Dive Brief:
- The mainframe isn’t going anywhere soon, according to Syncsort’s annual State of the Mainframe survey. Nearly 61% of respondents said they have no plans to discontinue use of their mainframe in the foreseeable future, according to a survey of more than 250 mainframe decision makers.
- Though businesses generally have less budget to invest in them, the mainframe remains the corporate workhorse and the most popular tool for performing large-scale transaction processing on mission-critical applications, the survey found.
- Use of the mainframe is also changing, according to the report. Three-quarters of respondants say it is either very, or somewhat, important for mainframes to integrate with other standalone computing platforms, such as Linux, Unix or Windows. Respondents perceive that integration as a strength for their corporate mainframe.
Dive Insight:
Cloud and virtualization technologies may be sexier, but the old corporate mainframe still gets things done. In particular, many multi-platform distributed applications still rely on the mainframe for critical transaction processing. That means even though IT decision makers talk about getting off legacy platforms, reliance on mainframe technology still persists.
Some things have changed, however. The typical mainframe is no longer the standalone tool it used to be. Therefore, businesses that rely on mainframes may need to integrate with distributed platforms to allow capabilities like enterprise-wide analytics.
Though "legacy technology" has practically become a bad term in the industry, there are some applications that work better using older technologies. Some organizations, like banks and certain types of financial institutions, still use mainframes because of regulatory requirements.
