With most of the over 1100 respondents (91%) reporting that the mainframe remains a viable long-term platform for them and a clear majority (60%) expecting to increase MIPS due to the normal growth of legacy applications and new application workloads the z continues to remain well entrenched. Check out the results for yourself here.
Maybe even more reassurance comes from almost half the respondents who reported that they expect the mainframe to attract and grow new workloads. Most likely these will be Java and Linux workloads but one-third of the respondents listed cloud as a priority, jumping it up to sixth on the list of mainframe priorities. Mobile was cited as priority by 27% of the respondents followed by big data with 26% respondents.
Apparently IBM’s steady promotion of cloud, mobile, and big data for the z over the past year is working. At Enterprise2014 IBM even made a big news with real time analytics and Hadoop on the z along with a slew of related announcements.
That new workloads like cloud, mobile, and big data made it into the respondents’ top 10 IT priorities for the year didn’t surprise Jonathan Adams, BMC vice president/general manager for z solutions. The ease of developing in Java and its portability make it a natural for new workloads today, he noted.
In the survey IT cost reduction/optimization tops the list of IT priorities for 2014 by a large margin, 70% of respondents, followed by application availability, 52%. Rounding out the top five are application modernization with 48%, data privacy, 47%, and business/IT alignment, 44%. Outsourcing finished out the top 10 priorities with 16%.
When asked to look ahead in terms of MIPS growth, the large majority of respondents expected growth to continue or at least remain steady. Only 9% expected MIPS to decline and 6% expected to eliminate the mainframe. This number has remained consistent for years, noted Adams. DancingDinosaur periodically checks in with shops that announce plans to eliminate their mainframe and finds that a year later many have barely made any progress.
The top mainframe advantages shouldn’t surprise you: availability (53%); security (51%); centralized data serving (47%) and transaction throughput (42%). More interesting results emerged when the respondents addressed new workloads. The mainframe’s cloud role includes data access (33%), cloud management from Linux on z (22%) and dynamic test environments via self-service (15%). Surprisingly, when it comes to big data analytics, 34% report that the mainframe acts as their analytics engine. This wasn’t supposed to be the case, at least not until BigInsights and Hadoop on z gained more traction.
Meanwhile, 28% say they move data off platform for analytics, and 14% report they federate mainframe data to an off-platform analytics engine. Yet, more than 81% now incorporate the mainframe into their Big Data strategy, up from 70% previously. The non-finance industries are somewhat more likely to use the mainframe as the big data engine, BMC noted. Those concerned with cost should seriously consider doing their analytics on the z, where the data is. It is costly to keep moving data around.
In terms of mobility, making existing applications accessible for mobile ranked as the top issue followed by developing new mobile applications and securing corporate data on mobile devices. Mobile processing increases for transaction volume came in at the bottom of mobility issues, but that will likely change when mobile transactions start impacting peak workload volumes and trigger increased costs. Again, those concerned about costs should consider IBM’s mobile transaction discount, which was covered by DancingDinsosaur here in the spring.
Since cost reduction is such a big topic again, the survey respondents offered their cost reduction priorities. Reducing resource usage during peak led the list. Other cost reduction priorities included consolidating mainframe software vendors, exploiting zIIP and specialty engines (which have distinctly lower cost/MIPS), and moving workloads to Linux on z.
So, judging from the latest BMC survey the mainframe is far from dead. But at least one recent IT consultant and commentator, John Appleby, seems to think so. This prediction has proven wrong so often that DancingDinosaur has stopped bothering to refute it.
BTW, change came to BMC last year in the form of an acquisition by a venture capital group. Adams reports that the new owners have already demonstrated a commitment to continued investment in mainframe technology products, and plans already are underway for next year’s survey.
DancingDinosaur is Alan Radding. You can follow him on Twitter, @mainframeblog. Or see more of his writing at Technologywriter.com or in wide-ranging blogs here.
