Mainframe Assessment Tool helps assess your existing mainframe codebase and plan your migration to Google Cloud. Mainframe Assessment Tool automates assessment, saving you time and resources. It uses generative AI to help you understand your existing codebase and generate documentation.
The mainframe migration journey has the following phases: discover and assess, plan, and migrate workloads. Mainframe Assessment Tool helps you discover and assess your existing codebase and plan your migration, you can then modernize your code for migration by using the mainframe modernization products available in Google Cloud. For more information about modernizing your mainframe application, see mainframe modernization overview.
Languages
Mainframe Assessment Tool supports the analysis of the following languages:
- COBOL programs and copybooks
- JCL jobs, procedures, includes, and card data
- HLASM programs
- PL/I programs (Preview)
- RPG/RPGLE programs and include files
- Easytrieve programs
- Natural for z/OS (Preview)
- Fortran (Preview)
Database schemas
Mainframe Assessment Tool supports the following database schemas:
- DB2: through Embedded SQL
- IMS DB: through
EXEC DLIandCBLTDLIcalls
Transaction monitors
Mainframe Assessment Tool supports the following transaction monitors:
- CICS: through
EXEC CICSstatements - IMS DC: through
CBLTDLIcalls
Scheduler configurations
Mainframe Assessment Tool supports the following scheduler configurations:
- BMC Control-M
Mainframe migration journey
The following diagram illustrates the overall migration journey of mainframe applications:
The migration journey has the following phases:
- Discover and assess your existing codebase: Mainframe Assessment Tool helps you perform an assessment of the mainframe application footprint, technology stack, and dependencies. After you upload a zip file that contains code for one or more mainframe applications, Mainframe Assessment Tool scans the application code and provides you with an assessment. Automating the assessment process with Mainframe Assessment Tool saves your organization the time and effort of manually collecting and processing the application code.
- Plan the migration: You can use the detailed assessment from Mainframe Assessment Tool to plan your migration more quickly and to lower migration risks. To help you plan, Mainframe Assessment Tool automatically groups mainframe assets into sequenced migratable units based on call and data dependencies, and user configuration.
- Migrate workloads: Depending on the choices that you made during the planning phase, you can use Google Cloud solutions to start migrating.
Code modernization
After you complete your assessment by using Mainframe Assessment Tool, you can start modernizing your code. This process involves transforming your legacy mainframe applications into modern, cloud-native applications. By modernizing, you can enhance agility, scalability, and security, while reducing maintenance costs and complexity.
The key activities in the modernization process include the following:
- Generate and transform code: use the Gemini CLI to convert your mainframe application to modernized applications using natural language prompts and automated workflows. Gemini CLI uses Mainframe Assessment Tool through the MCP server to understand your application context and generate modernized code.
- Modernize and migrate mainframe data: use Mainframe Connector to make mainframe data fully accessible to Google Cloud services by copying it off the mainframe and into Cloud Storage, BigQuery and databases.
- Reduce migration risks with parallel testing: use Dual Run to run workloads on both your mainframe and Google Cloud simultaneously to ensure consistency and functional validation before production.
For more information about the tools and processes involved in modernizing your mainframe applications, see mainframe modernization overview.
Data collection security and privacy
Mainframe Assessment Tool only collects information extracted from the zip file that you provide. It doesn't collect personally identifiable information (PII) or data subject to Payment Card Industry (PCI) data security standard, or Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) compliance requirements.
All the collected data is used only to assess and analyze your applications for the purposes of cloud migration assessment and planning. Your data is never exported outside the VM on which it is deployed. The source code is uploaded to Vertex AI, but the model is not enriched by information extracted from this source code.