Israel-based BluePhoenix has released Cloud Transaction Engine (CTE) and Batch In The Cloud Service. The company, which focuses on providing legacy application lifecycle tools, is aiming to reduce mainframe MIPS and total cost of ownership.

CTE is a module for the company's upcoming Atlas Platform, and Batch In The Cloud Service is the first formal offering that leverages CTE's capabilities. CTE was designed as a proprietary code base that enables mainframe processes to be run from off-mainframe infrastructure—specifically, in the cloud.

"Batch In The Cloud uses off-mainframe, cloud-based processing power to reduce mainframe MIPS and total cost of ownership," said Rick Oppedisano, vice president of Marketing at BluePhoenix, in a prepared statement. "The huge array of virtual machines in the cloud brings greater performance and scalability than the mainframe. Jobs can be processed quicker at a lower cost. It's a great way for customers to save money immediately and explore options for an eventual mainframe transition."

Batch In The Cloud is supported on both private and public clouds. In the latter case, it's supported on Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) Windows Azure and Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) EC2. The service was developed to enable COBOL, CA GEN and Natural/ADABAS mainframe environments in the cloud.

According to Florin Sunel, BluePhoenix's vice president of Engineering, a typical use scenario sees workloads grow while the mainframe's processing power and batch windows stay the same.

"Our technology acts as a bridge between the mainframe and cloud. With Batch In The Cloud, all business logic is preserved," Sunel said in a prepared statement. "Customers can reduce usage cost by running jobs like reporting from the cloud platform rather than the mainframe. In that scenario, they can also add business value by using modern business intelligence tools that aren’t compatible with the mainframe to gain insight from their data."

To kick things off, BluePhoenix is offering a free assessment for business' environments to identify the most appropriate applications for the service. After that, the company plans to build a road map and help customers move beyond "proof of concept" on their cloud platform of choice.