Rocket Software has released a 2022 survey report titled “The State of the Mainframe.” The report, which is based on a survey of over 500 U.S. IT professionals in firms using mainframes focused on their priorities, challenges, and plans for leveraging their mainframes going forward, reveals that the mainframe continues to be critical for businesses today.
According to the report, despite the allure of new technologies that promise to deliver on digital transformation, the mainframe continues to dominate IT infrastructure. More than half (56%) of respondents say the mainframe still makes up the most of their IT infrastructure, followed by private cloud (20%) and distributed (15%). This illustrates the effectiveness and reliability of the mainframe and its ongoing role as a critical element in IT environments.
The survey also found that modernizing in place—not ripping and replacing the mainframe—is the preferred method to update IT infrastructure. Respondents described their organizations’ current mainframe application and operations IT strategy as “modernizing in place” (56%), “operating as-is” (27%) and “re-platforming” (17%).
“During a time of great disruption, organizations need to leverage their years of technology investments alongside the latest tools available to drive business forward,” said Jeff Cherrington, vice president, product management, System Z, Rocket Software. “As the findings of this report show, the mainframe continues to be reliable, secure, and efficient. Modernizing the mainframe must be a top priority for IT leaders working to ensure their IT infrastructure is future-proof and to help close the skills gap many organizations are facing.”
Leveraging the diversity of solutions available from cloud to mainframe and optimizing each layer to operate together will create the most effective, unified environment. Eighty-two percent of respondents are migrating at least some of their workloads and operations from mainframe to cloud, however only 4% are going completely cloud native. This trend toward hybrid environments emphasizes the need for integration and optimization.
More information is available from Rocket Software at www.rocketsoftware.com.