With an estimated 200 billion lines of COBOL in production today, mainframe applications form the core of many financial and other services across the corporate world. These applications often encapsulate more than 20 years of business knowledge and embody the the distinctive competence of an organization. By migrating to SOA, organizations can combine the value of proven business functionality with the agility of reusing services and the capabilities of .NET and other contemporary programming environments.
Building SOA from Mainframe Code
The first step in the migration to SOA can also be the most difficult -- you need to identify which parts of the app can, and indeed should, be exposed as reusable services. SOA enablement could, for example, follow an enterprise-wide assessment identifying systems for modernization; say, a business requirement for a new Web interface or an IT need for the integration of multiple systems across the enterprise.
