01
Assessment and planning
An agreed engagement can review workloads, capacity, resilience, security and support arrangements before changes are proposed.
Mainframe Solutions
Mainframe solutions for mission-critical workloads
Some of an organisation’s most important services still run on the mainframe: payments, records, billing and core transaction processing. Afrocentric IP helps organisations keep those workloads secure, available and supportable, and connect them to the recovery and governance arrangements the service depends on.
Why this service matters
Core workloads that cannot be interrupted
A mainframe often carries the transactions an organisation cannot pause. When it is unavailable, the effect reaches customers, staff and partners at once. We help service owners and ICT teams understand what runs on the platform, what depends on it and what must be true for it to keep running, so decisions about operation, change and recovery follow the service rather than the hardware.
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Defined requirements
Agree which workloads are critical, the service levels they need and which existing arrangements remain fit for purpose.
03
Ownership and evidence
We connect platform work to named owners and acceptance evidence so the organisation can see current capability and remaining gaps.
04
Coordinated implementation
Where delivery depends on another team, platform vendor or provider, that contribution becomes part of the agreed scope.
Our service capabilities
Operating, protecting and recovering core platforms
A mainframe engagement starts with the workloads the organisation cannot afford to lose. We connect platform operation, security, recovery and support so that the arrangements work together under normal conditions and during disruption.
01
Understand critical workloads
We help identify the workloads, interfaces and dependencies that matter most, and what the organisation expects of them in availability, capacity and performance. This gives ICT and the business a shared basis for priorities.
02
Operate and support the platform
We support the day-to-day operation of the environment, covering monitoring, change, capacity and incident handling. Responsibilities between your team and ours are written down so that nobody has to guess who acts.
03
Align recovery and resilience
Where the platform needs protection against outages, we help connect its requirements to backup, disaster recovery and infrastructure decisions. Recovery arrangements should support the same service objectives as the workload itself.
04
Secure, review and improve
We help review access, configuration and operating practice, then use the findings to guide improvement. Reviews should produce evidence and assigned actions rather than a simple completed status.
Mainframe Solutions
How we address your requirements
We connect workload priorities, platform operation, security and recovery so the mainframe supports the services it carries, before, during and after disruption.
01
Identify the workloads and dependencies that matter
Start with the services the mainframe enables and the systems, data flows and teams that depend on it.
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Make operating responsibilities clear
We help define who monitors, changes, escalates and approves, so support works the same way every day.
03
Agree recovery objectives and verify the results
Recovery Time Objective, or RTO, defines the target restoration period for a workload or service.
04
Test arrangements and close practical gaps
A recovery test can show whether platform, data and procedures work together as the plan assumes.
05
Keep the platform secure and supportable
Access, configuration and skills all need an owner, and a plan for when people or suppliers change.
06
Prioritise improvements that can be delivered
Review findings need a route to implementation, with owners and timelines the organisation can sustain.
Built for critical and regulated environments
Financial services and public sector workloads
01 / Public institutions
Mainframe workloads for public institutions
For a public institution, a mainframe arrangement must be assessed against the service it enables and the institution’s applicable requirements, including accountability for public funds and information.
A platform review shows current operation, risk and capacity. It does not by itself prove that the workload can meet its recovery objectives, which is why recovery testing is considered separately.
We start by reviewing the current environment, the requirements that apply and the outcomes your organisation needs.
02 / Regulated industries
Platform decisions follow the critical service
For a bank, critical workloads might include payments and account processing; for an insurer, policy and claims processing.
Example critical workloads
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Banking Payments and account processing -
Government Records, billing and transaction services
The right platform approach follows the workload, its interruption impact and its dependencies.
From assessment to operation
Putting mainframe arrangements into practice
The engagement can connect platform assessment, solution design, implementation and ongoing support. We agree the workloads included and the owners who validate priorities. The outputs may include a platform assessment, dependency maps, an operating model and an improvement register.
Platform Assessment
Agree critical workloads and the owners who validate priorities.
