Application Modernization: Where the Mainframe Still Matters

Application modernization is often framed as a departure from legacy systems. In reality, for many enterprises, modernization begins and ends with the mainframe.

Mainframe applications continue to process the world’s most critical transactions financial settlements, customer records, supply chain operations, and regulatory workloads. These systems are not relics. They are reliable, scalable, and deeply embedded in business operations.

Modernization, therefore, is not about removing the mainframe. It is about evolving it safely, incrementally, and intelligently. And that evolution depends heavily on operations support.

The Overlooked Role of Mainframe Operations Support

Mainframe operations support rarely appears in modernization headlines. Yet it quietly determines success or failure.

While applications are refactored, interfaces are exposed, or data is integrated with modern platforms, mainframe operations teams ensure that execution remains uninterrupted. Batch windows complete. Online transactions remain responsive. SLAs are protected.

This operational continuity allows modernization to progress without jeopardizing business trust. Change happens in the background. Stability remains in the foreground.

Operational Stability as the Foundation for Mainframe Modernization

Modernizing an unstable mainframe environment is an exercise in risk accumulation.

Strong operations support establishes discipline predictable performance, controlled incident response, and consistent workload management. These elements create a stable baseline from which modernization can safely proceed.

When the mainframe is well-operated, teams gain the confidence to modernize components selectively rather than attempting risky, large-scale replacements. Stability becomes an enabler, not a constraint.

Bridging Traditional Mainframe Systems and Modern Architectures

Most enterprises operate hybrid ecosystems where mainframes coexist with cloud platforms, APIs, and distributed services.

Operations support acts as the bridge between these environments. It coordinates dependencies across platforms, manages data synchronization, and ensures that mainframe workloads integrate seamlessly with modern applications.

Without strong operations, hybrid architectures fragment. With it, the mainframe remains a reliable core, supporting innovation at the edges while preserving transactional integrity.

Operational Intelligence in Mainframe-Centric Environments

Mainframe operations generate a wealth of intelligence.

Performance metrics, workload trends, capacity utilization, and incident histories provide deep insight into application behaviour. This data is invaluable for modernization planning.

Operations support helps identify which applications are modernization-ready, which require stabilization, and where technical debt poses operational risk. Decisions become evidence-based, not assumption-driven.

Modernization guided by operational intelligence is deliberate, efficient, and far less disruptive.

Change, Release, and Risk Management on the Mainframe

Mainframe environments are inherently high-impact. Even minor changes can affect thousands or millions of transactions.

Operations support enforces rigorous change management, structured release cycles, and disciplined rollback strategies. This governance ensures that modernization initiatives do not compromise core business processes.

Risk is not eliminated. It is controlled. And control is the currency of successful modernization.

Preserving Mainframe Knowledge During Transformation

Mainframe applications carry decades of operational history. Much of this knowledge resides not in documentation, but in the experience of operations teams.

These teams understand workload sensitivities, failure patterns, and business-critical processing windows. During modernization, this knowledge is irreplaceable.

Strong operations support ensures that institutional memory is preserved, transferred, and embedded into modern support models, preventing knowledge erosion as systems evolve.

Future-Ready Mainframe Operations in a Modernized Enterprise

As applications modernize, mainframe operations must also modernize.

Automation, predictive monitoring, and integrated observability tools enhance traditional support models without diminishing control. Operations evolve from reactive maintenance to proactive enablement.

In this future-ready state, the mainframe continues to serve as a resilient enterprise backbone, modernized, integrated, and operationally strong.

Mainframe services offer several benefits to organizations, including:

Reliability: Mainframes are known for their high availability, fault tolerance, and ability to handle massive amounts of data without failure. This makes them ideal for critical business applications that require continuous operation.

Scalability: Mainframe systems are highly scalable, and they can easily handle large workloads and accommodate the growth of an organization without the need for major hardware upgrades.

Security: Mainframe systems offer robust security features that protect against external and internal threats. They are designed with multi-layered security controls and can provide a secure platform for sensitive data and critical applications.

