Survey: Mainframe managers discuss their priorities

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A few weeks ago, I sat down with Bill Miller, president of the Mainframe Service Management division of BMC Software. Miller's team had just concluded the analysis of data collected in its 2009 Mainframe Survey, which polled more than 1500 IT managers and executives worldwide who are responsible for mainframe operations. The primary focus of the survey was centered on the mainframe's benefit to organizations in the tough global economy.

Despite the phenomenal rise of distributed computing over the past two decades, there's lots of evidence that mainframe computing is alive and well and poised to support large businesses well into the future. There are still some applications that organizations just don't trust to anything other than a mainframe; for example, global stock trading, or telecom operations.

Availability, security and data centralization continue to be among the top reasons why organizations prefer their mainframe to distributed systems. In fact, 62% of the survey respondents project their mainframe platform will grow and attract new workloads. Only a minute percentage of the respondents believe they should be looking for an exit strategy to take their enterprise applications off the mainframe.

IBM is doing its best to attract new users to the mainframe platform with its version of Linux for IBM System z (zLinux). This software allows you to run Linux and UNIX applications on the original virtual machine platform -- the mainframe. You can run hundreds or thousands of Linux instances at once, all while simplifying your infrastructure. If BMC's survey data is any indication, IBM can look forward to strong sales for its zLinux software, as "server virtualization" and "data center consolidation" are two of the top priorities for mainframe owners in the year ahead.

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A few weeks ago, I sat down with Bill Miller, president of the Mainframe Service Management division of BMC Software. Miller's team had just concluded the analysis of data collected in its 2009 Mainframe Survey, which polled more than 1500 IT managers and executives worldwide who are responsible for mainframe operations. The primary focus of the survey was centered on the mainframe's benefit to organizations in the tough global economy.

Despite the phenomenal rise of distributed computing over the past two decades, there's lots of evidence that mainframe computing is alive and well and poised to support large businesses well into the future. There are still some applications that organizations just don't trust to anything other than a mainframe; for example, global stock trading, or telecom operations.

Availability, security and data centralization continue to be among the top reasons why organizations prefer their mainframe to distributed systems. In fact, 62% of the survey respondents project their mainframe platform will grow and attract new workloads. Only a minute percentage of the respondents believe they should be looking for an exit strategy to take their enterprise applications off the mainframe.

IBM is doing its best to attract new users to the mainframe platform with its version of Linux for IBM System z (zLinux). This software allows you to run Linux and UNIX applications on the original virtual machine platform -- the mainframe. You can run hundreds or thousands of Linux instances at once, all while simplifying your infrastructure. If BMC's survey data is any indication, IBM can look forward to strong sales for its zLinux software, as "server virtualization" and "data center consolidation" are two of the top priorities for mainframe owners in the year ahead.

Related story: can mainframe use really grow?

Rounding out the top six IT priorities for the mainframe are: disaster recovery, MIPS optimization projects, application modernization and reduction of availability impact of planned/unplanned outages. Given his years of experience of mainframe service management, I asked BMC's Miller for his best practices advice on what customers can be doing now to manage their mainframes to address some of these high priorities. Below are some of his suggestion pertaining to disaster recovery, MIPS optimization and capacity planning.

Disaster recovery: Being consistent in a time of change

Disaster recovery is always important, but its high ranking as a priority in BMC's 2009 Mainframe Survey suggests that preventing data loss is even more critical in a tough economy. Perhaps the costs of data loss -- in time, money, reputation and lost business -- are even harder to bear when operating budgets are so tight.

Disaster recovery, of course, includes tactics such as having remote data centers, so businesses can switch over in the event of major disasters such as what occurred in the United States during the 9/11 terrorist attacks or during Hurricane Katrina, which happened in 2005. It's critical to have a high degree of confidence that disaster-recovery programs will work.

Linda Musthaler is a principal analyst with Essential Solutions Corporation.