Replatforming and refactoring to minimize risk and maximize modernization

Replatforming involves moving your existing mainframe applications to run on different infrastructure—such as cloud platforms or commodity hardware—without fundamentally changing the application code. This approach preserves your business logic while reducing infrastructure costs and increasing deployment flexibility.

Refactoring, on the other hand, involves restructuring and modernizing the application code itself to improve maintainability, performance, or compatibility with modern development practices. This might include transforming legacy Assembler code into more maintainable languages or restructuring monolithic applications into more modular architectures.

Rocket Software's solutions often combine both approaches, allowing you to move applications to modern infrastructure while selectively refactoring code where it delivers the most value. This balanced approach minimizes risk while maximizing the benefits of modernization.

Rocket Software prioritizes business continuity throughout the modernization journey. Our approach includes:

Semantics-preserving transformations: We use compiler-grade analysis to ensure that refactored code maintains exact functional equivalence with the original, eliminating the risk of logic errors.

Comprehensive dependency analysis: Enterprise Analyzer maps all application dependencies, data flows, and integration points before any changes are made, preventing unexpected disruptions.

Phased migration strategies: We enable gradual transitions that allow you to validate each step before proceeding, rather than risky "big bang" approaches.

Production-proven platforms: Enterprise Server provides enterprise-grade reliability and performance, ensuring your applications run with the same stability on modern infrastructure.

Our customers have successfully modernized thousands of applications with zero service interruption, demonstrating that modernization doesn't have to mean disruption.

Yes. Rocket Software's replatforming solutions enable you to deploy existing COBOL applications directly to cloud infrastructure without rewriting code. Enterprise Server provides a highly compatible runtime environment that executes your COBOL applications on cloud platforms—including AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud—with minimal or no code changes.

This approach preserves your investment in existing business logic while delivering cloud benefits such as elastic scalability, pay-as-you-go pricing, and integration with cloud-native services. You can modernize your deployment infrastructure today and selectively refactor application code over time as business needs dictate, rather than undertaking expensive, risky rewrite projects.

Organizations typically achieve cost reductions of 75-90% through replatforming, with savings coming from multiple sources:

Infrastructure costs: Moving from expensive mainframe MIPS to commodity x86 or cloud infrastructure dramatically reduces hardware and licensing expenses.

Operational efficiency: Automation and modern DevOps practices reduce the time and effort required for deployment, testing, and maintenance.

Resource optimization: More efficient use of infrastructure means you can run more workloads on less hardware, improving utilization rates.

Faster time-to-market: Reduced deployment cycles mean new features and services reach customers faster, improving competitive positioning and revenue generation.

For example, one global insurer reduced their time-to-market from six months to two months, while AG Insurance achieved 75% annual cost savings. 

Refactoring addresses the skills gap in several important ways:

Modern development environments: Enterprise Developer provides familiar, modern IDEs that reduce the learning curve for new developers, making mainframe development accessible to a broader talent pool.

Improved code maintainability: Refactored code is clearer, better documented, and easier to understand, reducing dependency on specialized expertise.

Automated analysis and documentation: Enterprise Analyzer automatically documents complex systems, capturing knowledge that might otherwise exist only in the minds of retiring experts.

Standardized practices: Moving to modern DevOps workflows and CI/CD pipelines aligns mainframe development with practices that current developers already know.

By making legacy systems more accessible and maintainable, refactoring helps you leverage your existing workforce more effectively while reducing the urgency of finding increasingly scarce mainframe specialists. 

Rocket Software's modernization solutions are designed to meet the most stringent security and compliance requirements:

Security certifications: Our platforms maintain industry-standard security certifications and comply with frameworks such as SOC 2, ISO 27001, and others relevant to regulated industries.

Audit trails: Comprehensive logging and tracking capabilities ensure that all changes are documented for compliance and audit purposes.
Access controls: Role-based access control and authentication mechanisms protect sensitive code and data throughout the modernization process.

Data protection: Encryption, secure communication protocols, and data handling practices ensure that sensitive information remains protected.

Regulatory compliance: Solutions are designed to support compliance with industry-specific regulations such as PCI DSS for financial services, HIPAA for healthcare, and others.

Our approach preserves the security and compliance posture of your existing applications while enabling you to adopt modern security practices and cloud-native security services. We understand that for regulated industries, compliance isn't optional—it's fundamental to successful modernization.