Mainframe is not dead; it is still very much alive and kicking. Anette Ottar shares on how Mainframe Services are still critical to many industries.
Industries – like banking, insurance, retail and media – still heavily rely on Mainframe technology. Because it delivers the world’s best security and reliability with millisecond response times, enables hybrid cloud deployment and performance at any scale, it is still highly relevant in the technology stack. The world's top companies also rely on Mainframe to protect their data, run blockchain and machine learning applications, and enable digital experiences. It has proven its continued relevance in the cloud-native era, and this backbone of IT technology can also be taken into the digital era.
Because of Mainframe’s traditional development approaches and tools, too often it is isolated from hybrid environments – left to run back-office applications and transactions. It is possible to connect Mainframe with the new technology in a hybrid cloud. Hybrid and multi-cloud provide consistency across multiple environments and recognize that each type of environment brings its own strengths to the table. We need to break down the silos and ensure the value chain across all operations, confirming our focus on efficiency and business outcomes.
It is critical to evolve from a siloed model to a hybrid IT operating model that helps bringing data, technology and teams together.
The result is greater collaboration and transparency – control, operational efficiency and increased focus on delivering business requirements.
Unifying teams starts with an open framework and common toolset that bring cloud-like experiences to the start of working with the Mainframe. This is possible with a technology foundation that makes it easy to access and automate Mainframe software lifecycle tasks using popular 3rd party and open-source tools such as Git, Visual Studio Code, Ansible, Service Now, and more. These tools allow programmatically writing scripts that automate Mainframe services. Using common toolsets fosters coordination and collaboration.
All of this is now more possible than ever before because of Zowe. Zowe, the first open-source project for z/OS, is becoming the standard for mainframe access. Zowe provides an interface to all the common mainframe services teams’ need for development, pipeline and operations automation.
IBM z15™ is a new enterprise platform delivering the ability to manage the privacy of customer data across hybrid and multi-cloud environments. With z15, customers can manage who gets access to data via policy-based controls, with an industry-first capability to revoke access to data across the hybrid cloud.
Of course, having the latest version is not always the cure. There are huge changes happening in the ICT industry, and the speed of development is only going to get faster. Whether Mainframe can be replaced with something else, is to be considered. The choice is yours and we can help you to find out the best option for your business needs.
Our focus is to help enable our customers to connect new and more traditional businesses efficiently, ensure our customer’s competitiveness and become digital winners regardless of their choice of technology.
Learn more about how Mainframe Services and our experts can help you boost your business!
Anette has solid experience in managing and developing high performance teams, securing operational efficiency and operational growth. In her cyrrent role she is responsible for Mainframe, midrange and traditional platforms at TietoEVRY. Previously she has led enterprise sales within IT, telco, media and logistics.