Mainframes have evolved significantly from being a legacy platform to incorporating some of the best cloud capabilities over the recent years. Mainframes have truly been one of the most reliable platforms for business-critical workloads for several years if not decades. The mainframe has been looked at as a growth area in many recent surveys as below:
- 90% of survey respondents see the mainframe as a platform for growth with compliance and security, cost optimization, mainframe modernization, data recovery, staffing and skills, and Implement AI / ML technologies as top focus areas (BMC Mainframe Survey 2020)
- 74% have long-term viability of Mainframe as a strategic platform whereas 66% would never fully replace Mainframes.
The fact that >50% of enterprise application transactions touch the mainframe is a key indicator of its significance and relevance when enterprises are trying to modernize their IT estate. Also, the new generation of Mainframes - IBM Z and LinuxONE Enterprise systems are also being built with capabilities to support modern cloud-native and AI workloads.