By Danalynne Menegus
Mainframe computers may seem like a relic of the past — but in fact mainframes remain enterprise workhorses that play a mission-critical role in sectors such as banking, government, manufacturing, travel, insurance, and retail. Meanwhile, digital transformation and moving to the cloud also remain high priorities for CIOs.
Integration technology like Boomi’s can help organizations align mainframe platforms with IT modernization and digital transformation efforts, says a new book by Tom Taulli, a startup founder, speaker and advisor, and author of about a dozen books on technology and business.
Rajesh Raheja, Boomi’s chief engineering officer, is featured in Taulli’s Modern Mainframe Development: COBOL, Databases, and Next-Generation Approaches. The book cites an example of Boomi customer Kenco Logistics, a third-party logistics company that streamlined customer onboarding with Boomi B2B/EDI Management.
Previously, it took Kenco 40 to 60 hours to onboard a customer to its EDI system running on IBM AS/400 mainframes. “But with Boomi, this shrunk considerably,” Taulli writes. “Other benefits included powerful analytics and forecasts of customer and usage trends.”
Leveraging Mainframe Data for Business Insights
Taulli’s book proceeds to quote Raheja on the value that Boomi offers to mainframe users.
“Low-code platforms from Boomi and our partner Flynet, which specializes in legacy application connectivity, make it easier than ever to leverage data from a mainframe across the business for impactful, actionable insights,” Raheja says in the book.
Taulli, a contributor to publications including Forbes, BusinessWeek, and Bloomberg, also includes Raheja’s perspective on how iPaaS helps future-proof mainframes and unlock data value from the legacy platform.
“With companies wanting more insight into data than ever before, being a good citizen of digital connectivity provides future-proofing for mainframe technologies, and for businesses that still depend on them,” Raheja says in the book.
He adds, “While mainframes aren’t built for that level of analysis or flexibility, by integrating mainframes with other applications, people, partners, and so on, data takes on a new life and can provide new insights to the business.”
Mainframe Interoperability in Hybrid IT
From Boomi’s perspective, a great deal of valuable information remains buried in mainframes and other legacy systems. Our cloud-native platform equips organizations to harvest that data with a standards-based API layer that treats the mainframe as any other system.
Once unlocked, that mainframe data can accelerate business outcomes and help organizations succeed in our digital economy. Moreover, the mainframe can interoperate seamlessly with other systems in a hybrid IT infrastructure of cloud and on-premises technology.
Far from being yesteryear’s tech, mainframes continue providing enterprises with proven reliability and security for mission-critical processes. With Boomi, organizations can maximize the value of their legacy investments and usher the mainframe into our modern cloud-first era.
Opportunities for Mainframe Innovation
In the book, Taulli says that his interest in mainframes was triggered at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. A spike in unemployment applications crashed mainframe systems run by state governments, and highlighted a crisis-level shortage of programmers skilled in COBOL, the dominant mainframe coding language.
A blog post Taulli wrote for Forbes, COBOL Language: Call It a Comeback?, became his second most popular ever, with over 31,000 views.
Delving more deeply into the topic after successfully pitching a book idea to O’Reilly Media, Taulli spotted great career opportunities for young COBOL developers, and identified areas for innovation using approaches such as iPaaS, DevOps, robotic process automation (RPA), and artificial intelligence (AI).
In his preface to the book, Taulli summarizes a key point this way:
“True digital transformation does not mean ripping out mainframes and other legacy systems. This would be extremely expensive and risky. Besides, mainframes have major advantages. They can process huge amounts of information and allow for highly secure processing, which are essential for large enterprises.”
To explore how Boomi can help your organization leverage its mainframe investments, contact our experts in your region.