The People v Mainframe You be the jury Andrew Jepeal April 2016

The Charges The Mainframe platform has been accused of: Being obsolete technology with a short life span Being too expensive to run and maintain No longer has an edge in performance compared to commodity servers Providing archaic tools preventing the younger generation from acquiring the skills necessary to develop applications

Charge #1 One count of being obsolete technology with a short life span

That doesn’t sound like a short life span to me. The mainframe has served us faithfully for over 50+ years 88% of CIO believe the mainframe will be key for at least the next 10 years 78% of CIO see the mainframe as a strategic platform for business innovation That doesn’t sound like a short life span to me.

Obsolete? Runs core business application for the major players across all major industries Banking Investment Manufacturing Insurance Retail Travel and hospitality Communication Shipping Government

Run the new and the old Runs Java Runs Web Application Server For 20+ years Runs Web Application Server Since June, 1998 Runs UNIX Since June, 1992 The mainframe can run what they run but can they run what the mainframe runs?

Sounds like they came late to this game Virtualization VMWare was founded in 1998 VM/370 was first released in 1972 PR/SM was first released in 1988 TSO was first released in 1971 Sounds like they came late to this game

Like the mainframe has been doing for decades? DevOps A practice that emphasizes the collaboration and communication of both software developers and other IT professionals while automating the process of software delivery and infrastructure changes Continuous integration Version control Problem reporting and collaboration Artifact repository Change management, release approvals, release automation Applications performance monitoring Like the mainframe has been doing for decades?

Cloud Computing Sound Familiar? 50+ years Cloud computing is a kind of computing that provides shared processing resources and data to computers and other devices on demand. It is a model for enabling ubiquitous, on-demand access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources (e.g., networks, servers, storage, applications and services), which can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort. Sound Familiar? 50+ years

They may have us on this one, but not for long. Agile Development Agile software development is a set of principles for software development in which requirements and solutions evolve through collaboration between self-organizing, cross-functional teams. It promotes adaptive planning, evolutionary development, early delivery, and continuous improvement, and it encourages rapid and flexible response to change. They may have us on this one, but not for long.

Charge #2 One count of being too expensive to run and maintain

Dr. Howard Rubin commodity server heavy organizations showed 30% higher infrastructure costs vs. mainframe heavy peers. Mainframe-centric organizations also demonstrated lower cost per IT goods. Larger businesses show more dramatic results, but similar effects can also be found in smaller sized businesses. 12

Platform Economics: A New Metric In all but 1 of 19 sectors studied, mainframe heavy organizations supported more income per dollar of infrastructure expense than peers that were commodity server heavy. Income Supported Per $ of Infrastructure Expense Mainframe Heavy Commodity Server Heavy Banking & Financial Services $5.54 $3.88 Chemicals $13.34 $10.67 Construction, Materials, and Natural Resources $40.63 $30.47 Consumer Products $8.00 $5.76 Education $2.38 $2.26 Energy $46.53 $36.29 Food & Beverage Processing $29.56 $23.35 Healthcare Providers $2.33 $1.75 Industrial Electronics and Electrical Equipment $13.24 $9.54 Industrial Manufacturing $5.92 $4.14 Insurance $1.63 $1.24 Media and Entertainment $9.97 $9.07 Pharmaceuticals, Life Sciences, and Medical Products $11.13 $7.90 Professional Services $6.62 $4.64 Retail and Wholesale $22.77 $17.76 Software Publishing and Internet Services $0.27 $0.33 Telecommunications $5.71 $4.00 Transportation $13.15 $10.26 Utilities $13.97 $11.45 Full Database $13.35 $10.55 13

Charge #3 One count of no longer having an edge in performance compared to commodity servers

Performance z13 - 5.2 GHz v AMD FX-9590 – 4.7 GHz Sounds close.

Performance The Rest of the Story 141 CPUs in one machine 10 TB memory Simultaneous Multi-Threading ,Single Instruction Multiple Data Cryptographic coprocessors System Assist Processor to offload I/O 8,000 servers on one machine etc., etc., etc.

Mainframe Is Used More Efficiently Used 24x7x365 (almost) Very little down time Utilized off hour by batch Can run at close to 100% utilization due to robust, responsive dispatchers On average, commodity servers run at around 30% capacity

Charge #4 One count of providing archaic tools preventing the younger generation from acquiring the skills necessary to develop applications

You have choices TSO/ISPF has served us well but it’s days are limited Vendors are doing new and exciting things for mainframe development Modern IDEs like Eclipse can be used for all languages (JAVA, COBOL, PL/I, Assembler)

You have choices Mainframe vendors are integrating with best of class (DevOps, Agile) tools SonarSource ISPW Jira Splunk Dynatrace CoreLog AppDynamics Jenkins

Stop by and cast your vote. Guilty or Innocent ? Stop by and cast your vote. So, when do we get to put the commodity servers on trial?

Thanks for listening to me ramble The days of picking a platform based on innuendo and fud are over. Just because a CIO doesn’t know or understand the mainframe, doesn’t mean he/she should ignore the platform. It’s our responsibility to educate them using facts not fairy tales and help guide them to the right choice. Thanks for listening to me ramble