Mainframe applications on the rise, says survey

A recent survey mentioned in an article by CIOL documented the opinions of a pool of nearly 600 CIOs. According to their findings, more than 30 percent of the respondents are invested in mainframe application use for the long haul.

That kind of knowledge can lead your company to ponder how, exactly, it can proceed when the time comes to reassess the older mainframe off of which it operates. The information, which comes from a study done by Vanson Bourne, also alleges that the ability to work with mainframe application is a highly desirable thing for IT professionals in response to a current dearth of these specialists in the market.

Taking initiative in your company's drive to make mainframe modernization an understandable and real process can be how you take a positive stance in improving accessibility to your system while supporting other applications. 

In a piece for TechRepublic, Nick Hardiman examines the use of mainframes in a world increasingly focused on the cloud and what this requires from day-to-day mainframe performance. 

"Can a mainframe deliver the agility, efficiency, and quality that cloud computing provides?" Hardiman asks. "One beefy mainframe can be more useful than a fleet of commodity boxes, but only for certain types of work." He goes on to say that "mainframe use may be cheaper than commodity hardware use for enterprise-scale workloads."

Maintaining a legacy modernization system can allow companies the kind of access that they need to sustain a meaningful transition and prove to other companies that their applications are still relevant. The cloud might be a sign of innovation, but businesses can use it as a chance to reaffirm the strength of the "backbone" mainframe they've been employing.