Orlando, FL – October 18, 2011 – Clerity Solutions, a full-service provider of mainframe migration, modernization, and optimization solutions, today announced a statement of direction for a newly designed Windows- and .NET managed-code version of the company's industry-leading UniKix Mainframe Rehosting software. It will include migrating mainframe applications to the Windows Azure™ cloud. This new solution will help businesses dramatically lower costs and simplify operations when moving legacy applications to the Microsoft application platform.
"There is a growing interest among mainframe shops to move workloads," said Dale Vecchio, research vice president at Gartner Research. "As the scale of these migrations grows beyond the small, couple of hundred millions of instructions per second (MIPS) shops to shops with as high as 2,000 to 3,000 MIPS, being able to leverage a complete .NET implementation will become increasingly important to organizations with a long-term application modernization roadmap."
Deployed in more than 50 countries, Clerity's UniKix technology enables companies to lower annual operating costs up to 70 percent, while providing a flexible path forward for mission-critical mainframe application and data investments. Large enterprises such as BNP Paribas, NYSE Euronext, and the U.S. Department of Defense depend on UniKix to power business-critical online and batch applications originally written in a variety of languages, including COBOL, Natural, Assembler, and PL/1.
Based on UniKix technology, Veryant's vCOBOL Enterprise software, and Microsoft Visual Studio, this new solution is planned to be delivered in two phases, starting in the fourth quarter of 2011.
Phase One deliverables will include integration of Microsoft Visual Studio, IIS, and System Center Operations Manager to Clerity's robust mainframe rehosting platform, as well as a complete redevelopment of the Windows user experience within UniKix. This solution will make a rich user experience available to developers maintaining and modernizing legacy applications on the Windows Application Platform, as well as provide a full Windows look and feel for installation, configuration, and management of the rehosted environment.
Another planned Phase One deliverable includes a cloud hosting option with the Windows Azure. Organizations looking to lower cost-per-transaction rates and protect existing application and data investments will be able to take advantage of Clerity's proven rehosting technology on public and private Windows Azure deployments.
"Clerity's mainframe rehosting technology is designed to provide value to customers that want to reduce mainframe costs by moving their COBOL/CICS/ JCL applications to the Microsoft Application Platform," said Bob Ellsworth, director of Enterprise Platform Modernization at Microsoft. "Running rehosted mainframe applications as .NET components in the Windows Azure cloud with Clerity is aimed at providing a compelling and cost-effective alternative for IBM customers."
Phase Two is expected to extend Clerity's mainframe rehosting technology to a complete .NET framework that will take full advantage of Windows Azure. By enhancing UniKix technology to provide a Windows Azure Web Role and a Worker Role, in addition to a VM Role, users will be able to leverage software as a service (SaaS) features such as automated provisioning, fault-tolerant data storage, and continuous application availability to further simplify IT management requirements and lower costs during migration.
"Clerity's rehosting solution provides an innovative and dynamic environment for rehosted mainframe enterprise applications and data," said Glenn Dent, CTO of Clerity's Microsoft Practice. "Enabling customers to take full advantage of the .NET Framework and Windows Azure cloud in combination with UniKix will deliver unrivalled cost and performance benefits for IBM shops migrating mission-critical mainframe applications."
Visit
http://www.clerity.com/products/ to learn more about Clerity's mainframe migration and modernization solutions.
