Summary
A lot of organizations often perform mission-critical business tasks on IBM AS400. But now they think of it as old, expensive, and difficult to maintain, and they want to migrate their workload to IBM AS400 cloud to gain high scalability and agility. But migration comes with lots of challenges and difficulties. In this blog, we have examined the common migration difficulties and explained the specific challenges faced in the AS400 migration process. Apart from this, you’ll get to know the best solution to your challenges from Integrative Systems so that you can modernize your existing AS400 software.
From our previous blogs, you must know the history of IBM AS400 systems and their own OS/400. Today’s AS/400 is known as the IBM iSeries, and it is used not only by medium-sized organizations, but many Fortune 500 companies also use it.
AS/400 is well known for its robustness, reliability, scalability, and security. Also, the IBM AS400 iSeries can store valuable information and core business logic in large volumes. Today, however, data becomes the key driver for business intelligence, and the demand to integrate the AS400 system (Green Screen) with other technologies has arisen. Organizations are looking to modernize the IBM AS400 application and make it better and more user-friendly. Furthermore, various surveys show that users are not happy with the outdated interface. The lack of automated features is one of the fundamental reasons organizations invest and upgrade their legacy applications.
While the hardware cost may not be an issue for various organizations, as TCO will be reduced up to 35% after migration, but AS/400 migration to new OS can be a stressful experience.
Process of Migration
The process of migration consists of various tasks. Data extraction of the source system, transformation, validation, and loading of final data in the destination system. Have a look at the step-by-step process:
- Planning is the initial stage of migration. It includes identifying stakeholders, analyzing the source and destination, and deciding the most appropriate tools to be used.
- Analysis and design are the next stage in which business users perform detailed evaluation to define the needed actions to be carried out.
- Implementation is the essential phase of the migration process, and it is responsible for extracting, transforming, and validating.
- Migration is the last phase where source files are moved to destination, and the project is handed over to key business users.
Some Commonly Occurring Problems in Software Migration
1. Confusion and Disorganization
This issue may sound non-technical to you, but it’s not. Most of the data migration process and modern technology transfers fail because the people responsible for making those moves have no idea what resources will be needed to carry out the operation. So, developing a comprehensive data migration plan should be the priority in IBM AS400 data migration.
2. Data Loss
When you transfer bulk data from one location to another, there is a strong possibility for adequate data loss. Some of the data can be recovered from backup files, but some files cannot be recovered quickly. Also, the loss of such files could create a ripple effect that may result in the migration process’s termination. In such a scenario and to migrate mission-critical data, organizations can set upswing and parallel environments and ensure business continuity.
3. Compatibility Issues
Migrating IBM AS400 system data from one environment to another is a simple process on paper, but practically the things are more complicated. However, some assets can be shifted quite quickly but can create compatibility issues down the line. Changing the IBM AS400 platform is not that easy, as all the access controls may not make a smooth transition, and the entire system may crash.
4. Hardware Challenges
Software and hardware compatibility issues are very complicated, but sometimes the destination environment cannot handle the vast data and applications being migrated. While overestimating can lead to cost waste, it can be dangerous to think that all the assets will move to a new environment smoothly. So, before moving to the new climate, it’s essential to ensure that the destination environment meets the operational requirements of the data being migrated.
Difficulties in Migration of IBM AS400
Limited Knowledge of AS400 Applications
Most of the organizations lack a detailed understanding of the AS400 application. Moreover, the knowledge about the software is limited to subject matter experts (SMEs) only, and nowadays, this talent pool is shrinking rapidly.
Organizations Lack Clear Business Plan
The IBM AS400 footprint in large organizations varies from 10 million to 100 million code lines (MLOC). For such a vast portfolio, a robust plan is required to determine what to maintain, renew, and migrate.
Risk of Migration
According to the migration strategy, the old AS400 software and the new system may be needed to keep in sync through hybrid cloud architecture. This will ensure that the end-to-end process is working fine and not broken. Furthermore, the large amount of data will be transformed and migrated to the cloud securely.
Delayed Migration
Delay in migration and sync process of old and new systems can result in higher complexity and risk.
Inadequate Funding for Migration
This is the most frequently faced challenge by most of the companies when they try AS400 migration.
Limited Expertise
While organizations usually have a deep understanding of the IBMi AS400 architecture and their workload, they are not familiar with the migration process of these workloads.
How can Integrative Systems Help?
With our dedicated team of IBM AS400 experts and our common framework approach for all types of organizations, we have helped them in re-engineering and re-architect several applications on the cloud for higher scalability and performance. Integrative Systems can be your best choice for AS400 software migration, as we offer:
- Centre of Excellence for IBM AS/400
- World-class security implementation
- Common Framework and Workflow for mobiles
- Automated Testing of iSeries
- Validation and Optimization with SMEs
- Restructuring existing business modules using IBM Integrated Web Services (IWS)
We at Integrative Systems would love to hear from you. Share your requirements with us at [email protected], and together we can work on modernizing your application.
