A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Mainframe

InfoManagement Direct, January 25, 2008

Mark Vorholt

Part of the fun of watching movies and TV shows made 10, 20 or even 30 years ago is seeing how “modern” (or in some cases “future”) technology was depicted. Remember War Games and how Matthew Broderick had to insert application floppy disks that were the size of a medium pepperoni pizza to search for an outside computer modem? Or what about those stylish mobile phones Crockett and Tubbs used to carry on Miami Vice? They could’ve just about hid behind them when the shooting started. And don’t even get me started on the analog clocks on the bridge of the Starship Enterprise.

           
Then there’s the way Hollywood portrays business computers. When they want to show that a business is ultra high tech, they use one of those big, bulky mainframes with the slowly rotating giant tape reels and lots of flashing lights. Of course, we all know that client/server computing has replaced the mainframe as the core of business.  Right?

           
Not so fast, Bunky. This may be a case where Hollywood is actually getting it correct, because it appears the mainframe is far from dead. In fact, in an independent survey of 135 mainframe customers conducted by independent software vendor William Data Systems, nearly half (49 percent) of “Big Iron” (the insiders’ nickname for mainframes) customers expect to grow mainframe processes during the next year.¹ This wasn’t a one-industry survey either. The customers came from a range of different verticals, including government, financial services and manufacturing. What is going on here?

The Case for Big Iron
           
Although the client/server model of computing offers a lot of benefits, there are any number of good reasons not to banish the mainframe next to Dick Tracy’s bulky two-way wrist radio on the island of unwanted technologies. One of the biggest is the financial aspect.
 
Simply put, the cost of mainframe computing is just too attractive. Mainframes are extraordinarily reliable - they don’t crash every time there’s a minor power fluctuation - and the cost per gigabyte of processing power is extremely low. Mainframes are generally a better choice for high-volume or complex data processing - the kind you’ll find in most data centers. They react quickly to requests and can store and process data at higher rates of speed. For flat-out number crunching, despite the recent gains made by client/server applications and hardware, nothing beats the performance of a mainframe.
 
Another advantage is the ability to run alternative operating systems such as open source Linux. With security issues still high on the list of corporate IT concerns, having a choice of six other operating systems aside from the market leader provides IT with more options on how to best protect the organization and its data from independent hackers and organized cyber-criminals. It also gives them more options on how to tailor performance to the organization’s needs.

Yes, the mainframe market is alive, well and growing. As further proof, no less an authority on the mainframe market than IBM recently invested $100 million in improvements to its z-platform. You can rest assured that if they thought the mainframe market was going away, this money would’ve been spent elsewhere. Yet, for all of that sunshine and rosy glow, there is one potential problem looming on the horizon that could bring it all crashing down like a James Bond villain’s secret lair.

The People Gap

           
While the market for mainframes continues to grow, the labor pool with the expertise to operate and maintain them is shrinking - especially within enterprises. One obvious reason is that the Baby Boomers who have been responsible for them for years are hitting their retirement years. Given the choice between sitting in a windowless, fluorescently lit, temperature-controlled back room in an office building or playing the back nine at the club, they’re opting for the latter.

           
Given the proliferation of computer sciences graduates coming out of schools and universities across the country, you wouldn’t think losing the Boomers would be a problem. The trouble is, most of these new graduates have little interest in learning about, much less operating, mainframe computing. Mainframes are old school, not new and cool like Eclipse or service-oriented architecture. Telling their friends they’re working on a mainframe is not exactly the way to win prestige points either.
 

Page 1 of 3.