mainframes to the cloud

Didier Durand didier.durand@eranea.com

eranea : after poetry, the fun way...

Do not reinvent the wheel !just make it better and cheaper !

Mainframe folks are getting old !(look at my own abundant white

hair...)

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leverage best of 2014 fix customer issues

What we do

… or the pro style

Shall we all end up in the cloud ?(unless the next infrastructure trend makes

“cloudy for the cloud” ...)

For legacy migration, cloud computing better seen as “myriad computing” or “swarm computing ” :

→ an efficient technology to manage the restructuring of a legacy monolithic h/w system into a flexible large set of s/w single-function instances

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agenda

➢ market trends➢ legacy migration :

starting point project rationale technology and methodology

➢ mainframe → cloud computing why how

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market trends : “winner takes all”

➢ linux grows quickly even in financial industry : London Stock Exchange, NYSE, Euronext, etc. for its “3S” : Speed, Stability, Security

➢ x86 also in virtuous circle : more largely used → becomes better (performance, efficiency) → more largely used

worldwide server market(roll-outs, subscriptions, shipments)

Windows = lotsof

office automationservers

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source : Intelsource : Redhat

“big irons” still well aliveSource: IBM 2013

➢ 96 of the world’s top 100 banks, 23 of the top 25 US retailers, and 9 out of 10 of the world’s largest insurance companies run mainframes.

➢ 71% of global Fortune 500 companies have mainframes.

➢ 9 out of the top 10 global life and health insurance providers process their high-volume transactions on a mainframe.

➢ Mainframes process roughly 30 billion business transactions per day, including most major credit card transactions and stock trades, money transfers, manufacturing processes, and ERP systems.

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so where is the real issue ?

➢ CIOs with legacy proprietary systems know the market trends they want to follow them in an integrated manner and NOT as a patchwork

➢ the journey is as critical (even more ?) than the destination: how to reduce the huge exit costs ? how to move quickly ? … without risks for the enterprise ?

➢ issue for customers is ability not willingness

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the starting point

➢ a large mission-critical application ➢ encapsulating all business expertise with bullet-

proof reliability over decades of operations➢ representing very large investments (10s to 100s

men-years of software development)➢ doomed to technological obsolescence➢ running on a very expensive proprietary system

when compared to standards of 2014

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rationale

➢ massive savings in investments (capex) and operational expenses (opex) : 80% → 90% from M/F to x86 and OSS = millions per year on a recurring basis

➢ technological mutation toward current standards: web technologies, RIA interface core components: SOA, Java, Linux productivity: IDE, automated tests, assisted QA, code coverage, etc agility / efficiency: leverage cloud computing N.B.: old technologies abandoned

➢ value proposition : do both in 1 single shot !

tacticalobjectives

strategicobjectives

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technology: transcoder & runtime

“Cobol” support

SQL support

CICS Emulation

Display support

Tracing / logging

InternalObject

implementation

JavaProgram

(incl SQL)

XMLScreen

DBMS

LexicalAnalysis

Syntax Analysis

Semantics Analysis

Cobolcopy

Cobolpgm

BMSdesc

Code Generation

NeaTranscoder

NeaRuntime

Online

SOA

Batch

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2 main distinctive features : 100% automated + strictly iso-functional

project infrastructure

sourcesrepository

DB ERIT

Integrate

administration zone

CIengine

legacy application code

DB2

JDBC /DRDA

deploy

production zone

analyze,transcode,compile,package

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run

Full transcodingrepeated nightly(1 million lines / min)

provisioned on a single cloud

(very) progressive migration

2-3months

DRDA

time

activity

Cobolon Cics

Javaon AS

100%

6-9months

• 100% of data on DB2• Cobol remains reference

Javabecomesreference

dat

am

igra

tio

n t

o n

ew

DB

mainframeswitched

off

CICS DB2

progressivemigration

no big bang + collaborative operations of Cobol & Java = key success factor !

instantaneousway back

to old system

0%

tomcat

security

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mainframe → cloud computing

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Why and how ?Incentives➢ possible : x86 is very powerful➢ costs : x86 is very cheap➢ flexibility (virtualization) : h/w independence, instance migration,

day <> night configuration, etc.

