Why IBM i (AS/400) Matters in a Cloud-First World
For over four decades, IBM i—still commonly referred to as AS/400—has served as a trusted backbone for mission-critical operations. Renowned for its reliability, security, and workload-optimized performance, the platform has earned its place at the heart of many organizations’ IT infrastructure. Today, understanding IBM i AS/400 cloud migration best practices is key for adapting to the evolving digital landscape.
Challenges of Legacy IBM i Systems
However, the digital landscape has undergone a seismic shift. The rise of cloud computing, the imperative for AI-driven insights, and the need for agile development methodologies are casting a new light on the legacy nature of even the most dependable IBM i systems. What was once leading-edge is now presenting a growing set of complexities for IT and financial stakeholders.
As such, organizations are grappling with significant challenges, including:
- Aging Infrastructure: Older IBM i hardware is increasingly susceptible to failure, requiring strategies like cloud readiness for IBM i systems to mitigate risks. As newer models emerge, support for older legacy models dwindles, limiting upgrade paths and introducing operational risks that can translate into financial losses through downtime.
- Deepening Skills Gap: Experienced IBM i professionals are reaching retirement age, while newer IT talent often focuses on contemporary platforms. This widening skills gap makes finding and retaining qualified staff a growing and expensive challenge, potentially impacting system stability. Finding qualified IBM i professionals is a growing challenge, highlighting the need for managed services for IBM i systems in the cloud.
- Operational Drag: Routine maintenance tasks reduce bandwidth for innovation, making cost-efficient IBM i cloud migration solutions
- Complex Integration: Connecting the robust data and applications on IBM i with modern applications, APIs, and cloud services often needs custom-built solutions. These can be costly to develop, complex to support, and hinder seamless data flow. Addressing challenges in migrating IBM i workloads to AWS or Azure is crucial for seamless modernization.
- Innovation Bottlenecks: The inherent limitations of older IBM i environments can make it difficult to seamlessly adopt innovative technologies like Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning (ML), and real-time analytics, thus stifling innovation and slowing digital transformation efforts.
- Escalating Cost of Ownership: Maintaining on-premises IBM i infrastructure demands significant upfront capital expenditures (CapEx) for hardware and software. Furthermore, ongoing operational expenses (OpEx) related to energy consumption, cooling, physical space, and specialized personnel increase the cost of ownership (TCO) for on-premises systems.
- Limited Agility and Scalability: Unlike cloud platforms that offer on-demand resource adjustments, on-premises IBM i systems are prone to over-provisioning to handle peak loads. This leads to inefficient resource use and a lack of flexibility in responding to dynamic business needs and growth.
- Security and Compliance Headaches: Adapting modern security frameworks and addressing evolving compliance mandates for legacy IBM i systems can be resource-intensive, complex, and potentially expose the organization to significant risks and penalties.
These challenges will only grow, increasing risks and costs while diminishing competitive advantage. Inaction is no longer practical. Now is the time to embrace a cloud-first strategy by reassessing the role of IBM i in your IT ecosystem—leveraging the scalability, flexibility, and efficiency that the cloud offers to maximize value and future-proof your operations.
Optimizing On-Premises IBM i Deployments
Organizations with strong in-house expertise and infrastructure may find that a well-managed on-premises IBM i deployment remains a viable strategy, particularly in the short to medium term. However, this approach demands a strategic and proactive commitment, significant time, specialized skills, and continuous focus on performance, security, and high availability. To maximize value, on-premises resources are best directed toward strategic initiatives rather than being consumed by tactical issues.
To ease the increasing demands on internal IT teams, many organizations are turning to experienced managed service providers (MSPs). These partners enable IT teams to focus on strategic initiatives by delivering remote management services, such as:
- Seamless system installations and upgrades, minimizing disruption.
- Rigorous, regular patching and proactive vulnerability management to keep a strong security posture.
- 24/7 monitoring and proactive vulnerability management, intelligent alerting, and comprehensive performance reporting for optimal system health.
- Expert troubleshooting and rapid issue resolution to minimize downtime and business impact.
- Strategic development and robust implementation of High Availability (HA) and Disaster Recovery (DR) strategies to ensure business continuity and for IBM i cloud migration.
- Comprehensive security assessments and ongoing compliance support to meet regulatory requirements.
- Diligent ongoing backup monitoring and validation to safeguard critical business data.
These managed services help ensure system health and resilience without overextending internal teams, so they can focus on innovation and higher-value initiatives.
A Strategic Pathway to IBM i in the Cloud
For many organizations, the tipping point has arrived. Whether driven by aging infrastructure, dwindling vendor support, limited scalability, or the need to align with broader digital transformation goals, many organizations are now exploring cloud-based alternatives for their IBM i workloads.
