Rocket Software Partner Webinar Series: Kyndryl + Rocket: Unlock the Power of the Mainframe for Your Hybrid Cloud Strategy

June 20, 2023

As more businesses prioritize modernizing their infrastructure and applications, having an effective hybrid cloud strategy is becoming critical. Hybrid cloud has picked up a vast amount of attention in the IT world, evolving into something of a buzzword whenever there’s talk of modernization. But it’s not just a buzzword. A hybrid cloud is an important driver of business success. However, like many other newly adopted technologies, there are a host of challenges and factors that can complicate any hybrid strategy.

In the latest edition of the Rocket Software Partner Webinar Series, we were joined by a panel of experts including Kyndryl’s Clea Zolotow, VP and Distinguished Engineer and Marci Formato, Director, and Principal Architect, alongside Rocket Software’s Tim Willging, VP and Fellow and Shashi Siddi, Head of Innovation and Partner Solutioning, moderated by Mac Gupta, Sr. Director, at Rocket Software.

Together, our expert panelists came together to help demystify some of the toughest challenges and offer best practices for everything from managing data across hybrid cloud infrastructure to the management of critical business documents. Let’s take a look at a few of the highlights from the conversation.

Managing Data Across Cloud and On-Premise Environments

For any hybrid cloud strategy to be successful, data needs to be able to flow freely from one environment to another. And anytime data leaves a secure environment, new risks will emerge. That’s a reality that organizations today are acutely aware of. When reflecting on the biggest challenges in managing data across both cloud and on-premise environments, Kyndryl’s Marci Formato noted security as a top concern. There’s a critical need to understand data sources and where the security controls are currently in place. Beyond security, there’s plenty of other factors to consider too, ranging from how data is used to where it’s stored.

So, when an organization sets out to face those challenges and modernize with a hybrid cloud strategy, what should they consider? To start, it’s important to look at how the organization views the mainframe. As Kyndryl’s Clea Zolotow notes, in spite of the perception of some, the mainframe is a modern machine—it’s the applications on it that need modernizing. This means when an organization is managing data across multiple environments, they also must architect applications to include functionality that exists in the mainframe as they migrate.

The Importance of Effective Monitoring Strategies

As organizations progress through a hybrid cloud journey, monitoring becomes a greater challenge for IT teams. Rocket Software’s Tim Willging explained that as that journey progresses, these businesses now suddenly have portions of applications scattered across both the mainframe and cloud environments. But regardless of that reality, organizations still want, and need, faster response times and data to be effectively secured no matter the platform. Doing that takes the right kind of monitoring strategy. And the best strategy to accomplish that goal comes with bringing data into open, self-described, formats. Traditionally, a lot of mainframe data has been locked up in older formats that deal only with the mainframe, which can become a problem when organizations start migrating applications and data across environments.

With the sheer volume of data and the speed at which many organizations today now move, one other important piece of any strategy is the ability to do monitoring in real-time. Rocket Software’s Shashi Siddi points out we are all currently living in a streaming world. If an organization wants to build monitoring that is actionable, data virtualization of those data sets and real-time reporting are the way forward.

Securing Connections Between Cloud and On-Premise Environments

Any hybrid strategy will require new connections between applications that exist on-premise and those that are in a cloud environment. Whenever data is moved, organizations open themselves up to new vulnerabilities and risks. But as Willging has seen, how to handle securing these applications is still up for debate among customers with some opting to have a mainframe system authorization facility (SAF) interface handle security, while others opt for cloud-based security options. And bringing those two worlds together is something that presents a major challenge for the industry. Both have an important role to play.

Regardless of the security interface in use, organizations need to ensure any data in motion, or at rest, is encrypted at all times. Some tools like VPNs have seen use within the industry, extending across the mainframe and cloud to help protect data. And elsewhere multifactor authentication has started to quickly become the industry standard among IT and security leaders. Securing data and applications in a hybrid environment brings new challenges, but having a trusted partner with the right expertise can make that journey less daunting and more impactful.

These topics are only a snapshot of everything our panelists broke down. Interested to find out how Rocket Software and Kyndryl are simplifying the journey to hybrid cloud? Check out the full conversation and see what else our experts have to offer.