The cloud, big data, mobility, open source, open systems, et al: why the latest IT Trends lead back to the IBM System Z mainframe

The latest IT trends is on the cusp of a new era. IDC says we are transitioning to a new computing platform built on cloud services, mobile computing, Big Data analytics and social media. The research firm predicts that spending on these technologies will account for 80% of IT spending growth between now and the end of the decade. Mobility, Cloud computing, strategic Big Data, hybrid IT and integrated ecosystems are among the top 10 strategic trends outlined by Gartner.

What’s interesting about this new computing platform is how closely the demands required of IT lead back to an “older” computing platform, namely the IBM mainframe. There are several reasons for this:

• To make the transition to this new era, the IT organization has to exert full control over the computing environment, ensuring the highest levels of performance, reliability, scalability, automation, manageability and security. When it comes to meeting all of these requirements, there is no computing platform that has ever come close to matching the mainframe.


• Approximately 70% to 80% of the world’s business data already resides on IBM System z mainframes. When you are trying to deliver Big Data analytics and integrated ecosystems, along with virtualization and shared resources, the mainframe environment will be able you to achieve unparalleled performance, optimization and security. Did you know that virtualization was invented on the mainframe? Or that the IBM System z is the only platform that has never been breached on the Internet? Think about those two facts when you think about what you need from the Cloud, or the importance of mobile security.


• To put it simply, today’s IBM System z is not your father’s – or your grandfather’s – mainframe. The open systems approach embraced by IBM, dating all the way back to its support of Linux at the end of the last century, is giving enterprises an opportunity to achieve all of the benefits of an open systems approach through the most reliable, secure, robust and powerful platform in the world.

In many ways, the trends driving today’s IT wouldn’t be taking place if the mainframe hadn’t paved the way for so many innovations, such as virtualization. In reality, moving forward to this new era in computing, will require equal reliance on the mainframe for reliability, performance, security, scalability and all of the other attributes that make the mainframe the longest running and most successful computing platform the world has ever seen.