How AS400 Modernization Stimulates Organizational Productivity

Generally, enterprises implement technology changes or upgrades within their infrastructure to stimulate competitiveness. This is known as digital transformation. Though, there are various digital transformation initiatives, implementing legacy system modernization should be the priority for modern enterprises.

One of the largely used legacy systems by enterprises is IBM AS400. Even though these servers are operational, they are mostly incompatible with modern platforms and technologies and offer inadequate security functionalities for app hosting. AS400 systems remain complex for organizations to perform security installation, maintenance, or integration with other systems. Despite these complexities, organizations still continue to host enterprise apps on AS400 systems. Such companies may not effectively adapt to SaaS environments and end up with massive operational expenses. This is where Cloud-based AS400 modernization comes in!

What is an AS400 System?

An integrated server system built & established by the IBM community is AS400. By using this server, organizations can host business-critical mobile and web applications. COBOL and RPG (Report Program Generator) were the languages typically used for programming AS400 servers. Though, it offers a range of database functionalities, hosting apps on AS400 systems is highly expensive.

It is well-known that AS400 systems are highly incompatible. This makes the apps hosted on it remain non-integrative and receptive to technological changes. RPG developers for programming AS400 systems are hardly available in the market. Moreover, employing and managing in-house RPG experts is a costly and time-intensive affair for enterprises when compared to hiring other programming language developers. Since the IBM community stopped launching security upgrades, mission-critical apps can become easily susceptible to cyberattacks

How AS400 Modernization is Beneficial

By implementing AS400 Cloud modernization, organizations can overcome all those obstacles mentioned and run their enterprise apps and workloads on a Cloud ecosystem. This way, organizations can extend their app’s functionalities, architecture, or infrastructure and ensure cost-effectiveness in the long run. With Cloud-based modernization, enterprises can ultimately lessen dependency on complicated data centers or other hardware setups and enable integrations with modern tools and platforms.

Indeed, AS400 modernization is highly different from migration and it involves the process of upgrading and adapting existing AS400 servers, instead of complete shifting or replacement. Organizations can hire professionals with immense expertise in modernization. Such experts can kick-start the modernization journey through comprehensive assessment and performance monitoring.

Advantages of AS400 Cloud Modernization

• Minimize Operational Risks & Costs

IBM AS400 servers incur higher upfront costs than other power systems. The upgrade and ongoing maintenance activities over the years will increase operational costs. Moreover, incoherence offered by AS400 systems can impact the application’s I/O processing speed and bring down performance even further.

With Cloud-based AS400 modernization, enterprises can considerably reduce upfront costs. Businesses can get accustomed to the pay-as-per-resources model. This means that AS400 system users can acquire the services or features required to upgrade applications from the Cloud platform and get spontaneous updates to the latest version. When AS400 apps are hosted through Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) model, enterprises can offload various back-end processes like the transferral of application data among multiple systems.

• Enable Integrations

By opting for Cloud modernization, organizations can overcome AS400 system integration complexities. With access to pre-built library connectors offered by Cloud platforms, enterprises can enable numerous integrations with their mission-critical apps and deploy highly-functional workflows that work at a greater speed. Hence, enterprises can promote the digital and collaborative workplace ecosystem. The Cloud platform’s modular architecture enables business users to adopt agile development, implement minor deployments, and address scalability problems quickly. With such an architecture, AS400 apps can seamlessly meet present and future technical objectives and offer a competitive edge. On the whole, AS400 application modernization improves the application’s productivity and performance.

• Improve App Security

Being the pillar of business apps, AS400 systems store and organize data from a range of processes, such as accounting, supply chains, inventory, human resources, and others. Eventually, this results in data silos and inhibits business users to identify valuable data and insights. Subsequently, organizations can’t have a much deeper understanding of their user needs and preferences.

By modernizing AS400 applications using Cloud, organizations can centralize all of their app data in a single repository. This enables app administrators or stakeholders to make data-driven decisions depending on a more extensive analysis of their processes and performance. Cloud platforms like GCP, AWS, and Azure effectively eliminate security threats and defend application data reliably. With greater visibility and control provided by Cloud platforms, organizations can instantly apply and adjust their app security policies as per the evolving requirements.

• Higher Performance

Typically, enterprises that run enterprise apps using AS400 legacy servers have to purchase & connect additional hardware for full-fledged upgrades and enhancements. Whereas, moving enterprise apps from AS400 to Cloud helps enterprises alleviate the total cost of operation, making it highly affordable for managing data and assuring higher uptime of apps. Cloud-supported AS400 modernization guarantees better business continuity and reduces overprovisioning of hardware. resources

Wrapping Up

Enterprises must implement AS400 application upgrades instantly and incorporate new functionalities to handle business demands & challenges. AS400 Cloud modernization approach helps organizations augment their enterprise app’s versatility and performance while evading complex equipment setup and huge investments. Moreover, modernization offers enterprises the ability to evolve with the latest tech advancements and overcome security threats.