Keeping a mainframe in your back pocket

I once worked on a developer magazine that ran with a special on mainframes back in 2005. We dropped it from the editorial schedule the following year. Strangely it didn’t seem to attract as many advertisers as the ‘games’, ‘systems integration’ and ‘web development’ issues. Go figure eh?

Given the above, I don’t sniff around the database news feeds too often. Actually, I spent Sunday looking for short-distance weekend breaks. Perusing the Channel Islands as an option (before immediately dismissing it on the grounds of cost) I happened upon news that Guernsey Electricity has been managing its IT installation so that it can retain its mainframe backbone and still adopt ‘new’ technologies.

… and so it was, that instead of moving on to research cheap flights to Marrakech and such places aboard dodgy third-world airlines, I decided to blog.

Guernsey Electricity wanted to keep its operation running cost effectively so that it could continue to power the kettles and electric blankets of the wealthy pensioners who reside upon its grand shores, (don’t you wish that they actually said it that way?) but they had a hefty ICL mainframe installation to cope with.

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Image: Wikimedia Commons

I guess the main issue was staff skills right? You probably can’t run an ad in the Guernsey Press & Star for “hungry young software engineers with ICL mainframe experience” can you?

The Channel Island utility provider wanted to bring its core business applications residing on the mainframe into Windows supporting its MIDAS application, its customer information tool that had been developed in-house using ICL ApplicationMaster and COBOL – without physically removing the mainframe itself.

I suppose the point of interest here is that some organisations like Guernsey Electricity want to be able to keep hold of the functionality provided by legacy systems due to users’ preferences – and that, essentially, makes it a ‘legacy requirement’ if you will.

So I did end up reading a case study type piece of news on this and they used Micro Focus’ Net Express with .NET to migrate the system to Windows. If this speaks of the flexibility of modern platforms then that is all the better I suppose.

You might also argue that replacement projects are inherently risky and this route allows companies to keep a tighter hold on their core IT assets.

So there you have it: Guernsey Electricity is quite a snappy operation; migration tools are more flexible than ever; mainframe magazines still don’t sell well; there’s a job for you in the Channel Islands if you are ICL engineer and I still can’t find anywhere cheap to try and take a week off at the end of the month.