Build AWS Mainframe Modernization skills with these new courses

Mainframes are still present in the largest companies in the world, processing billions of transactions a day. With time, the needs of these companies and their mainframe workloads have shifted to meet the demands of their users. The advent of cloud, disruptive competitors, and global events have steered these companies’ drivers towards increased agility, cost optimization, and risk mitigation. AWS Mainframe Modernization helps customers migrate and modernize their on-premises mainframe applications to a cloud native fully-managed runtime environment on AWS.

The service is comprised of components that will each play a role to achieve a successful modernization.

1. Analyzer: allowing you to analyze applications for assessment and planning;
2. Converter: converting the mainframe programming languages into modern languages;
3. Developer: IDEs with added capabilities that match the runtime selected;
4. Compiler: compiling mainframe programming languages to run on x86 instances;
5. Transfer: data transfer through file transfer or database replication;
6. Runtime: where your modernized workloads run in AWS

Diagram of the components of the AWS Mainframe Modernization service

Benefits of modernizing mainframes workloads with AWS

The benefits of the AWS Mainframe Modernization service are aligned with the customer drivers. Customers can achieve increased agility through the use of DevOps practices, on-demand and fully managed infrastructure. They can achieve cost reduction through pay-as-you-go elastic infrastructure, with a low cost of entry. Customers can also mitigate their risks through the use of a cloud native service, with managed compute and middleware as well as built-in automation and integrations, through the use of proven toolchains for replatforming, refactoring, and data transfer, through resiliency with security, high availability, and elasticity, and through faster modernization with incremental changes, efficient toolchains, quickly providing value.

The benefits of AWS Mainframe Modernization: agility, cloud native service, proven toolchains, resiliency, fast modernization, and cost efficiency.

Build skills with these training courses

As customers start to modernize their mainframe workloads to meet their goals, they rely on skills that are diverse and complementary, such as mainframe, mainframe modernization, and cloud skills. In order to help our customers and partners build skills to support their mainframe modernization with AWS journeys, we have launched 10 self-paced courses.

Start with Approach to AWS Mainframe Modernization, then Mainframe Modernization Patterns and Best Practices, then Getting Started with AWS Mainframe Modernization Service.

Free self-paced digital courses:

Approach to Mainframe Migration and Modernization is a 60-minute, fundamental level digital course, intended for technical and business audience who play the roles of Developers, Solutions Architects and Product Owners. During this course, individuals will learn about the most common mainframe modernization drivers, AWS value proposition for mainframe workloads, walking away with an understanding of the key approaches to mainframe modernization using the three phases of migration (Assess, Mobilize, and Migrate and Modernize).

Mainframe Modernization Patterns and Best Practices is a 60-minute, fundamental level digital course, intended for technical audience who play the roles of Developers and Solutions Architects. During the course, individuals will learn to identify and apply patterns of the AWS Mainframe Modernization, walking away with the best practices for successful mainframe modernization project implementation on AWS.

Getting Started with AWS Mainframe Modernization Service is a 60-minute, fundamental level digital course, intended for technical and business audience who play the roles of Developers, Solutions Architects and Product Owners. During this course, individuals will learn how AWS Mainframe Modernization helps migrate and modernize mainframe applications to AWS managed runtime environment through Automated Refactor and Re-platform patterns. Learners will walk away with understanding of the tools and resources to help plan, and implement mainframe migration and modernization on AWS.

Getting Started with AWS Mainframe Modernization Refactor with AWS Blu Age is a 60-minute, fundamental level digital course, intended for technical and business audience who play the roles of Developers, Solutions Architects and Product Owners. During this course, individuals will learn how AWS Blu Age can automatically transform legacy mainframe business applications to Java-based applications, walking away with the understanding of the tools to help plan and refactor mainframe applications on AWS.

Mainframe workloads Fast Track to Agility is a 60-minute, intermediate level digital course, intended for technical and business audience who play the roles of Developers, Solutions Architects and Product Owners. During the course, individuals will learn about the overall path of evolving mainframe workloads into agile services. In addition, learners will get familiar with the macroservices created by tool-based workload migrations, further decompose them into microservices, walking away with recognizing benefits related to agility, cost reduction, and risk mitigation.

Courses exclusively for AWS Partners:

AWS Partner: Mainframe Discovery approach and Questions (Technical) is a 60-minute, fundamental level digital course, intended for technical audience who play the role of Solutions Architects. During this course, individuals will learn to better gather required technical information for each modernization activity, walking away with an understanding of how to use the prescribed discovery approach of Mainframe questions assessment in the AWS Assessment Tool.

AWS Partner: IBM z/OS Essentials is a 45-minute, fundamental level digital course, intended for technical and business audience who play the roles of Developers, Solutions Architects and Product Owners. During this course, individuals will learn about IBM Mainframes, walking away with better understanding of legacy mainframe ecosystems, application components, architecture, data formats, file systems and external system integrations.

AWS Partner: End to End AWS Blu Age Refactoring Process (Technical) is a 45-minute, intermediate level digital course, intended for technical audience who play the roles of Developers and Solutions Architects. During the course, individuals will understand the refactoring process of a legacy mainframe application. In addition, individuals will learn how AWS Blu Age powers the automated refactoring pattern within the AWS Mainframe Modernization service, walking away with the ability to accelerate the modernization of mainframe applications.

AWS Partner: Mainframe Modernization Proof of Concept Scoping with AWS Blu Insights (Technical) is a 70-minute, intermediate level digital course, intended for technical and business audience who play the roles of Developers, Solutions Architects, Project Managers and Product Owners. During this course, individuals will learn how to narrow a Proof of Concept (POC) scope to transform the legacy codebase of a mainframe application. Individuals will walk away with understanding of how to analyze legacy applications and to define the POC perimeter with Blu Insights tool.

AWS Partner: Transform using AWS Mainframe Modernization Transformation Center (Technical) is a 75-minute, intermediate level digital course, intended for technical audience who play the roles of Developers and Solutions Architects. During this course, individuals will learn to transform and refactor Mainframe legacy applications from COBOL to Java, through AWS Blu Insights. Learners will walk away with the ability to use Blu Insights Transformation center to resolve code errors, create code refactoring and implement custom transformations.

Training courses in development

AWS Training and Certification is continually building and adding new self-paced digital courses and self-paced hands-on labs for mainframe modernization on AWS. Keep an eye on the AWS Training and Certification Blog for our monthly course launch updates (published on last week of each month) and AWS Skill Builder, our online learning center, for all the latest training offerings.