The mainframe applications service BT's legacy copper business and consumer broadband products and project will see the digital unit move critical these legacy applications that cannot be shut down in the short term to the cloud.
The ten-year partnership, which leverages Kyndryl’s hyperscaler capabilities and partner ecosystem, will enable BT Group to reduce mainframe operating costs and energy consumption by 70%, resulting in savings worth more than £17 million a year by 2026.
“We like thinking out of the box to solve complex problems - like how to move off mainframes given the prohibitive increase in legacy infrastructure cost - without rewriting decades-old applications,” said Harmeen Mehta, chief digital and innovation officer at BT Group.
“With that mindset, working with Kyndryl, we figured out how to turn legacy mainframes into modern digital apps and run them at a fraction of the cost.”
The news is an extension of the existing partnership with BT and Kyndryl, which currently runs BT Group’s mainframe estate.
As part of the project, some applications are being retired, contributing to BT’s target to have to fewer than 500 strategic systems by 2027; refactored, meaning they are redeveloped into exsiting systems and architecture; or rehosted so that they are repackaged to operate in a cloud environment.
Applications will be connected BT Group’s service management platform and support its AIOps self-healing IT estate model.
“It’s exciting to be partnering with BT Group on such an ambitious and critical programme," added Petra Goude, global practice leader, core enterprise and zCloud at Kyndryl.
"Migrating from mainframes to cloud extends the usefulness and lifespan of these applications in a modern, micro-services led, cloud-centric way and helps unlock intelligent data insights. We’re excited to draw on our deep knowledge, ecosystem of partners and community of industry leading experts to help deliver this transformation.”
