IT leaders want to move from mainframe to cloud

A new survey of 650 IT leaders around the world shows that while 96 percent consider their organization's mainframe applications as important or critical to business operations, 98 percent would consider migrating off the platform.

The preferred destination for these apps is the cloud, with 82 percent of respondents saying they would use public and/or hybrid cloud deployment models if they were to move their organization's applications off the mainframe.

The research conducted by Vanson Bourne for LzLabs shows that the pandemic has boosted modernization plans. 71 percent of organizations report going through or having been through an IT modernization process, compared to 64 percent in 2019 and 61 percent in 2018.

This is partly driven by a desire to stay competitive, 87 percent of survey respondents agree that quicker changes to applications can improve time to market for products. However, 90 percent believe it's difficult to change mainframe applications when supporting innovation objectives. Worryingly, 67 percent of decision makers believe their organization’s mainframe holds them back from innovating, and 58 percent report being concerned that their business could lose its competitive advantage due to the failure of IT to keep pace with business demands.

The mainframe skills market is an important factor too, 88 percent believe that mainframe specialists remain important, even as their organization modernizes. 97 percent are interested in further training for their mainframe workforce in order to manage and maintain mainframe applications in cloud/open system environments. However, 88 percent say that they are concerned about the skills gap between experienced and junior members of their mainframe teams. 56 percent of respondents say that their organization has not properly implemented a succession plan for younger employees to absorb the knowledge required to maintain legacy mainframe architectures.

"This year's findings have clearly shown that global organizations are ready to embrace modern, open platforms for their critical mainframe application assets," says Thilo Rockmann, CEO of LzLabs. "It is encouraging to see a much greater awareness of the benefits of unlocking these critical mainframe applications, but procrastinating on these projects is no longer an option. Organizations must embrace change to remain competitive and facilitate the transfer of critical mainframe knowledge to the new technical workforce of tomorrow."

The full report is available from the LzLabs site.

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