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Survey of the mainframe—survey IT brain!
No, it’s not a Cypress Hill reunion, but that doesn’t mean there’s not some smoke in BMC Software’s new State of the Mainframe. The survey’s findings revealed an overall positive view of the platform, from its hardware capabilities—like IBM’s new Telum II processor—to the potential of AI.
John McKenny, BMC SVP and general manager of intelligent Z optimization and transformation, told IT Brew that the mainframe is “thriving.”
“The long-term outlook for the platform is very strong,” McKenny said. “Ninety-four percent of the respondents said the platform…runs [their] core business applications and services. It’s part of [their] hybrid infrastructure.”
Cock the hammer. BMC polled more than 1,000 professionals from around the world, finding that mainframe investment is stabilizing. The survey also found that organizations are considering more cloud technology to supplement mainframe infrastructure, primarily because of flexibility, usage of data and analytics, and cost savings. It’s part of an overall strategy, McKenny told IT Brew.
“In the last three years, and especially in this most recent year, clients have said that the mainframe is once again defined as a core strategic platform: ‘We no longer have a cloud first strategy, we have a hybrid strategy, which means we recognize there are going to be elements of our infrastructure and our workloads that run in the cloud and others that run on prem or a co located facility,’” McKenny said.
Lowrider. While the overall view of the mainframe was bullish, respondents had concerns over preparedness to manage ransomware attacks and compliance and security in general. Indeed, “compliance and security” was listed as the top priority for those polled at 64%, well ahead of the second most important priority, cost optimization, at 49%.
“You need to have a good security strategy, you need to have good detection software, you need to have good privileged user access management, you need to have real time detection and response capabilities,” McKenny said. “And what clients recognize is that they may have some gaps in how they’re implementing their security postures.”