Ep225: From COBOL to Agile Workflows - Accelerate Mainframe Modernization with AWS Transform and Pega Blueprint

Experts from Pegasystems and AWS reveal how AI-powered tools now modernize decades-old mainframe systems in weeks instead of years—unlocking trapped data faster than ever.

Topics Include:

• Session covers accelerating mainframe modernization using AWS Transform and Pega Blueprint
• Agenda: challenges, joint solution, value prop, customer story, rollout mechanism
• Mainframe costs rise 20-30% yearly, straining IT budgets significantly
• Monolithic systems create long time-to-market, hurting competitiveness against newer rivals
• Mainframe data stays locked away, blocking AI adoption and innovation
• Retiring mainframe skills outpace new workforce training, compounding the problem
• AI now enables analyzing decades-old code bases within weeks, not years
• AWS Transform extracts business logic; Pega Blueprint visualizes modernized target applications
• Five-step journey: Transform, Pega Foundry, Blueprint, then deployment via Infinity platform
• Three Transform agents handle code, data, and activity analysis separately
• Data analysis covers data lineage and data dictionary schema extraction
• Outputs feed a knowledge graph, enabling natural language queries anytime
• Transform deterministically identifies distinct data paths from mainframe systems
• Data paths get grouped into business functions, each modernizable independently
• Final steps extract business logic and generate plain-English requirements
• Blueprint agent enriches Transform outputs, enabling intuitive workflow design
• Blueprint offers runtime previews and is publicly accessible at pega.com
• Pega Infinity platform handles both batch and online mainframe workloads
• Insurance company Unum modernized 1.5M lines of COBOL in three months
• Experience-Based Acceleration program delivers modernized, working code within four-to-six weeks

Participants:

• Surender Kumar – Director, Mainframe Modernization, Pegasystems
• Ujwal Bukka – Sr Partner Solutions Architect, Business Apps, Amazon Web Services
• Sourav Sarkar – Sr Worldwide Specialist Solutions Architect, Mainframe & Legacy Modernization, Amazon Web Services

See how Amazon Web Services gives you the freedom to migrate, innovate, and scale your software company at https://aws.amazon.com/isv/