When it comes to mainframe applications, the target audience and skill sets have often been specifically preordained. Because they were never built with broader use in mind, these monolithic systems have their logic tightly intertwined with their data. But they might not be as “locked up“ as many IT professionals think.
Although service enablement is an effective way to make applications more flexible, there are some cases where service enablement would not add enough business value to justify this approach. If you want to retain the present skill set and majority of the application workflow, but simply make it easier for end users to handle, service enablement could be excessive.
What you might want instead is most commonly (and quickly) achieved by providing a new web interface and, as needed, simple controls over application workflow. It’s a process that is becoming popularly known as application rejuvenation. This paper presents the user perspective, the IT perspective, and methods for accomplishing rejuvenation.
Open the PDF to read the full brief.