Automation in IT operations enable agility, resilience, and operational excellence, paving the way for organizations to adapt swiftly to changing environments, deliver superior services, and achieve sustainable success in today's dynamic digital landscape.
Next-generation application management fueled by AIOps is revolutionizing how organizations monitor performance, modernize applications, and manage the entire application lifecycle.
AIOps and analytics foster a culture of continuous improvement by providing organizations with actionable intelligence to optimize workflows, enhance service quality, and align IT operations with business goals.
What if the very systems powering your business are the same ones holding it back?
Mainframes have served as the digital backbone of industries like banking, insurance, retail, and government for decades. Their reputation for reliability, security, and massive transaction throughput is unmatched—and that’s precisely why 71% of Fortune 500 companies still depend on them today.
But these systems were built for a different era—one with fewer users, slower change cycles, and predictable demands. Fast forward to 2025, and we’re in a radically different world. Business models are being reshaped overnight. AI is redefining operations. Customers expect instant, hyper-personalized experiences. And your legacy infrastructure? It wasn’t designed to keep up.
A recent survey found that 48% of M&A professionals are now using AI in their due diligence processes, a substantial increase from just 20% in 2018, highlighting the growing recognition of AI’s potential to transform M&A practices.
Consider this:
The reality is clear: mainframes are no longer the silent enablers they once were. They’re gradually turning into a barrier that slows down critical digital transformation efforts.
This blog explores everything you need to know about legacy modernization mainframe initiatives, including what it means, why it’s crucial, modernization strategies, and how to overcome common hurdles
Legacy mainframe modernization is the process of updating or transforming aging systems—typically built on COBOL, JCL, or Assembler—into modern, scalable platforms. It’s not just about replacing hardware or rewriting code; it’s about rethinking how legacy systems deliver value in today’s cloud-native, API-driven, AI-augmented business world.
Think of it as preserving mission-critical functionality while unlocking the flexibility, speed, and scalability of modern digital ecosystems.
Whether you’re moving to the cloud (rehosting), refactoring code, integrating APIs, or adopting SaaS, modernization enables:
And no—it doesn’t always mean killing the mainframe. Often, it’s about evolving what works and replacing what holds you back.
Mainframes can cost up to 4,500 USD per MIPS (million instructions per second) per year, depending on workload and licensing structures. The cost of maintaining legacy systems, including hardware, software, and support personnel, is spiraling—consuming up to 60–80% of IT budgets in traditional enterprises (Gartner, 2024).
Technical debt also accumulates as patches and temporary fixes hinder innovation, introduce fragility, and slow down releases.
Nearly one-third of COBOL programmers will retire by 2030, and younger developers rarely train in COBOL, JCL, or Assembler. The number of skilled mainframe professionals is shrinking rapidly, creating a talent crisis that makes modernization a necessity.
Legacy systems often act as data silos, hampering real-time integration with cloud-native applications, mobile platforms, and AI engines. Modernization unlocks interoperability through APIs, microservices, and cloud-based databases—enabling digital transformation.
Outdated systems are often not compliant with modern regulatory frameworks like GDPR, PCI DSS, or HIPAA. Patching security holes is cumbersome, increasing vulnerability to cyberattacks. Legacy system
breaches tend to cost around 18% more on average due to slower detection and recovery—according to findings from multiple industry reports.
And let’s not forget the lessons from the pandemic—mainframes exposed limitations in remote access, scale, monitoring, and resilience.
Gartner recommends using the Tolerate, Invest, Migrate, Eliminate (TIME) framework as a strategic model to evaluate which applications should be rehosted, replatformed, rearchitected, rebuilt, or replaced. This approach aligns business value with technology suitability, enabling enterprises to make informed, workload-specific decisions.
This flowchart helps visualize application modernization strategies based on their business value and technical fit. Use it as a guide to prioritize and streamline your modernization roadmap.
What it is: Moving mainframe workloads “as-is” to cloud or virtual servers.
Pros:
Cons:
Use cases: Organizations needing quick cloud transition without major transformation.
What it is: Moving applications to a modern OS or database without changing core logic.
Pros:
Cons:
Use cases: Enterprises wanting incremental modernization without full rewrite.
What it is: Rewriting legacy code into modern languages (e.g., Java, .NET, Python).
Pros:
Cons:
Use cases: Organizations seeking deep transformation and long-term ROI.
What it is: Replacing legacy applications with COTS software or cloud-native microservices.
Pros:
Cons:
Use cases: Enterprises needing agility, mobile/cloud enablement, or AI-readiness
What it is: Combining multiple approaches (e.g., rehosting some apps, refactoring others).
Pros:
Cons:
Use cases: Large organizations with diverse application portfolios.
| Challenge | Mitigation Strategy |
|---|---|
| Data Loss Risk | Dual-run systems, automated validation, rollback testing |
| Downtime Anxiety | Blue/green deployments, sandbox testing |
| Cultural Resistance | Change management, reskilling, transparent ROI stories |
| Integration Issues | API-first design, middleware, CI/CD pipelines |
| Lack of Documentation | Reverse-engineering tools, knowledge capture from SMEs |
| Inflexibility for Innovation | Modular architecture, cloud-native services |
| Executive Misalignment | Business case modeling and visible early wins |
Quinnox helps enterprises modernize legacy mainframe systems without disrupting business operations. Powered by Qinfinite, our Intelligent Application Management platform, we enable faster, smarter transformations through:
With Qinfinite, you don’t just modernize—you gain real business value:
Qinfinite turns legacy into future-ready—efficient, agile, and built for what’s next.
