Benchmark Consulting Joins Mainframe Migration Alliance

ATLANTA, GA – Benchmark Consulting announced today that it has become a partner in the Mainframe Migration Alliance (MMA), joining with Microsoft Corp. and other key industry partners to help companies modernize mission-critical enterprise applications from their proprietary mainframe computers onto smaller, flexible and cost-effective systems running the Microsoft Windows platform.

“Benchmark Consulting has comprehensive technology in helping clients analyze and transform mainframe systems to open systems,” said Alain Picard, Benchmark Consulting chief strategy officer. “Through the use of our IRIS™ modernization platform, Benchmark Consulting can employ a standardized, model-driven approach to system transformation. This will allow organizations to rapidly and cost effectively evolve and modernize legacy mainframe applications. We are extremely pleased to be a member of the alliance, and we look forward to helping companies modernize their systems, as well as, contributing to the mission of the alliance.”

Using the Microsoft Windows Server platform and Microsoft .NET technology, MMA members help clients migrate their applications to the Windows platform, permitting them to benefit from new technology and the flexibility it affords. As part of their mainframe modernization approach, Benchmark Consulting’s technology supports open standards that define a model-driven view of application meta-data. Such standards provide the structure for detailed analysis of application environments relative to data flow, processes, functions, code issues, interfaces and more. Within IRIS™, is the ability to thoroughly analyze and decompose a mainframe application environment and represent the system as a model. Furthermore, IRIS™ can perform analysis and transformations on that model in order to migrate, translate, re-factor or simply document the application.

“Our approach of ‘model-driven modernization’ incorporates a comprehensive platform level repository that facilitates full system analysis and transformation capability,” said Mr. Picard. “The IRIS™ platform is a complete set of tools to analyze, evolve and transform COBOL based mainframe systems into new technologies.”

As part of the full legacy transformation lifecycle, IRIS™ technology automates significant migration tasks for COBOL to COBOL platform migrations, procedural to object-oriented application re-writes, 32-bit to 64-bit conversions and custom tailored modernization projects.

“We welcome Benchmark Consulting to the Mainframe Migration Alliance,” said Spyros Sakellariadis, director, Mainframe Alliance Program at Microsoft Corp. “With Benchmark Consulting’s comprehensive technology and services as well as support for solutions from other MMA members, we are confident they will provide value to the MMA as well as our mutual customers looking to migrate to the more flexible Windows platform.”


About Benchmark Consulting
Benchmark Consulting is a leading global provider of modernization solutions for legacy information systems and business processes. Its unique and revolutionary application modernization platform, IRIS™, and business process services help customers grow revenue, reduce costs, shorten time to market, and extend the ROI of their existing legacy systems. With IRIS™, Benchmark Consulting is unique in addressing the full range of IT modernization through automated migration solutions that mitigate risk, minimize IT downtime, and preserve application business logic. Benchmark Consulting offerings enable database, application, and platform migrations, system standardizations, application development and redevelopment; and application outsourcing. For more information, visit www.benchmarkconsulting.com.

About the Mainframe Migration Alliance
Formed in spring 2003, the Mainframe Migration Alliance is comprised of software vendors and service providers focused on enabling mainframe customers to meet the challenges posed by legacy application environments, including the pressures to reduce IT costs and increase the flexibility in IT systems. Additional information about the alliance can be found at: www.mainframemigration.org

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