Hardcore mainframers are adamant that regardless of the mainframe facing stiff competition from more glamorous platforms and newer technologies, such as distributed systems, the older technology's demise is nowhere in sight.
Speaking on their behalf at the CA Southern Africa IT Management Symposium yesterday at the Sandton Convention Centre David Browne, head of EMEA Mainframe Solutions at CA Technologies, revealed that the mainframe would last at least 30 or more years.
In his presentation themed “The best way to predict the future is to create it”, Browne revealed that counter to analyst predictions, the gigantic computer systems had stood the test of time.
He started by highlighting some famous quotes from the mainframe's prophets of doom. “In 1991, Stewart Aslop predicted: 'the last mainframe will be unplugged on 15 March, 1996' and in 1992, another pundit, Robert Crongely, said: 'on 31 December 1999, at midnight, when the big ball drops, and people are kissing at Times Square, the era of the mainframe computing platform will be over,'” he said.
He noted that, indeed, ten years ago, a lot of customers wanted to get away from the mainframe but today the tables have turned. “I would want to assure you that if we switch off mainframes today, life will cease to exist,” he bragged.
From 2000 to 2008, he said, mainframe million instructions per second (MIPS) leaped by a massive 300%, from 3.5 million to 14 million MIPS.
Browne also indicated that one of the reasons why mainframes will last the distance is that emerging technologies like cloud computing are taking a leaf from the computing platform.
“Mainframes are cloud-like”, he said. “It started on the GE Mark III/IBM 709x time sharing systems. By that time, we didn't even know where the computer was; a lot of us worked on a mainframe with 'dumb' terminals. This gives us the felling that 'we were right all the time,'” he revealed.
He also alluded to a survey that was conducted by Vanson Bourne, a specialist technology market research firm based in the UK. The study, titled 'Mainframe - The Ultimate Cloud Platform?' investigated 300 IT decision makers in August 2010 to find out what they thought of mainframes in the face of the cloud computing hype.
“It was discovered that 79% of the organisations believe that the mainframe is an essential component of their cloud computing strategy, while 70% agreed that cloud computing will sustain the mainframe environment.
“However, 44% stated that their staffing issues like greying workforce, and difficulties in hiring new staff was a major concern.”
Browne also acknowledged that the mainframe computing platform was currently facing a critical skills shortage.
“Most of the mainframers today are the baby boomers - those born [between] 1946 [and] 1964 - and since then, their numbers have been steadily declining. Thus, we need to sustain these critical skills for continuity and enable the next-generation mainframer.”
He also pointed out that the mainframe's other challenges include controlling costs as well as increasing agility, which, he said, needs practical innovations to be tackled.
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