Solution Design
Establish which changes require implementation and in what order.
Implementation
Deliver agreed changes with defined roles, runbooks and dependency maps.
Support & Improvement
Connect operation, testing and an improvement register.
Validation, evidence and handover
Platform change acceptance and ownership
Agree what each deliverable must establish: a validated workload priority, a working configuration, a usable runbook or a tested recovery. Involve the workload owners in reviewing the result. A configuration review and a recovery test answer different questions, so the scope should identify the evidence expected from each. Unresolved work remains visible in the improvement register rather than being absorbed into a general completion statement.
ACCEPTANCE EVIDENCE
Evidence can include
- Workload and dependency record
- Capacity and performance baseline
- Configuration and access review
- Recovery test results
Scope matters. Deliverables and tests are confirmed in the project scope. Your team confirms business priorities and validates outcomes that depend on how the service is used.
Ownership after delivery
Handover and ongoing responsibilities
Handover should leave platform owners with usable runbooks, clearly assigned tasks and an improvement record. Identify skills, access management and future testing responsibilities. Supporting backup and recovery work needs its own acceptance and should remain linked to the workload it protects.
FROM APPROVED CHANGE TO RELIABLE OPERATION
Practical insight
Knowledge that supports the workload
Supportability depends on people as well as platforms
Specialist knowledge
Document what keeps the workload supportable
Document the specialist knowledge needed for support, batch processing, interfaces and recovery. Identify the supplier and internal roles that maintain that knowledge.
Resilience planning
A resilience plan should explain how the workload remains supportable when a key individual is unavailable, alongside the platform and data recovery arrangements.
What you can expect
What you can expect.
Typical outputs DEPENDING ON SCOPE
MAINFRAME DELIVERABLES
06 POTENTIAL OUTPUTS
- 01 Platform and workload assessment
- 02 Dependency and capacity record
- 03 Assigned operating responsibilities
- 04 Runbooks and support arrangements
- 05 Recovery test findings
- 06 An improvement register
Frequently asked questions
Frequently asked questions.
MAINFRAME SOLUTIONS
Begin with the workloads your organisation cannot afford to interrupt and what they depend on.
Established core workloads may depend on particular transaction, performance and operating characteristics. Retention decisions should consider the service, supportability and alternatives, rather than the age of the platform alone.
The available engagement is defined against the platform, workload, interfaces and specialist skills required. Discuss the environment and operating concern so the delivery and support responsibilities can be established accurately.
Modernisation can involve infrastructure, integration or operating improvements. Replacement is one option, assessed through service impact, migration risk, cost and the organisation’s ability to maintain continuity during transition.
Core workloads may need application-consistent state, batch restart decisions and reconciliation across interfaces. Recovery must account for these conditions and obtain meaningful acceptance from the workload owner.
Integration can support continued use of core workloads. Assess data flow, security, performance and support dependencies so a new interface does not introduce an unmanaged failure or information integrity risk.
Describe the platform, critical workload, processing deadlines and known support or recovery concerns. Existing diagrams, interface records and current findings help establish an appropriate assessment or improvement scope.
MAINFRAME SOLUTIONS · 06 QUESTIONS
Related services and solutions
Explore connected capabilities.
Core platforms depend on the infrastructure, recovery and continuity arrangements around them. These services connect to mainframe work.
CONNECTED SERVICE
Disaster Recovery
Your recovery environment should be able to restore the services your organisation needs, in the order it needs them.
Explore Disaster Recovery
CONNECTED SERVICE
Business Continuity Management
Continuity planning establishes the activities, people and resources a platform’s recovery needs to support.
Explore Business Continuity
Get in touch
Let's build a more resilient tomorrow.
Discuss your mainframe requirements. We will assess workloads, interfaces, supportability and recovery around the services those platforms enable.
- Call us +27 11 214 0000
- Email us info@afrocentricip.com
- Book a consultation Discuss your requirements with our specialists.
- Expert guidance
- Practical solutions
- A long-term partner