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DAILY NEWS AND INFORMATION
FOR THE GLOBAL GRID COMMUNITY /
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Systems/Enterprise:
MICROSOFT, MICRO FOCUS FORM
MAINFRAME MIGRATION ALLIANCE
Micro Focus International Ltd and Microsoft Corp announced the creation of
a
new alliance to enable the migration of critical proprietary mainframe systems
onto the Microsoft Windows operating system using Microsoft .NET technology.
The alliance lays the technology foundation to move application workloads from
the mainframe to more modern Intel architecture and the Windows Server
platform. It aims to help customers reduce the high cost of maintaining and
modernizing their aging mainframe environments.
Redeploying mainframe legacy assets to newer, cheaper platforms saves time
and
money. Costs can be reduced by up to 50 percent when moving IT operations to
an equivalent Windows platform. Customers have also reported improved
performance, enabling them to improve key business processes without
significant additional investment.
"As organizations increasingly realize that they need to re-use rather than
replace their existing mainframe applications, any initiative that enables
them to do this at lower cost and risk is extremely valuable to them," said
Gary Barnett, IT research director at OVUM. "This alliance will help
enterprise users take a more cost-effective and reliable approach to the task
of migrating applications to the Windows platform than the expensive and
risk-prone 'rip and replace' approach that was the vogue in the late
1990s."
Web services, utility computing, .NET, CPU harvesting and distributed
computing are just a few of the technologies that fall under the Grid
computing umbrella. Gt04 -- a premiere enterprise Grid computing conference
targeting industrial and commercial users -- will gather experts, and outline
strategies and road maps for Grid deployment. For more information, visit
www.gt04.com.
Grid computing is here!
Micro Focus Enterprise Server with its new Mainframe Transaction Option
underpins the new platform alliance and now enables the migration and
deployment of CICS/COBOL mainframe applications to the Windows platform.
Enterprise Server offers the most rapid and lowest-risk way of re-hosting
mainframe applications on Windows. Once the application has been re-hosted, it
can be extended more easily and effectively through the use of the .NET
Framework, SQL Server 2000, XML and Web services.
"We have seen outstanding results by migrating our IT operation to the
Windows
environment through Micro Focus' solutions," said Leo Theberge, Chief
Information Officer of Quebec Loisir, a direct-to-consumer media corporation
that is part of DirectGroup Bertelsmann. "Moving to Windows is a critical
business decision for us because it provides a low cost, strategic platform to
leverage critical value from our existing IT assets."
Over the years, most mainframe customers have made substantial investments
that support key business processes. However, to remain competitive and
deliver more value per application dollar, CIO's and technology managers face
mandates to reduce these costs and drive business agility by migrating
CICS/COBOL applications to a more modern and extensible platform. Customers
can obtain a significant increase in their flexibility and ability to respond
to business changes by migrating off the mainframe.
"The opportunity to work with world-class partners implementing
enterprise-scale technology for customers is very important to Microsoft,"
said Eric Rudder, senior vice president of the Server and Tools Business at
Microsoft. "Our relationship with Micro Focus helps customers move monolithic
and expensive mainframe systems to the more agile Microsoft platform."
"We're pleased to be working with Micro Focus through Intel Early Access
Program," said Melissa Laird, general manager of the Software Enabling
Division at Intel. "Our objective is to provide customers with access to
resources that will help them derive more value from their existing IT
investments and complement new technology initiatives that support the
migration to lower cost, higher efficiency Intel architecture-based
platforms."
"Micro Focus recognizes the significant investments that many organizations
have made in legacy applications and the challenges the enterprises face as
they evaluate approaches for deriving further value from those investments,"
said Tony Hill, chief executive officer at Micro Focus. "Working with
partners, we are committed to providing the most reliable modernization
strategy for organizations to unlock the value of their legacy systems."
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