NTT DATA UniKix and AWS M2 — a perfect mainframe modernization match

In 2023, Amazon Web Services (AWS) announced the launch of the M2 platform for mainframe modernization and migration. This product launch is significant for industries and organizations that are considering a mainframe migration to AWS. The M2 platform is an industry-first for the hyperscaler community: It has a purpose-built, cost-contained set of computing resources provisioned to provide a dedicated platform for mainframe migrations. While the toolsets that exist to support migration are evolving, this is the first time committed computing resources have been amalgamated for this specific purpose.

Modernizing with Amazon Web Services M2: Different benefits, one outcome

Business benefits: The AWS M2 platform is designed specifically for mainframe modernizations and the business benefits that follow. You can prepare your organization for the transition by rethinking your user experiences and using the automation capability AWS cloud offers. Bringing new collaboration models to a modern platform and unifying adjacent applications can help your business thrive. A cloud-first approach allows your organization more flexibility, as well as opportunities for improvement on both business and customer levels.

Technical benefits: When you use AWS M2 for big-lift migrations, the platform delivers unparalleled flexibility. The platform’s architecture is purpose-built and scalable, so it has the capability to support ongoing digital initiatives. By delivering more opportunities for automation and technical enhancement, you can streamline IT support workflows with both increased agility and access to adjacent cloud tooling.

Financial benefits: With a dedicated platform for mainframe migration, you’ll gain faster time to value. AWS M2 reduces annual operating costs and enables the cost-control measures available in the cloud, benefits that will enhance your business processes and in turn create more value for your customers.

AWS M2 migrations:

• Are purpose-built for large computing platform migrations
• Are cost-scaled to deliver performance within application migrations
• Deliver a diverse set of migration tools to enhance/benefit long-tailed mainframe migrations
• Include a developer-friendly toolset that offers an on-demand integrated development environment (IDE) for quicker code releases
• Use a platform that continually monitors clusters to satisfy enterprise workloads with complete self-healing and auto-scaling
• Benefit from continuous integration/continuous development (CI/CD), so you can release better quality code more often while reducing deployment time
• Integrate seamlessly with other AWS services, such as CloudFormation, PrivateLink and AWS Key Management services

Comparing cloud-native runtime

A significant uplift to running on native Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2), the AWS M2 service has increased cloud-native runtime benefits. It’s fully managed, so resources can be automated. And it supports compute, locks, cache, queues and batch. This approach supports native integrations to other AWS services, which augments application delivery. Additionally, CI/CD development within the AWS ecosystem sets this solution apart from the competition.

This chart from Amazon shows what purpose-built can deliver over traditional EC2 runtime environments.

The NTT DATA UniKix difference

In November 2023, NTT DATA’s UniKix mainframe replatforming solution was certified on the AWS M2 platform. Having successfully completed more than 1,300 application migrations to date, NTT DATA is considered a pioneer in mainframe replatforming. We strive to pair enabling technology with technical resourcing and reliable tooling to offer both cost efficiencies and stable rollouts.

The highlights of using NTT DATA UniKix for replatforming include:

• Discovering up to 70% savings in IT infrastructure costs
• Reducing the cost to reinvest in modernization (for example, moving to open systems and using the savings for modernization initiatives)
• Mitigating talent shortage concerns by drawing staff from a growing pool of modern application developers and architects
• Protecting your investment by using legacy applications while enjoying the benefits of distributed platforms
• Improving integration by unlocking apps and data to handle new requirements, mobility and analytics
• Creating the flexibility that you need to reap the benefits of the cloud’s scalability, elasticity and agility

Technology enablers and solution accelerators pace the landscape of change, but only pure experience and field-ready resourcing create the harmonious uplift from ideation to actuality. NTT DATA and UniKix on AWS M2 provide the tooling, the platform and the skills necessary for a complete mainframe migration transformation.

Check out NTT DATA UniKix on the AWS Marketplace or contact us to begin your migration journey.