Many clients we work with, at some point in their career, will face the unenviable situation of migrating an inherited server. Typically it will be a server on which sits an application that has had years of customized code, several application upgrades and a host of undocumented rounds of tweeks, plugins and fixes. But hey… it works (just) and you don’t fix what ‘aint broke. Right?
But what if that hardware is out of support? What if things are just too complex for your current hardware to cope? What if security upgrades become a manual process involving 3rd parties and all sorts of tooth sucking consultancies? Suddenly, that maintenance costs gets too high. Suddenly, what you thought was going to provide years of application access, has run out of steam. Suddenly, you’re under pressure to migrate to younger, fitter hardware that can cope.
But what about all that custom code that was never documented? What about the data duplication to a staging and production environment? How can you produce a credible migration plan without accurate knowledge of what resides on your server? And this is why, dear reader, many a CIO has grey hair.
The good news is there are tools that can help.
We work with out of warranty IBMi users and IMi enviroments that just can’t cope, to ensure they know exactly what their application and storage environment look like, with deep insight into customised code, data sets and usage. This approach makes educated planning achievable. De risking any modernisation process for your business critical applications or data. Ensuring you remain compliant with your use of customer data and a trustworthy migration or upgrade plan can be executed without the risk of downtime.
Let’s be honest, any hardware migration is going to be fraught with risk and sleepless nights. However, the pressure of providing up-to-date hardware on which your business critical application and data reside is driving the need to find a more reliable way to modernize hardware. From this environment Fresche solutions are providing their IBMi migration toolsets. Enabling system administrators to identify customer code and data sets in preparation for any migration or upgrade activity.
If you are on an old IBMi environment that you’re struggling to support it, maybe it’s time to migrate or upgrade. No doubt you’ve inherited it, no doubt you’ve already had several sleepless night figuring out how to do it. No doubt you’re reading this and trying to figure out how we can help. The answer? Just call us and we’ll tell you about our last 200 IBMi migration projects.
