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

2. 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

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

4. 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.

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

6. 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?

7. 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

8. 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?

9. 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

10. 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.

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

12. 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

13. 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

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

15. Performance
z GHz v AMD FX-9590 – 4.7 GHz
Sounds close.

16. 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.

17. 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

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

19. 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)

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

21. 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?

22. 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