Cost-effective: Despite their high initial costs, mainframe systems can be cost-effective over the long term. They require minimal maintenance, have a long lifespan, and can handle large workloads with fewer servers, reducing the need for additional hardware investments.

High performance: Mainframe systems offer high performance and processing speeds, which is essential for large-scale transaction processing and data analysis.

Flexibility: Mainframe systems can support a wide range of applications, operating systems, and programming languages, making them flexible and adaptable to changing business needs.

Since the mainframe's inception in the 1960s, contemporary computing has relied on it as a foundational piece. Despite the recent advancements in technology, the mainframe has remained essential in enabling some of the most difficult and time-consuming computer jobs worldwide. Yet, a talent shortage is developing as the staff in charge of maintaining and running mainframe systems ages and retires. Since the loss of expertise could interrupt crucial business processes and leave companies vulnerable to security breaches, this scarcity has become a major worry for many mainframe-dependent organizations. In this piece, we will examine several fallback tactics that firms can use to overcome the mainframe talent shortage.

Despite the increased desire for digital transformation, businesses in all sectors can only make small changes because of budgetary constraints. Therefore, it is necessary to maintain legacy IT infrastructure and technology for several reasons. Finding sufficient IT personnel to manage these antiquated systems is tough with this gradual method.

Although mainframes have consistently demonstrated their utility, only a small proportion of students majoring in science, technology, engineering, or mathematics opt to pursue careers in mainframe technology. This is especially problematic as the majority of mainframe employees are getting close to retirement.

To ensure that these key systems, services, and solutions can continue to power the IT infrastructure underpinning today's most significant enterprises, corporations, MSPs, and mainframe sector companies must fill mainframe positions and train personnel.

Due to the difficulty in finding new staff and the shrinking talent pool, the mainframe industry is at risk. Due to a dearth of Mainframe-specific professional training in educational institutions and inadequate training facilities in IT firms, the shortage of Mainframe workers is experiencing serious problems. With our on/offshore-based staffing services, Maintec provides a thorough solution to a range of personnel-related problems.

Know How Businesses Can Find and Retain Talent for Mainframes-

There is no quick fix or simple solution to the mainframes' branding and knowledge gaps. Nonetheless, there are three ways that firms could approach bridging the mainframe skills gap:

Make a mainframe career path apparent, leaders and decision-makers in the field of IT must actively seek out new tech workers. To do this, they must have a strong presence and relationships with institutions and educate students about the significance of these positions and the opportunities that exist within their organization. While lack of awareness is the issue, it will be simpler to recruit talent if the mainframe is included on the list of considerations IT students should make as they get ready for the workforce.

Establish networks with faculty and students, participate in recruitment forums, and take part in proactive university engagement. As an investment, offer to participate in training and nurturing activities at schools. When academic authorities acknowledge and concur that the mainframe's demise is not imminent, students are more likely to consider mainframe operations as a suitable career path. IBM has invested in the IBM Z Academic Initiative to get learners to enroll in mainframe programs.

Cross-training is a different tactic that businesses can use to deal with the mainframe talent shortage by enticing staff members to pick up new duties and expertise. Organizations may create a more adaptable workforce that can handle a variety of jobs and responsibilities by giving employees the chance to work on various technologies. Cross-training can make staff more well-rounded and versatile by assisting them in learning new skills that can be used in mainframe operations.

Using external resources, outsourcing, and offshoring are two options that might assist firms in addressing the mainframe talent shortage. These strategies can assist businesses in utilizing the knowledge of specialized mainframe service providers or outsourcing businesses that can offer affordable and superior mainframe services. Organizations can take advantage of the expertise and knowledge of these service providers by outsourcing or offshore their mainframe needs, saving themselves the expense of hiring, retaining, and training internal personnel.

To fill the talent gap for mainframes, mainframe staffing enterprises have a great chance to groom and develop fresh talent through apprenticeship programs. These programs can be utilized to give aspiring mainframe experts practical training and experience, and they can be modified to match the particular demands of a business. Apprenticeship programs can assist new employees in acquiring the knowledge and expertise required to develop into fully qualified mainframe specialists by partnering them with knowledgeable mentors who have more experience.

