A question of strategy

In this second Industry Insight in a series of four that unpacks the findings of CA's "Mainframe as a Mainstay of the Enterprise 2012" research, I examine the mainframe within the context of business and IT strategy.

Where it once ruled the enterprise with a 'Big Iron' fist, IT decision-makers now see the mainframe as an agent of change in increasingly hybrid and agile technology environments. Those who take a strategic approach to leveraging the advantages of the mainframe stand to maximise their ability to benefit from it.

Nowhere is the transformation more apparent than with observations around the strategic importance of the mainframe in the evolving IT landscape. Fully 77% of US respondents to CA's research and 81% of the global polling sample report the mainframe is already "a highly strategic part of their current and future IT strategy".

Some 29% of US executives and 32% of their global counterparts plan to expand use of mainframe technologies.

That's in stark contrast to the other extreme. Only 5% of US respondents, and 4% globally, say the mainframe is non-strategic and plans are under way to move off the platform. Like Mark Twain's death, reports of the death of the mainframe have been greatly exaggerated.

"Companies running mainframes are largely committed to the platform," said James Governor, an analyst with RedMonk. "We're now seeing a modernisation wave, where the customer modernises its existing mainframe, rather than seeking to modernise by migrating to an alternative."

The hybrid model that builds on mainframe capabilities while expanding through public or private cloud services is progressing rapidly.

In CA's survey, 515 of US respondents and 8% globally say the mainframe is a highly strategic platform of the cloud computing strategy or will be in the near future. Again, by way of contrast, only 195 of US respondents and 14% of their global counterparts say they keep their cloud computing strategy separate from their mainframe strategy.

"We hear so much about cloud computing these days it's easy to forget that in terms of enterprise deployments, it's very much a work in progress," is a comment made by Mark Combs, distinguished senior vice-president, mainframe, at CA Technologies.

This assertion is borne out by the research. When asked whether their organisations "already have implemented or are evaluating new tools that enable the rapid deployment and cost-efficient provisioning of private and hybrid cloud services on the mainframe platform", 52% of US respondents and 59% globally said they have already implemented such tools or are evaluating them now.

Another 21% and 19%, respectively, plan to do so within the next 12 months.

Perhaps the best way to identify IT priorities is to track financial outlays: where are the previous IT expenditures going? Some companies are surely reducing their current mainframe investments, but the research strongly confirms that budgets for mainframe operations are increasing specifically for strategic, forward-facing reasons.

"In a few, and hopefully growing, number of cases, planners have elected to entrust their mainframe complex with more workload and to invest in the latest hardware and software components to maintain and expand the capabilities of the mainframe to support mission-critical processing," said Jon Toigo, managing principal of Toigo Partners International in Tampa Bay, Florida. "These more optimistic planners see the mainframe as a more cost-efficient IT investment going forward."

Take software: 35% of US professionals surveyed expect their budget to stay the same in the next 12-18 months, while 14% expect a drop.

Those who take a strategic approach to leveraging the advantages of the mainframe stand to maximise their ability to benefit from it.

However, in the US, more than half (51%) plan to spend more, and the corresponding global numbers underscore the emphasis IT decision-makers are placing on this area: 34% will stay the same and 20% will spend less, while 46% plan to increase their spending.

It's a similar story with hardware. While nearly half of all US respondents (49%) say they'll maintain their budget, only 21% anticipate a decline and another 30% say they'll see an increase. Again, the worldwide numbers are even stronger: 41% say they'll stay the same, 23% expect a drop, and 36% will spend more. It's the same with services. In the US, 47% of companies will hold to their existing budgets and 16% will see less, but 37% will spend more. Internationally, 39% will stay the same, 18% will lose some resources and 44% will spend more.

While the survey doesn't cover how much more each company plans to spend, it's interesting to note that the broad-based increase comes in a generally bleak growth market for IT outlays; for example, research firm Gartner's Global IT Spending Forecast projected just a 3% rise for 2012 over 2011, which in turn saw a 7.9% rise over 2010. In other words, the mainframe is receiving a disproportionately high level of interest - and investment.

In a market where cost reduction is a major business focus - mainframe customers want to use their budgets for strategic mission-critical functions. Some mainframe suppliers have made significant investment in moving some of their software to run on cheaper specialised mainframe engines such as zIIP processors - thereby reducing costs to their customers.

In the next Industry Insight in this series, I will discuss the issues and challenges presented by scale - and how the mainframe delivers the sheer power necessary for big data and other big IT projects.