

proprietary tools

• 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

before the project implementation

• Decommissioning of the application on mainframe platform after

successful migration without impacting the dependent systems.

In order to prevent this risk all the dependent applications were

involved during the entire migration cycle.

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 the Author

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