HP, Intel and Oracle have announced a joint initiative to help customers increase business agility and performance, reduce operational cost, and mitigate risk when moving applications from mainframe systems to open standards-based server environments.

Introduced at Oracle OpenWorld, the Application Modernization Initiative provides customers a comprehensive solution to help modernize their legacy application portfolios running on legacy mainframes. The initiative uses service-oriented architecture (SOA) principles and enterprise grid computing platforms that provide increased reliability and efficiency without the dependency on legacy mainframe skills.

After a detailed assessment and analysis of the customer’s mainframe applications portfolio, an appropriate standards-based solution is recommended as a more agile and cost-effective alternative. As part of this process, a pre-defined and pre-tested reference architecture based on HP, Intel and Oracle technologies is used to reduce risk and implementation time.

The initiative incorporates HP servers based on Intel Itanium processors running Oracle infrastructure software. It also includes Application Modernization Services from HP along with access to architectural support from all three companies to help design the customer’s solution.

“Implementing an application modernization approach was crucial for us, as our IT systems were getting more costly and less effective. Plus, finding developers with legacy skill sets was becoming increasingly difficult,” said Sean Datcher, director, Sabre Holdings. “We can now add new functionality at a time-to-deployment that could not be achieved with our old systems. In addition, the flexibility and overall cost-effectiveness of this new architecture has really paid off in terms of increased revenue and improved business metrics for our organization.”

The Application Modernization Initiative consists of the following core components:

The Application Modernization Services portfolio from HP Services;
HP Integrity systems based on Intel Itanium processors working within the HP Virtual Server Environment Reference Architecture;
The Oracle Grid Computing Platform with industry-leading SOA capabilities, including Oracle Database 10g with Real Application Clusters; Oracle Fusion Middleware; and Oracle Enterprise Manager/Grid Control; and
Architectural design and consulting support from HP, Intel and Oracle.

The initiative is designed to provide customers with:

A path to a service-oriented architecture – offers an easy linkage of both legacy and new components with increased agility;
Process-driven systems – closely reflect the way business operates, resulting in lower cost and greater agility;
Incremental transition support – phased modernization approach that preserves original investment; and
Enterprise quality of service – achieved through the use of hardware and software grids for virtualization, failover, single point management and security.

“Customers burdened with the maintenance and cost of their legacy mainframe applications have the support of three market-leading technology companies to assist in the modernization of their environments,” said John McCain, senior vice president, Consulting and Integration Services, HP. “With the underlying reference architecture in place, HP Services can systematically enable customers to efficiently transition to a standards-based environment.”

“Open systems based on Intel Itanium processors like the HP Integrity server line, in addition to our Dual-Core Intel Xeon processor for servers, provide superior price/performance for mission-critical applications,” said Diane Bryant, vice president, Digital Enterprise Group, Intel. “Working together with HP and Oracle, we are able to deliver a more comprehensive and efficient IT environment for enterprises everywhere.”

“We are delighted to have Oracle’s Grid Computing platform playing such a key role in this initiative,” said John Gawkowski, vice president, Platform Technology Solutions, Oracle. “By joining with HP and Intel, we are able to give customers the confidence to finally address these expensive and inflexible legacy mainframe systems and get to a modern open-standards SOA-based solution.”