An Information Technology Specialist & Advisor at Magnitune Technology Services,Sreedhar Maley , a certified enterprise database professional on Linux, windows and mainframe platforms, who has extensive experience modernizing and transforming legacy mainframe applications to run on modern Linux and Windows based operating environment explains “Rehosting” as just another term for “Lift and Shift”, i.e., lift the business applications from the traditional mainframe host, and move them to new hardware environment, generally, to a cloud-based application environment like Google or AWS or, Azure in the present day context.
Sreedhar explains that in such modernization initiatives, online application code written in COBOL or PL/I built upon CICS transaction processing system, or batch applications based on JES ( job entry subsystem on the mainframe for managing batch workloads) could be migrated to Linux as a "first" step, which could potentially result in savings in licensing costs.
In this strategy, mainframe applications code gets recompiled in a modern open system, and by preserving business logic. Solutions in this segment are based on specialized execution environment needed by legacy applications. Once these legacy applications are rehosted, they could service your customers with high availability and with low maintenance, and thus allowing the organization take up the initiatives related to next-level in the modernization journey.
For example, OpenFrame is one such product that is developed by TmaxSoft, which enables organizations to rehost Mainframe applications in cloud environments.