Efficiency➢ image management services : while migrating➢ compute services : large number of instances➢ identity services : processing must be instance-independent➢ dashboard services : central control and management

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x86 is powerful (1) - cpuAll processors are know extremelysimilar in their architecture !

(various standard becnhmarks confirm it)

source: Wikipedia

● But, each year, are sold 4'000 mainframes <> 220'000 RISC servers <> 10'000'000 x86 servers !

… who is best positioned to become even better as quickly as possible ?

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x86 is powerful (2) - IOPS

● mainframe : 92'000 IOPs / sec * N I/O processors (N up to several tenths)● x86 : commonly reaching100'000 IOPs per x86 cpu ● → very identical core I/O performances [ mostly because mainframe FICON

is a derivative of x86 Fiber Channel)

● [in addition, underlying storage systems (SANs) are identical]

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x86 is cheap

(retail)

➢ cost per mips : 4'445 $/Mips/ year 1B$ bank → 4.4 M$ mainframe costs 1 B$ insurance → 1.5 M$ (our experience : those ratio work well)

➢ cost per server : 9'970 $/server/year

➢ 1'000 mips (a small config...) can pay for 450 servers. You don't need that much by far! a migration consistently delivers 80%

savings ! (90% in best cases)

Source: Rubin Worldwide

Source: Gartner Group

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virtualization : 10% penalty worth it !

Source: Redhat

➢ h/w isolation : x86 is a commodity → supplier switch must remain easy!

➢ mainframes deliver high availability → virtualization also : instance migration, workload balancing, horizontal

scalability, etc. N.B. choice of hypervisor is critical for correct

capabilities

➢ flexibility : daily configuration (transactional processing) <> nightly configuration (batch processing) on same h/w

➢ efficiency : better utilization, lower power consumption quick provisioning

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metal

kvm

-10%

image management service : why ?

➢ lots of instances : N entities x M stages x 2 redundancy x P

power N=8;M=3; P >2 → 10 (or more) + transcoding instances & services (2 x M

(?) x N (?) x mail + dns + ntp, etc.) 50 → 500 instances !

➢ all instances of same type (distribution, processing,etc) images must be identically provisioned

➢ images change daily (at least 1 transcoding / day) history is needed

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compute / dashboard service : why ?➢ private cloud is different from ISP cloud :

you get Iaas from CloudStack, OpenStack but you are responsible to deliver full application stack

➢ core application remains mission-critical → same stringent SLAs (resp time, availability, etc.)

➢ lots of instances :

cannot be individually managed → consolidation / centralization is a must “throw away and restart fresh” >> than “try to fix”

➢ 2-level centralization is critical 1) cloud single console : monitoring of instances, storage, network, etc. 2) instance single console : processes, resp times, syslogs, etc,

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identity service : why ?

➢ application remains mission-critical → coherent global security must still be guaranteed important for both users & ops / dev team

➢ virtualization + instances allow a very fine granularity → potential to improve security ?

➢ lots of instances → security must be managed per type of instance rather than per instance

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still out of cloud ...

➢ long-lasting data (“the company memory”) still kept on SAN and managed “traditionally”: permanent files shared across instances → NFS, NAS, etc. traditional relational database (DB2) server / cluster shared

across instances

➢ future work : evaluate how far distributed / replicated data services (ex: swift

in OpenStack) are applicable to current “regular” files : instance images, log files, application data

➢ relational data : still an open question ! Do you have an answer ?....

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conclusion➢ Moore's law makes it possible today for x86 to handle mission-

critical applications at right correct level of SLA (performance, availability)

➢ private cloud computing delivers today the right tools to manage the myriad of instances needed at scale of mission-critical applications for large corporations

➢ When will you enjoy (savings, flexibility, etc.) this new architecture in your organization ? : in 12-18 months if you choose 100% automated and iso-functional

transcoding in 60-90 months if you choose the rewriting path the decision is yours ! ...

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Thanks ! Questions ?

Consequence : same objectives reached differently !

Didier DURANDdidier.durand@eranea.com+41 79 944 37 10eranea | chemin de Mornex | 1001, Lausanne (Switzerland)

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1957 – 5 MB hard disk2014 – 500 MB SoC (dual-core x86)