Make sure the mainframe IT salaries are competitive. Mainframe employees typically earn between $50,000 and $75,000 per year. Mainframe professions have to provide comparable or superior benefits than other well-known IT jobs. Mainframe employment won't be supplanted by other, more desirable computing professions thanks to competitive remuneration. This presents recent college graduates with an excellent opportunity to enter the field and rapidly begin their careers.

These tactics for attracting and retaining mainframe talent are sound and ought to give businesses an advantage in the upcoming years, but a larger conversation is necessary to come up with a long-lasting solution. 

The future of the technology employment market will depend on initiatives for mentorship programs and education, as well as the marketing of mainframes within businesses (via job advertisements and recruitment materials). For many modern firms, mainframes are the IT foundation, and they are too crucial to leave. The only element affecting the mortality of mainframes is talent, which can vanish with a new picture.

Key Takeaways:

Offer apprenticeship programs to groom and develop fresh mainframe talent.

Provide cross-training opportunities to create a more adaptable workforce.

Utilize external resources such as outsourcing and offshoring to address the mainframe talent shortage.

Make a mainframe career path clear to students and actively seek out new talent.

Establish networks with faculty and students, participate in recruitment forums, and engage with universities.

Ensure mainframe IT salaries are competitive to attract and retain talent.

It would seem that the massive, heavy mainframe wouldn't be able to keep up in a world where quick new technological advancements arise virtually every day. The mainframe has been criticized for years as being obsolete software; some have even predicted that it will soon be replaced by other cutting-edge computing options.

Despite being past its peak and yet being able to handle the majority of corporate needs, the mainframe is far from being retired. The public cloud has yet to replace the mainframe as the center of key businesses like finance and healthcare, even though it is not nearly as trendy as today's trending themes like Big Data or the cloud. Undoubtedly, the mainframe, a platform that was first employed in the 1940s, is getting older. The majority of businesses are under the incorrect impression that a digital transformation simply means the adoption of a new platform, such as cloud computing. Legacy systems being "lifted and shifted" to the cloud may not always result in the full benefits of the new platform.

The mainframe holds a desirable position in today's internet business world, even though other forms of computers are widely used in business in a variety of roles. Approximately two-thirds of the Fortune 100, 45 of the top 50 banks in the world, eight of the top ten insurers, seven of the top ten global retailers, and eight of the top ten telecoms use IBM's modern mainframe, which is now even a key component of hybrid cloud setups. Mainframes are a popular choice among large corporations since they are an affordable solution that can last for years, if not decades.

Even when split among a variety of distributed systems, mainframes have the processing power to handle enormous workloads without issues or lag. As a result of the first modern mainframe's creation in 1964 and its ability to perform 229,000 computations in a second, which was a feat for its time, the mainframe quickly established itself as a crucial tool for enterprises. Today, more than 10,000 mainframes are still in operation, assisting businesses in running thousands of corporate applications.

The mainframe is expected to be eliminated by the cloud computing revolution, the newest disruptive technology. Businesses are moving their operations to cloud-based infrastructures since they enable more collaboration and data access from virtually anywhere. So how does a huge mainframe fit into a modern cloud computing setting? The cloud, on the other hand, is a more contemporary technology that, with its characteristics for collaboration and mobility, completely changed the IT sector.

The major draw of cloud computing is the simplicity with which programs and data may be accessed at any time, from any location. You can also pick and choose exactly the features and services that you need right now. Regardless of location or time zone, the cloud provides mobile teams with a platform that enables them to use the apps they need and access essential data. The majority of businesses already have a mainframe system in place, so migration isn't a long-term realistic option unless shifting to the cloud is necessary. However, migration may be a time-consuming and expensive procedure.

