Make ready for the next wave of mainframe success

The survey – the industry’s largest of its kind with more than 1,100 executives and technical professionals’ perspectives included – showed that the priorities of both were in close alignment, with security and compliance, application availability, and modernization efforts at the top of both groups’ lists. The survey also reflects similarities and differences between respondent age groups, with millennials more interested in new technologies and baby boomers focused on improving staffing and skills.

The next wave of mainframe success will depend on the platform’s ability to enable faster, higher- performing, and more secure delivery of new and improved business services and applications. In fact, regardless of survey respondent age or role, security and compliance are cited as top concerns, with 77% of participants saying they have had a finding or potential breach, and 92% reporting being audited every two years. However, few respondents reported a robust or consistent approach to security and compliance management, with data suggesting a fragmented and siloed approach.

The ability to predict failures and issues was another big concern, with 70% of large shops reporting an unscheduled outage in the last 12 months, and 50% of all respondents reporting increasing volatility.  By overcoming organizational barriers toward adoption and integration of new application development processes and analytics-enabled machine learning technologies, businesses can ensure the security, availability, and performance improvements necessary for successful modernization.

“Results from the 2019 BMC Mainframe Survey indicate that the evolution of today’s workforce and escalating market demands for modernization offer IT and the business exciting opportunities to collaborate on new strategies for optimization and innovation,” said Bill Miller, President of ZSolutions at BMC. “By integrating intelligent technologies for security, privacy, and predictive automation and methodologies like DevOps and AIOps, organizations are galvanizing their growth initiatives while confidently maintaining their critical systems.”

BMC AMI solutions can help customers support their business with increased speed, availability, security, and agility. As a day-zero complement to IBM’s just released z15^TM, the BMC AMI solutions optimize the mainframe for modern enterprise organizations by strengthening mainframe security, enabling DevOps, and utilizing predictive analytics to better manage cost, capacity, and performance management.

"The Mainframe Survey solidifies the mainframe as the platform to continue handling increasing workloads and provides valuable perspective on trends affecting the industry, helping mainframe organizations understand why and how to continue modernizing,” said Stephen Elliot, Program Vice President, Management Software and DevOps, IDC.