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The mainframe is here to stay, and the role it plays in an organization’s success calls for the proper attention and investment
By Phil Buckellew
The mainframe is here to stay, and the role it plays in an organization’s success calls for the proper attention and investment
By Phil Buckellew
While some might think of the mainframe as dated, it’s still very much an important pillar of many organizations’ IT infrastructures. In fact, a 2022 survey of enterprise clients by Rocket Software found that 80% of respondents said their mainframe is very to extremely critical. Organizations are not getting rid of their mainframe—they’re investing in its modernization and adopting a hybrid model that continues to leverage the many benefits of the mainframe in tandem with newer and emerging technologies.
This growing acceptance of hybrid IT models shows that organizations understand the value of the mainframe and are striving to maintain it as a crucial element of their operations that delivers benefits including security, faster transaction processing and reliability. As organizations look to leverage their tried-and-true mainframe in tandem with rapidly evolving new technologies, having the right strategies, processes and tools in place—from accelerating application development and delivery with DevOps to reducing mainframe data storage costs within a hybrid cloud architecture—can make all the difference.
In order to maintain the mainframe’s status as a mission-critical, necessary IT infrastructure that helps power the business, continued investment in and modernization of the mainframe is key. Knowing where to start investing in the mainframe to keep it the reliable, available, serviceable and securable system of record it can seem like a daunting task, but it’s worth it for all the benefits and competitive advantage it can bring to an organization.
Investment in DevOps and open source contributes to the overall efficiency of mainframe operations. DevOps tools eliminate the silos between the development and operations teams, empowering IT teams to evolve and improve products at a faster pace than those using traditional software development. DevOps helps with automating workflows, reducing errors, increasing productivity and fulfilling compliance requirements—all while meeting the needs of an organization’s specific environment.
Open source is evolving mainframe DevOps and enabling the mainframe to continue serving as a mission-critical tool for enterprises. It can be used to bridge the growing skills gap created by the low percentage of next-gen technology professionals who are inclined to learn esoteric mainframe languages and tools and translate these languages into something younger IT professionals are more familiar with.
A key aspect of embracing a hybrid cloud strategy is figuring out how to move the right data between platforms, but also how to leverage data where it runs best or is kept most secure. Data virtualization is a great answer to these challenges, as it empowers organizations with real-time access to mainframe data in any format without having to move data off-platform, while still allowing for bulk loading data to a cloud environment if desired. Adopting solutions that support a hybrid cloud strategy allows organizations to:
Virtualizing the mainframe and other data for cloud AI/ML consumption can generate new value for a business and its customers.
Data is growing at an unprecedented rate, with the mainframe now processing 75% or more of enterprise data. Data is one of an organization’s most valuable assets, so it’s critical to store it safely, efficiently and cost-effectively. Investing in the modernization of the mainframe aids in all aspects of storage, including optimizing costs, scaling storage infrastructure, streamlining the process of compliance reporting, and backup and recovery.
Storing mainframe data is a challenge in and of itself, and recovering data is increasingly a focus for large enterprises. As data is required to be stored longer for compliance reasons, storing more of it locally on-premises or in virtual tape libraries is becoming extremely expensive. Moving archivable data that doesn’t need to be recalled frequently—or ever—to the cloud can drastically reduce storage costs. It can also quickly be recovered to mainframe DASD or tape if needed.
In general, having the ability to quickly recover backups is essential today. Local backups, which are commonly used by many enterprises in the event of an outage or recovery situation, restore data that can be days or even weeks old. Surgical data recovery allows organizations to recover specific mainframe data sets. Recovering specific data sets at a point-in-time greatly reduces the amount of recovery time required and operating costs. Investing in the secure and reliable storage and recovery of that data is as important as the tools needed for creating it.
DevOps and Open Source
With companies relying on the mainframe for mission-critical applications, optimizing mainframe performance and capacity is essential to ensuring the mainframe continues to evolve as an asset and revenue driver. Managing mainframe performance in end-to-end value streams helps ensure healthy performance and availability, accelerates mean time to repair of performance, and limits capacity bottlenecks impacting value streams. Investment in mainframe reporting also increases business and operational value by allowing IT professionals easier access to details needed to diagnose, visualize and analyze problems in applications faster, with minimal impact on business-critical applications.
With most companies in regulated industries like finance still heavily relying on mainframes, being able to access data for reporting in an efficient matter is essential. Investment in mainframe health contributes to digital transformation and hybrid IT.
Mission-critical data is stored on the mainframe, and with IBM recently reporting the average cost of a data breach to be $4.45 million, security and compliance are not an area for neglect.
A security-first mindset and partnering with the right vendors can ensure the right precautions are taken to identify and fix vulnerabilities and mitigate security and compliance risks that would cost an organization monetarily and impact its reputation. For example, while open-source tools bring many benefits to the table, they also can pose some risk, which is why investment in support and services for open-source software as well as other mainframe security tools like vulnerability scanners should be a top priority. Investment in security and compliance ensures that the mainframe is a reliable and dependable resource for its enterprise.
Open source can be a delicate subject for the mainframe community for some entirely valid reasons—security and compliance. However, mainframers can’t exist in a silo anymore. Especially when they are faced with existential threats such as the exodus of legacy programmers, the widening skills gap, accelerated competition, shifting customer needs and the rising cost of business.
Read this e-book to learn about the advantages of adopting secure, supported open-source software for the mainframe, and where you’ll need help.