Modernizing legacy mainframes is no longer a back-office concern—it’s a boardroom priority. As cloud-native architectures, AI-driven operations, and digital customer experiences become the norm, clinging to outdated systems risks your organization’s competitiveness, security, and scalability.
That’s where platforms like Qinfinite come in. Powered by AI and built for intelligent application management, Qinfinite helps assess modernization readiness, simulate changes via Digital Twins, and accelerate transformation without disruptions. Whether it’s lift-and-shift, full refactor, or hybrid, Qinfinite ensures your journey is smart, secure, and scalable.
Don’t let outdated technology hold your business back. Schedule a free consultation with our Qinfinite experts to evaluate your current IT landscape, design a tailored modernization strategy, and navigate your transformation journey seamlessly.
Dynamic Risk Assessment: In telecom, data privacy regulations (like GDPR) are crucial. AI assesses the impact of privacy regulations on customer data handling practices, ensuring compliance without compromising service.
Example: AI helps telecom providers audit data storage practices to align with GDPR, ensuring customer privacy and regulatory adherence.
Automated Policy and Document Updates: Retailers must adapt to consumer protection and employee rights regulations. AI updates internal policies based on regulatory changes, keeping customer interactions and employee practices compliant.
Example: AI generates new training material for customer service teams when consumer rights regulations are updated, ensuring compliance with minimal manual effort.
With iAM, every application becomes a node within a larger, interconnected system. The “intelligent” part isn’t merely about using AI to automate processes but about leveraging data insights to understand, predict, and improve the entire ecosystem’s functionality.
Consider the practical applications:
Consider a large financial institution seeking to improve its customer service experience. By leveraging Agent Management Services, the institution can:
The rise of agent-driven systems marks a significant shift in the technology landscape. By embracing Agent Management Services, organizations can navigate this new era with confidence, unlock the full potential of AI, and gain a competitive advantage in the digital age.
Qinfinite’s Auto Discovery continuously scans and maps your entire enterprise IT landscape, building a real-time topology of systems, applications, and their dependencies across business and IT domains. This rich understanding of the environment is captured in a Knowledge Graph, which serves as the foundation for making sense of observability data by providing vital context about upstream and downstream impacts.
Qinfinite’s Deep Data Analysis goes beyond simply aggregating observability data. Using sophisticated AI/ML algorithms, it analyzes metrics, logs, traces, and events to detect patterns, anomalies, and correlations. By correlating this telemetry data with the Knowledge Graph, Qinfinite provides actionable insights into how incidents affect not only individual systems but also business outcomes. For example, it can pinpoint how an issue in one microservice may ripple through to other systems or impact critical business services.
Qinfinite’s Intelligent Incident Management takes observability a step further by converting these actionable insights into automated actions. Once Deep Data Analysis surfaces insights and potential root causes, the platform offers AI-driven recommendations for remediation. But it doesn’t stop there, Qinfinite can automate the entire remediation process. From restarting services to adjusting resource allocations or reconfiguring infrastructure, the platform acts on insights autonomously, reducing the need for manual intervention and significantly speeding up recovery times.
By automating routine incident responses, Qinfinite not only shortens Mean Time to Resolution (MTTR) but also frees up IT teams to focus on strategic tasks, moving from reactive firefighting to proactive system optimization.
Mainframe modernization is the process of updating legacy systems to work with modern technologies—like cloud, APIs, and microservices—without disrupting core operations.
In 2025, it’s crucial due to rising costs, outdated technologies, cybersecurity risks, and the shortage of skilled legacy developers. Modernization enables agility, cost savings, and digital innovation.
Common strategies include:
Rehosting: Lift-and-shift to new platforms
Replatforming: Move to modern infrastructure
Refactoring: Rewriting code in modern languages
Rebuilding/Replacing: Using SaaS or microservices
Hybrid: Combining approaches for flexibility
Challenges include:
Risk of data loss or downtime
Integration complexities
Cultural resistance to change
High costs without clear ROI
Limited visibility into legacy systems
Readiness starts with:
A complete inventory of systems
Clear business goals
ROI modeling
Leadership alignment
The right tools, partners, and governance framework
Modernizing your legacy systems is an investment in the future of your organization. It's about ensuring your technology continues to support your business goals and empowers you to thrive in the digital age.
Read moreUnlock the benefits of legacy modernization for driving digital transformation in banking. Explore the strategic framework for enhancing customer experience.
Read moreFind out how application rationalization cuts costs, boosts IT efficiency, and drives digital transformation by removing redundant apps and optimizing portfolios
Read moreGet in touch with Quinnox Inc to understand how we can accelerate success for you.