It turns out that the mainframe has enough space in the current hybrid cloud architecture. All the elements required to build a private cloud environment are available on mainframes, including a tonne of memory, a tonne of storage, and the capacity to virtualize workloads. Because it can handle enormous workloads so effectively, a mainframe is arguably more cost-effective for businesses than a modern cloud provider. More significantly, rewriting these apps for the cloud would be extremely difficult because many businesses now run their business applications on a mainframe. However, the mainframe's greater computational capabilities are what set it apart. In comparison to mid-range systems, it provides superior control when running workloads and has a far better ability to handle workloads across several dispersed systems. And nothing tops the mainframe when it comes to expanding and regulating vector processing. Thousands of enterprise software for business, finance, and administrative systems are still run by more than 10,000 mainframes today, and this is not expected to change anytime soon. When cutting-edge technologists downplay the significance of the mainframe, think about these things: Nine out of ten of the largest insurance companies in the world and 96 of the top 100 banks in the world still rely on mainframes. Why? Because the mainframe is predictable, dependable, and scalable – qualities that have allowed it to compete successfully with more cutting-edge technology for the past 50 years and will continue to do so for another 50.

Today's large organizations and businesses are dependent on legacy IT systems. They are also facing an unavoidable situation like an urgent shortage of skills as many of the experts are at the age of retirement or already out of business and are also unable to share their knowledge and expertise with the upcoming generation. Programming languages like COBOL, which was created in 1959 but is still extensively used by major enterprises to handle data from crucial central systems like billing, accounting, payroll, and customer interactions, often serve as the foundation for these systems.

To be clear, the list of mainframe programming languages presented below is not intended to be a quantitatively conclusive ranking of the most widely used mainframe coding languages. I'm not aware of anyone compiling statistics on the market share of different mainframe languages.

Let's look at some of the best mainframe programming languages now that the disclaimer has been made.

COBOL

The mainframe industry's traditional, tried-and-true application programming language is called COBOL, which stands for Common Business Oriented Language. It is one of the oldest programming languages still in use today, having been created in 1959. Others dislike COBOL and whine about go to statements being used and how lengthy the COBOL code is. However, some people view the latter characteristic as advantageous because it makes the code easier to comprehend. Regardless of what you may think about COBOL, it is still a commonly used programming language on mainframes today. It might not be covered in Computer Programming 101, but knowing it is essential if you want to write code for mainframes.

Java

Java is one language that you will probably learn in a computer-based programming course and can use on mainframes. Years after mainframes were invented, Java made its debut in the middle of the 1990s. And Java's popularity was mostly fueled by its object-oriented design and ability to run on almost any operating system. When the original Java developers created a language that could generate apps for your mainframe just as well as it did for PCs and smartphones, you know they were concerned about inter-compatibility. Java is capable of doing that, which is one of the reasons it's a popular programming language on z/OS platforms.

C

C is a programming language that was initially developed for Unix computers rather than mainframes. But nowadays, C supports almost anything, including z/OS mainframe settings. That's advantageous for mainframe programmers. Because C was created as a hacky language for creating programs rapidly rather than elegantly, developing C code may feel like an ad hoc, seat-of-your-pants exercise; nonetheless, C code tends to be very fast and adaptable.

C++

You'll adore C++, a programming language that potentially integrates the finest characteristics of C and Java, whether you like C but wish it were more ordered or like Java but wish its code were a bit less verbose. C++ is currently a well-liked programming language for z/OS, just as C and Java.

Assembler language

The majority of programmers do not consider writing assembly code to be enjoyable. However, it is occasionally necessary on mainframes, which is why Assembler is another crucial mainframe language to know. Compared to using a higher-level language, like COBOL, it allows you more control over your software.

REXX

Do you wish to write code that can be run without having to be compiled first? You should use REXX. On z/OS, it is the most popular interpreted language. This means that REXX code does not need to be initially compiled to execute on z/OS; although, if you want, you can choose to do so to hasten execution.

Any language that runs on Linux

It's important to note that you can always add a Linux environment to your mainframe and use that environment to write in any language that Linux supports, which is essentially every language there is. This is useful if your z/OS mainframe does not already support your preferred programming language (yes, even COBOL, which you can build for Linux if you want).