This is especially true as cloud computing evolves from an IT trend to the strategic foundation for innovation, modern business agility, and long-term competitiveness. Organizations across industries are moving away from siloed, cost-intensive data centers and embracing cloud-enabled, data-driven environments that prioritize speed, adaptability, and customer-centricity.
Every year you delay modernization, the costs associated with legacy systems can compound 15-20%. Source: CyberDB
While public cloud platforms offer broad scalability and cost efficiency, they often lack the native support and specialized capabilities needed to run IBM i workloads effectively. That’s why specialized cloud solutions purpose-built for IBM i are emerging as the most practical and strategic choice. These environments deliver the same performance, availability, and system reliability that organizations have come to expect from their on-premises deployments—while unlocking the flexibility and scalability of the cloud.
Much like traditional setups, specialized cloud deployments can be fully supported through remote management services. These include around-the-clock system monitoring, seamless integration, and embedded DR solutions. By using this model, organizations can confidently modernize their infrastructure, reduce their data center footprint, and free IT teams to focus on strategic business outcomes rather than routine maintenance.
Key Benefits of Transitioning to an IBM i Cloud Model
Moving your IBM i workloads to a purpose-built specialized cloud environment offers compelling advantages and addresses many challenges associated with traditional on-premises deployments. Here are some of the key benefits when your organization decides to migrate IBM i workloads to the cloud:
- Significant Cost Efficiency: Cut substantial CapEx investments in aging legacy hardware by transitioning to a flexible, consumption-based cloud model, shifting costs to predictable OpEx.
- 24×7 Access to Specialized Expertise: Overcome the growing skills shortage with continuous access to a dedicated team of experienced IBM i professionals who ensure operational excellence and adherence to industry best practices.
- Enhanced Agility and Scalability: Enable rapid resource scaling, accelerate deployment of new applications and services, and set up a flexible infrastructure foundation to readily support evolving business growth.
- Unwavering High Availability and Disaster Recovery: Leverage robust cloud-based DR and business continuity solutions to guarantee uninterrupted operations and ensure rapid recovery in case of unforeseen disruptions.
- Strengthened Security and Compliance: Enhance compliance adherence, implement robust encryption protocols, and improve identity management within a secure, purpose-built cloud environment.
- Accelerated Data-Driven Innovation: Enable deeper and more seamless integration with cutting-edge AI, ML, and advanced analytics tools, empowering smarter decision-making and building future-ready capabilities.
- Modernized User Experience: Deliver a more intuitive and contemporary user interface for IBM i applications, accessible across a wider range of devices, improving user satisfaction and productivity.
On-Demand Webinar | Unlock the Future: Modernize & Migrate your IBM i (AS/400) Environment to the Cloud.
Choosing the Right IBM i Partner
The future of your IBM i requires balancing current needs with a long-term strategy. Whether maintaining on-premises deployments or migrating to the cloud, the right MSP accelerates progress, minimizes risk, and ensures reliability.
Syntax brings over 50 years of proven expertise in managing and modernizing IBM i environments. Our comprehensive suite of services is specifically tailored to the needs of IBM i customers—from remote management and cloud hosting to strategic IT assessments, development, and managed services.
Whether on-premises or in the cloud, our global team of IBM i experts provides 24/7 managed services support to ensure your critical systems are secure and available.
And when you’re ready to transition to a future-ready infrastructure across platforms like AWS, Azure, OCI or private cloud, Syntax’s methodology is designed to minimize disruption during migration and modernization efforts so you can still leverage the value of your current investment during the transformation:
- IBM i AS/400 modernization for digital transformation is tailored to your needs.
- Transition effortlessly with Syntax’s managed services for IBM i workloads in the cloud.
Syntax’s IBM i Technical Capabilities at glance:
Take the Next Step
Every challenge outlined here also presents an opportunity—an opportunity to strategically modernize, optimize performance, and future-proof your critical IBM i environment. Whether your next strategic step involves enhancing your existing on-premises infrastructure or exploring a well-planned migration to the cloud, Syntax stands ready to be your experienced and trusted advisor.
Let’s define the next chapter of your IT and business evolution—together.
Contact us for an IBM i Discovery Assessment to unlock IBM i AS/400 cloud migration best practices. When complete, you’ll receive a detailed report with information on your current environment, opportunities for modernization and the potential impact on business operations.
Authors
Colin Dawes
Global Director, Product Portfolio Management
Colin is a strategic technology leader with extensive experience in ERP, cloud solutions, and digital transformation. He has a track record of translating business needs into effective technology solutions with deep expertise in IBM i (AS/400) environments, from legacy management to modernizing and integrating with new technologies.