Multiplatform Insights Docker Containers on z/OS S. MICHAEL BENSON F orget what you hear about needing to rewrite legacy applications to take advantage of new technology such as cloud computing and containers. It’s not true and is usually proposed as a way to get you to buy some product or service that will be both expensive and risky. Why would you want to do that? Presumably, your motivation for looking at newer technology is to reduce your cost and increase your quality and agility. There are better ways. First, we have to dispel the myth that the mainframe is the most expensive platform to host modern workloads. That is simply not the case. It is true that the mainframe suffers from being in the spotlight as the largest budget item in a shrinking budget, but often it becomes the catch-all for unrelated costs. In addition, if you compare the cost per transaction with x86 servers, the mainframe is a more cost-effective platform for many workloads. Not all, but many. Once you get past that hurdle and recognize the legitimate financial value of hosting workloads on the mainframe, you have to reorient your thinking about the vitality of the technology. Many believe any technology introduced in 1964 is completely outdated. That is also not true. The mainframe has kept up with technology and leads many other platforms in capability. For instance, the mainframe is the only platform to offer end-to-end transparent encryption to ensure that your data is protected through all phases of your business process. On the software side, the z/OS operating system supports many newer developer 12 • Enterprise Tech Journal technologies such as Java, Python and git. State-of-the-art development and test tools using the most advanced graphical user interfaces that are plugged into a DevOps pipeline using open source automation tools such as Jenkins are normal parts of the mainframe development processes for many companies. You could develop new applications for the mainframe and not even realize any difference in the tooling. Extending the technology even further, cloud computing on the mainframe has also become a reality. Businesses have long recognized the value of cloud computing to provide operational agility, resource pooling and metered services. The DevOps development process can be complemented with a cloud infrastructure to provide faster time to market and decreased costs. The two go hand in hand, even on the mainframe. Does that sound like stodgy old technology to you? One key aspect of building out a cloud-ready environment is how your applications are structured. On the mainframe, many legacy applications from the past have been structured as monoliths, adding to the perception that the mainframe does not belong in the cloud conversation. Indeed, many companies have built a cottage industry around telling companies how to migrate off the mainframe in order to modernize and save money. That is an expensive fallacy. Mainframe applications, even those built as monoliths, can be refactored to run in a modern cloud environment using container technology. Containers can be run on the • 2020: Issue 2