CA has recently blown the common misconception that mainframes are a thing of the past out the water. Research commissioned with Forrester shows that the mainframe is still viewed as the most efficient, scalable and reliable computing platform today.

The challenge, however, remains a shortage of skilled mainframe experts – a particularly big issue in the South African market. This is the view of Gerard King, support engineer at CA Southern Africa.

“Mainframes definitely have a massive role to play in company-critical technologies,” says King. “The biggest challenge, however, is that it is seen as an old technology, which means the younger ranks of engineers often don`t have the technical skill to maintain them.”