Moving Mainframe Applications to Windows: Considering the Options to Preserve, Translate, or Rewrite

Overview

The paper aims to raise awareness of the available software solutions that can be used to move mainframe language applications to the Windows operating system, and to indicate additional resources. It describes briefly the broader issues concerning modernizing mainframe applications and the options available, and it then explores three solutions to the language problem, ranging from recompiling the application on Windows to a complete rewrite. A further option, to replace the existing custom code with a packaged solution, while entirely viable and commonly adopted for generic business applications, is outside the scope of this paper.