Kyndryl and Microsoft unveil new application modernization services and generative AI capabilities for mainframe customers adopting Microsoft Cloud

End-to-end services help drive innovation and gain more value from mainframe applications and data

NEW YORK, Nov. 14, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Kyndryl (NYSE: KD), the world's largest IT infrastructure services provider, today launched a portfolio of new end-to-end services that offer enterprises a comprehensive path to modernizing their mainframe applications with the Microsoft Cloud. These new services will accelerate mainframe application migration while unlocking AI insights and generative AI capabilities through Microsoft technologies like Azure OpenAI, Microsoft Copilot and Azure DevOps.

Leveraging Kyndryl's deep expertise in both mainframe and Microsoft Cloud, these services are designed to modernize applications and data for Microsoft Azure. Kyndryl understands the rigorous demands of mission-critical mainframe applications and the complex security and regulatory requirements that often surround them. Kyndryl Consult will engage with customers to create a tailored plan aimed at meeting their requirements and maximizing their business outcomes.

"Kyndryl's strategic alliance with Microsoft, decades of experience advising, implementing and managing mission-critical mainframe applications, coupled with thousands of skilled experts in this domain, makes us the ideal partner to guide customers on their mainframe modernization and AI initiatives with Microsoft Azure," said Petra Goude, Global Practice Leader for Core Enterprise & zCloud at Kyndryl. "We can help organizations elevate their hybrid IT operating models and enrich core business applications and data with Azure, while advancing security, accelerating generative AI deployment, and expanding the developer ecosystem using the latest Microsoft Copilot technologies."

"With Microsoft's generative AI capabilities, and Kyndryl's mainframe modernization services, we can help customers leverage the Microsoft Cloud to drive innovation and realize new value from their data and mainframe applications," said Shelly Blackburn, Corporate Vice President, Microsoft. "Our expanded collaboration will enable data-driven decision-making across the enterprise, so customers can accelerate business transformation."

Led by the expertise and guidance of Kyndryl Consult, the comprehensive new service portfolio offers customers five paths to mainframe modernization with Microsoft Azure, tailored to their specific needs and strategy and allowing a focus on the 'right workload on the right platform' approach that is most essential to achieving their critical business outcomes:

• Systems integration – Kyndryl Consult provides integration services that enable customers to create new cloud-native applications using the Microsoft Cloud Adoption Framework for Azure and to re-platform other applications in parallel. Kyndryl extends Microsoft Azure DevSecOps pipelines to the mainframe, incorporating both cloud and mainframe applications in the agile development process. This allows for automated testing and code scanning for both source and target, driving consistency across the mainframe and Azure platforms.
• Data governance - By synchronizing mainframe data using Azure SQL Managed Instance and mainframe-based replication software, customers can immediately implement and enforce data governance practices with Azure Purview across cloud and mainframe estates. This capability works to maintain access to sensitive data throughout the transformation journey.
• Application modernization – Kyndryl's approach to application development enables customers to innovate rapidly by incorporating Azure cloud-native architectures, microservices, DevOps support and built-in monitoring to modernize the mainframe application portfolio.
• AI deployment – Kyndryl has extensive AI expertise to help customers unlock value from mainframe data and drive innovation with Microsoft Fabric. By incorporating cloud-based contextualized data with a real-time copy of mainframe data, customers can take advantage of cloud-based analytics, Microsoft Copilot and Power BI to provide insights, visualizations and graphical dashboards without impacting mainframe utilization.
• Security – Kyndryl's security capabilities integrate Microsoft Sentinel and authentication and policy frameworks with the mainframe, enabling a single auditable control plane across the hybrid estate. Establishing a day-one zero-trust security posture helps customers comply with their regulatory compliance requirements.

According to Kyndryl's 2024 Mainframe Modernization Survey, 86% of respondents are moving fast to adopt AI to accelerate mainframe modernization. Additionally, almost half aim to use generative AI to unlock and transform critical mainframe data into actionable insights. Furthermore, 96% of respondents are migrating some workloads, on average 36%, to the cloud. With the new mainframe modernization services for Microsoft Azure, Kyndryl is poised to support customers on their digital transformation and AI adoption to future-proof their IT environment.

For more information about Kyndryl and Microsoft's mainframe modernization initiative, please visit: https://www.kyndryl.com/us/en/about-us/alliances/microsoft.

About Kyndryl 
Kyndryl (NYSE: KD) is the world's largest IT infrastructure services provider, serving thousands of enterprise customers in more than 60 countries. The company designs, builds, manages and modernizes the complex, mission-critical information systems that the world depends on every day. For more information, please visit www.kyndryl.com.

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SOURCE Kyndryl