From a stable legacy estate to an AI-enabled one
the stack evolves.
your estate keeps
running.
The integration platforms that run South African enterprises moved to IBM. The core data and language platforms did not. Here is what that means in practice — and the path from a stable legacy estate to an AI-enabled one, without a rewrite.
VENDORS
IBM – Software AG
FOCUS
Integration & Modernisation
REGION
Southern Africa
ENGAGEMENT
Build | Support | Deliver
software reference
HYBRID ENVIRONMENT
driving enterprise integration and modernisation®
all software
one estate. one plan.
what moved, what stayed
In July 2024 IBM completed its acquisition of the integration portfolio. The Adabas and
Natural business continued separately. As a result, most enterprise estates now span both — which is
exactly the position we work in every day.
EMPHASIS
hybrid by design.
NOW IBM
the integration & host layer
Acquisition completed 1 July 2024
- webMethods — Integration Server and API Gateway; the integration backbone
- EntireX® — RPC and messaging connectivity to core business logic
- ApplinX® — green-screen applications exposed as modern services
- StreamSets — data ingestion and streaming pipelines
Support routes, licensing and product direction for these now follow IBM. Consequently, if your integration layer is one of these, your vendor relationship has changed even where nothing in your environment has. We can help you plan around it — architectural consulting.
SOFTWARE AG
the data & language core
Continuing as a standalone business
- Adabas — the transactional database behind mission-critical systems
- Natural — the language and applications built on it
- NaturalONE — modern development environment and DevOps tooling
- Natural API Server — core business logic exposed as APIs
- CONNX® — relational and virtualised access to Adabas data
The core that runs the business is not going anywhere. As a result, investment here remains sound — and remains the foundation everything else connects to. See legacy modernisation with APIs & microservices.
the roadmap, in four phases
Modernisation fails when it starts with a rewrite. Instead, it works when each phase leaves the estate more capable than it found it, and each one pays for the next. This is the sequence we deliver.
01
PHASE
stabilise
Before anything changes, what runs must keep running. Platform tuning, incident resolution, upgrade paths and operational visibility across z/OS, Linux and Windows. Unglamorous, and the reason the later phases are possible at all.
SOFTWARE IN PLAY
Typical first step: a platform health and risk review across the integration estate.
02
PHASE
integrate
Replace point-to-point tangles with a governed integration fabric. As a result, core business logic becomes callable — from distributed applications, cloud workloads and partner channels — without rewriting a line of the core itself.
SOFTWARE IN PLAY
03
PHASE
modernise
Change the shape of the estate, not its substance. Green screens become web and mobile channels. Adabas data becomes queryable as ordinary relational endpoints. COBOL and Natural code is refactored with AI assistance rather than by hand.
SOFTWARE IN PLAY
04
PHASE
activate
Data that has been accumulating for forty years becomes something the business can ask questions of. Trusted, governed pipelines from the core into analytics and AI — with the data quality work done first, because the alternative is confident nonsense.
SOFTWARE IN PLAY
the direction of travel
Three shifts worth planning around. None of them requires acting today. However, all of them are cheaper to prepare for than to react to.
CONSOLIDATION
one integration portfolio, not two
IBM now holds both its own integration products and the acquired platform. Overlapping capabilities are being rationalised. Knowing which side of that your estate sits on is a planning question worth answering early rather than at renewal.
AI-ASSISTED CHANGE
refactoring stops being manual
AI code assistance for COBOL and mainframe modernisation has moved from demonstration to delivery. However, it does not remove the need for people who understand the estate — it removes the years of reading before they can act.
CORE DATA ACTIVATION
the mainframe becomes an AI source
The path from core transactional data to enterprise AI is now a supported one rather than a bespoke project. Accordingly, the constraint shifts from plumbing to governance — what may be asked, by whom, and with what audit trail.
where this leaves you
“We run Adabas and Natural.”
See Adabas & Natural and our Adabas & Natural services.
“We run webMethods, EntireX® and ApplinX®.”
See webMethods, EntireX®, ApplinX® and webMethods expertise.
“We’re being asked about AI.”
See watsonx AI for infrastructure, watsonx Code Assistant for COBOL and CONNX® data virtualisation.
where to go next
Product reference pages and the services that deliver them.
platform design & deployment
webMethods, IBM MQ and Cloud Paks on resilient hybrid topologies.
watsonx Code Assistant
Analyse, refactor and transform COBOL while preserving business logic.
legacy modernisation
Bridges for Natural, COBOL, MQ and DB2 — extending legacy value through APIs.
get in touch
let’s talk about your IBM roadmap.
If the ownership change raised questions you haven’t had answered — about support, licensing, direction, or what to do first — we’d like to understand the estate and show you what works in practice.