Securing Digital Transformation: A Framework for Mainframe and Cloud Ape Governance

Abstract

The implementation of APIs to connect legacy mainframe systems with modern cloud platforms creates paramount security and governance problems. Organizations that implement hybrid models for digital transformation purposes face growing complexity in cyber threats because of their increased exposure. The current security controls, which operate in separate silos, fail to provide sufficient protection for this environment. The paper establishes a complete four-layered hybrid API governance framework to handle these security challenges. The framework consists of four main components which include (1) Policy and Governance Foundation with Policy-as-Code (PaC) for centralized rule enforcement and (2) Unified Identity Fabric which merges cloud and on-premises Identity and Access Management (IAM) under Zero Trust principles and (3) Secure Development and Operations Lifecycle (DevSecOps) which incorporates security into CI/CD pipelines for mainframe and cloud artifacts and (4) Unified Observability and Response plane which provides real-time threat detection and correlation across platforms. The paper explains the necessary architecture, implementation methods, and technological requirements to achieve secure hybrid modernization