OpenFrame is a

mainframe A mainframe computer, informally called a mainframe or big iron, is a computer used primarily by large organizations for critical applications like bulk data processing for tasks such as censuses, industry and consumer statistics, enterprise ...

rehosting solution developed by

TmaxSoft TmaxSoft is a South Korea-based multinational corporation specializing in enterprise software. It was founded in 1997 by Professor Daeyeon Park, former professor at KAIST (Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology). The company is separat ...

that aims to help customers move existing mainframe assets to the

cloud In meteorology, a cloud is an aerosol consisting of a visible mass of miniature liquid droplets, frozen crystals, or other particles suspended in the atmosphere of a planetary body or similar space. Water or various other chemicals may co ...

quickly and with minimal risk. It replaces legacy CICS/IMS/JES mainframe engines and shifts business applications written in legacy code like

COBOL COBOL (; an acronym for "common business-oriented language") is a compiled English-like computer programming language designed for business use. It is an imperative, procedural and, since 2002, object-oriented language. COBOL is primarily us ...

and

PL/I PL/I (Programming Language One, pronounced and sometimes written PL/1) is a procedural, imperative computer programming language developed and published by IBM. It is designed for scientific, engineering, business and system programming. I ...

Linux Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, which ...

. This allows reduced licensing costs compared to the mainframe. It also includes a test tool which helps users determine if the migration will preserve functionality without additional adjustments. The current version of OpenFrame is 7.0, which was first released in Japan in September, 2015. The previous version, OpenFrame 6.0 was released in the U.S. market in 2009.

Mainframe Migration

Organizations that run on mainframes tend to have difficulty with costs and agility. Rehosting is one approach an organization may take to migrate their mainframe operations to the cloud, with other options including batch-job migration and full re-engineering. With the rehosting option, the entire mainframe is emulated on the cloud so that the end-user experience is essentially unchanged.

Compatibility

OpenFrame advertises the following components can be migrated and continue working without modification, provided they run on open systems components such as Linux: *

Compilers In computing, a compiler is a computer program that translates computer code written in one programming language (the ''source'' language) into another language (the ''target'' language). The name "compiler" is primarily used for programs that ...

Assembler Assembler may refer to: Arts and media * Nobukazu Takemura, avant-garde electronic musician, stage name Assembler * Assemblers, a fictional race in the ''Star Wars'' universe * Assemblers, an alternative name of the superhero group Champions of A ...

* Datasets ** Flat files ** GDGs **

VSAM Virtual Storage Access Method (VSAM) is an IBM DASD file storage access method, first used in the OS/VS1, OS/VS2 Release 1 (SVS) and Release 2 (MVS) operating systems, later used throughout the Multiple Virtual Storage (MVS) architecture and now i ...

Databases In computing, a database is an organized collection of data stored and accessed electronically. Small databases can be stored on a file system, while large databases are hosted on computer clusters or cloud storage. The design of databases spa ...

IMS Ims is a Norwegian surname. Notable people with the surname include: * Gry Tofte Ims (born 1986), Norwegian footballer * Rolf Anker Ims (born 1958), Norwegian ecologist See also * IMS (disambiguation) Ims is a Norwegian surname. Notable people wit ...

** DB2 **

IDMS The Integrated Database Management System (IDMS) is a network model (CODASYL) database management system for mainframes. It was first developed at Goodrich Corporation, B.F. Goodrich and later marketed by Cullinane Database Systems (renamed Cull ...

Oracle An oracle is a person or agency considered to provide wise and insightful counsel or prophetic predictions, most notably including precognition of the future, inspired by deities. As such, it is a form of divination. Description The word '' ...

* Online Systems **

CICS IBM CICS (Customer Information Control System) is a family of mixed-language application servers that provide online transaction management and connectivity for applications on IBM mainframe systems under z/OS and z/VSE. CICS family products ...

* Batch Systems ** JES ** JCL

Notable Users

Kela

Kela, the Finnish government agency in charge of the nation's social security programs, used OpenFrame to rehost its mainframe. The agency had estimated that the rising costs of maintaining a mainframe would become prohibitive in the near future, and saw a shortage of IT professionals skilled in working in a mainframe environment. As a result, Kela was able to lift over 10 million lines of code to the rehosted environment and reduce the cost of system maintenance. Since the rehosted iteration was functionally similar to the mainframe system, Kela was also able to keep its existing IT staff in place.

GE Capital

GE Capital GE Capital is the financial services division of General Electric. The company currently only runs one division, GE Energy Financial Services. It had provided additional services in the past; however, those units were sold between 2013 and 2018 ...

opted to use OpenFrame to modernize its aging IT infrastructure, which was mostly made up of mainframes. Before rehosting, the GE Capital system was managing 5 million account schedules, over 382 interfaces, with up to 1,700 concurrent users, resulting in an average of 3.5 million transactions per day. In addition to high costs, the disaster recovery process was slow and the system was generally inefficient. OpenFrame allowed GE Capital to rehost without redeveloping any applications or changing the user interface. The results included 66% reduction in costs associated with running the system and a 240% increase in disaster recovery speed.{{Cite web, url=https://tmaxsoftnews.com/2016/03/03/ge-capital-revives-mainframe-with-openframe-by-tmaxsoft/, title=Assessing, Converting & Replatforming a Massive Business Critical Application with Astonishing Results, date=March 3, 2016

References

Proprietary software Software maintenance Installation software