Mainframe app dev and testing being outsourced for compliance

One-third of CIOs in Australia and New Zealand are outsourcing mainframe app development and testing to meet new industry regulations. This is a key finding of a study by Vanson Bourne on behalf of Micro Focus.

The research firm asked 590 CIOs and IT directors worldwide, including 50 in A/NZ, about how they are dealing with new legislation and industry regulations that require compliance changes to be made to an organisation’s mainframe apps.

In contrast, almost two-thirds (62 per cent) of CIOs in the United States and 40 per cent in the United Kingdom outsourced mainframe app testing.

Half of the CIOs polled across A/NZ also said it is likely or certain that the original knowledge of their mainframe apps and supporting data structures no longer exists in their organisations.

Nearly three-quarters (74 per cent) said their organisation’s documentation is incomplete, which makes it difficult to identify and make compliance changes to the right apps. Almost one-quarter (23 per cent) of CIOs said they lacked the capability to do app compliance change work in-house.

Meanwhile, 49 per cent of A/NZ CIOs contractually pass the legal responsibility for data protection and privacy requirements to a third party when outsourcing mainframe app development and testing to comply with new legislation.

Derek Britton, director of product marketing at Micro Focus, said legislative changes have resulted in new compliance measures such as ISO27002, Basel III, FACTA and SEPA.

“The complexities of missing code documentation, constrained resource pools and data privacy risks mean companies are frequently turning to the outsource market for this work,” he said.

“Contemporary technology can establish repeatable, effective steps for updating core applications, driving efficiencies in the compliance projects at every stage,” he said.