The Mainframe Still Rocks!

Mainframe Executive, a new publication for CIOs and IT managers in enterprises with IBM mainframe systems, just published a list of 15 reasons to stay on, or move to, a mainframe. The list is a good one, covering reliability, availability, security, resource utilization, scalability, power consumption, staffing concerns, quality, and on and on.

Here is the list for those not inclined to click on the link:

1. Lowest outage costs from highest platform reliability, availability, and serviceability.
2. Lowest security breach risks/costs via most secure design, encryption, etc.
3. Highest resource use efficiency/utilization for mixed commercial workloads.
4. Widest platform scalability supports any workload size, mix, growth.
5. Consolidates many new workloads, extends traditional workload strengths.
6. Top data-serving capacity, performance, value—best Information on Demand host.
7. Highest QoS, best performance with fastest response times.
8. Best enterprise SOA platform; enables fullest reuse of mainframe application assets.
9. Much-improved cost model transformed mainframe economics.
10. Lowest power consumption, cooling, and data center floor space needs.
11. Lowest staffing and support costs for enterprise workloads.
12. Lowest total cost of ownership, total cost per user, and total cost per transaction.
13. Best customer investment protection for any enterprise platform.
14. Lowest business risk platform with best world class support.
15. Healthy, expanding mainframe ecosystem is supporting the platform.

If you are a mainframer this list won't come as any surprise to you... but it can be handy to keep it readily available for the next time someone attempts to convince you that mainframes are already obsolete, or should be.

In fact, maybe you can come up with additional reasons. After reading the list (http://www.mainframe-exec.com/articles/?p=12) feel free to submit comments here with any additional reasons you might come up with!


Also, for those who don't know, Mainframe Executive is published by Thomas Communications, the same folks who publish the excellent bi-monthly z/Journal.