The News: Model9 continues its dynamic growth and solution completeness by announcing further updates to its partnership with AWS last week at a packed AWS re:Invent. For more details on what was announced check out the Press Release here.

Model9 Partners with AWS to Drive Hybrid Cloud and Simplify Large-Scale Mainframe Data Movement

Analyst Take: I had the opportunity to grab time with Gil Peleg the Founder and CEO of Model9 last week at a packed AWS re:Invent and get some insight into the fast growth trajectory that the company is on and dig into the details of what the company has in store for the partnership with AWS and ultimately other hyperscalers.

Model9, whose mission is to be the market-leading cloud data management mainframe software company has been on an upward growth trajectory over the last couple of years. The company has moved beyond the early stages of bringing a product to market and has now matured to the point where the company has inked a series of relationships with key storage hardware vendors to build out a robust ecosystem of partners.

The announcement at re:Invent last week marks another point on the maturity curve of this software vendor. While the relationship with AWS is not new, the key takeaway for me was the depth of the engineering effort that has gone into the collaboration. Peleg was detailed in his description of the considerable joint R&D work that has gone into the latest announcements. Peleg was keen to stress that the collaboration extends far beyond the traditional procurement-driven approach where an ISV puts its software in the AWS marketplace so AWS customers can consume the solution by drawing down AWS credits.

Model9 and AWS Partner To Drive Hybrid Cloud

Model9 announced that its Cloud Data Platform will be used as a key building block of AWS’ mainframe modernization solution. The design point is to simplify and accelerate mainframe modernization initiatives by making it easier to get mainframe data from on-premises to the cloud for various scenarios, including backup and cyber resilience.

IBM claims that mainframes still store and create roughly 80% of the world’s corporate data. This huge trove of data includes both active data from applications still running on mainframes, as well as decades of historical data kept for regulatory compliance, archival, and data protection.

As organizations look to embrace the benefits of hybrid multi-cloud, the ability to move data between locations, cloud and on and off-premises is a key barrier. The Model9 File Transfer solution addresses a major challenge holding back mainframe modernization initiatives by enabling the efficient and secure movement of mainframe data to the cloud from the on-premises storage systems it is currently on.

The Model9 File Transfer solution enables enterprises to move their mainframe data into Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) and as a result leverage additional AWS services such as Amazon Athena or Amazon QuickSight to augment their mainframe environment The solution is underpinned by Model9’s patented data transfer technology, the new Model9 FileTransfer solution for AWS Mainframe Modernization will allow customers to deliver mainframe data to AWS at scale, improving operational security, data management overhead and drastically reducing the operating costs associated with managing mainframe data.

Looking Ahead for Model9

The IT landscape is rapidly evolving to one where hybrid multi-cloud is becoming the default operating model, and the mainframe is no different. As cloud models become more mature and secure a key issue remains: how to get data from point A to point B and ensure the process is both efficient and secure. Model9 is rapidly emerging as a key player in solving for this, and how mainframe customers can fully embrace a hybrid cloud approach to the most mission-critical data in their estate.

This latest announcement by Model9 further speaks to the company’s evolution to become the default choice for mainframe customers looking to move mainframe data to the public cloud.

I was impressed by Peleg’s pragmatic approach to the whole charged debate around mainframe modernization that is largely being driven by hyper-scale providers such as AWS. While the focus of this press release was unsurprisingly migration-focused, Peleg shared with me that the team at Model9 firmly remain mainframe fans and see large customers adopting the company’s technology to support a variety of use cases including deploying a ‘Cyber Vault’ approach to secure mainframe data, as well as storing the third copy of data in the public cloud. I expect this pragmatism to serve the company well in the quarters ahead.

Disclosure: Futurum Research is a research and advisory firm that engages or has engaged in research, analysis, and advisory services with many technology companies, including those mentioned in this article. The author does not hold any equity positions with any company mentioned in this article.

Analysis and opinions expressed herein are specific to the analyst individually and data and other information that might have been provided for validation, not those of Futurum Research as a whole.