Workforce & Training
❓ Workforce and Training Trivia
Happy 2026—and welcome to a whole new year of Planet Mainframe Trivia! As our January theme focuses on Workforce and Training, this quiz looks at mainframe pioneers and the early decisions that shaped how mainframe skills are learned and passed on. Mainframe expertise...
Missing Mainframe and IT Skills: How Enterprises Can Respond
Attendees at GS UK 2025 noticed a new track, WAVEZ 101, dedicated to early-career and undergraduate mainframers. I was delighted to be invited to speak on mainframe skills and what I see for the industry’s future employees. A Gloomy Skills Outlook The IT skills topic...
Unlocking Mainframe Talent: Skills, Mentorship, and Hiring Trends ▶️
Mainframe talent is in demand. Broadcom reports that 91% of organizations plan to hire mainframe system administrators or application developers within two years. For IT leaders, the need for skills development, mentorship, and knowledge transfer is urgent. In this...
Your biggest continuity risk isn’t technology, it’s talent
What if your biggest business continuity risk isn’t tied to technology at all, but to talent? That’s the premise behind the Mainframe Talent Succession Playbook, a research-backed guide from CCS Insight. Based on direct interviews with Broadcom customers and education...
Four Campuses, One Week: Meet Your Future Mainframe Employees
Across the country, organizations are feeling the squeeze of a shrinking mainframe skills pipeline. Last year, I shared how Illinois universities were stepping up to teach mainframe skills and how employers could tap into that pipeline. The story continues, starting...
Can you future-proof mainframe IT Careers? Scott McFall says yes.
At SHARE Cleveland, I sat down with Scott McFall, Vice President of Business Development and Strategy at ProTech IT Training & Consulting. Scott has more than 30 years of experience in IT training and development and is a multi-year IBM Champion, so it was no...
Mainframe Skills in the Heartland: 4 Universities, 4 Days, Hundreds of Students
Mainframe Talent Is Growing: Access It Next Month Hopefully, you caught my 2024 Planet Mainframe piece on the growing mainframe curriculum at Northern Illinois University (NIU), Illinois State University (ISU), and Eastern Illinois University (EIU). Great news: it’s...
Celebrating the People: A Look at the 2025 Influential Mainframers
Mainframe is more than a technology; it’s a community. From educators and engineers to quiet experts keeping systems running, Planet Mainframe spent the month sharing stories – your stories. Welcome to the wrap-up of our second annual Influential Mainframers...
Latest
Mainframe Data on the Move: A Security-Centric Perspective, featuring Colin Knight
At the September Virtual Db2 User Group, we hosted Colin Knight, longtime mainframer and Db2 Systems Programming Tech Lead at NatWest. With over 40 years in the field—36 of them working with Db2—Colin cut through the hype to focus on what matters most: security when...
TRIVIA – Cybersecurity Month
For many of us, October is about falling leaves, shorter days, and cooler weather. It also happens to be Cybersecurity month, the time when we dial in on the never-ending (and ever-evolving) task of securing the mainframe. Mainframes have a reputation for being...
The Paradox of Mainframe Security: Most Secure Yet Still Vulnerable
The most secure system in the world is also vulnerable. Mainframes remain the backbone of critical infrastructure—but they are not immune to modern threats. Some still see mainframes as unbreakable fortresses, while others view them as legacy systems lagging in modern...
Future-Proof Your Mainframe: Highlights from Vanguard 2025 and Enhancing Security with ACF2 TM and Top Secret®
At the recent Vanguard Security & Compliance 2025 event (VSC 2025), security leaders came together to address today’s toughest mainframe security challenges, ranging from credential theft to Zero Trust adoption. As a Platinum Sponsor, Broadcom highlighted how...
The Hidden Cybersecurity Battle Inside the Mainframe 🎧
Mainframes remain the backbone of enterprise IT—but as cyber threats evolve, so must the defenses. In this podcast, Ken Chism, Head of Worldwide Cybersecurity Sales at BMC Software, shares an inside look at the changing landscape of mainframe security. Ken discusses...
Mainframe Penetration Testing: Why It Matters More Than Ever
The goal is not disruption but discovery. For decades, mainframes have been at the heart of critical industries such as finance, healthcare, government, and retail. Since IBM introduced the System/360 in 1964, these systems have earned a reputation for being reliable,...
The Top Four Infrastructure Capabilities for Enterprise Security and Compliance
Rising Stakes of Data Protection As our modern world becomes increasingly digital, data’s value has never been higher—and the challenge of protecting it has never been so great. While the global average cost of a data breach dipped 9% in the past year due to advances...
Australia Gains First Real-Time Mainframe Ransomware Defense with Vertali APAC and MainTegrity CSF
Australian organizations running IBM z/OS systems can now access a new defense for mainframes in the Asia-Pacific(APAC) region. In news welcomed by all enterprises battling cybersecurity threats – which is all of them – MainTegrity Inc. appointed Vertali APAC as its...
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Upcoming Events
Events
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Virtual IMS User Group | February 10, 2026
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SHARE Orlando 2026
SHARE Orlando is where mainframe superheroes come together for five days of deep technical learning, collaboration, and networking. It’s the only industry conference dedicated entirely to delivering expert insight and […]
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Virtual CICS User Group | March 17, 2026
Zoom - Virtual Meeting -
Virtual Db2 User Group | March 24, 2026
Zoom - Virtual Meeting
Newest Virtel Release, SHARE Orlando Tickets, and more
VIRTEL announces release of Virtel 4.63: a major new version to better connect, secure, and simplify access to any mainframe application SHARE Orlando Early Bird Tickets Available Hitachi Vantara's Virtual Storage Platform One Wins CRN 2025 Products of the Year Award...
What 2025 Taught Us About Mainframes: A Trivia Quiz
As the year closes, and the year-end reflections roll in, we’re taking a closer look at key findings from the latest BMC, Kyndryl, and Planet Mainframe Arcati surveys. The results point to a platform that is evolving in response to cost pressures, skills gaps,...
Real-Time Data Replication, Quantum Safe Assessment Service, and More
Precisely Accelerates Mainframe Modernization with Real-Time Data Replication to Amazon S3 Kyndryl Unveils Quantum Safe Assessment Service to Enable Enterprise Readiness for the Quantum Era IBM Turbonomic and IBM Kubecost unite to optimize Kubernetes performance and...
Mainframe Miscellaneous Trivia!
As the year draws to a close (whether your days are growing shorter and darker or longer and brighter), December tends to invite a little reflection. Over the past year, Planet Mainframe Trivia has dished out a veritable smorgasbord of topics, from the early days of...
More Mainframe Lingo Trivia
Mainframe environments come with their own vocabulary, much of it precise, legacy-rich, and completely opaque to anyone who hasn’t spent time in the ecosystem. And there really is no end to the alphabet soup. Even seasoned professionals pick up new terms over the...
📰Agentic AI framework, and an AI Assistant and Data Catalog Agent
Kyndryl launches agentic AI framework and services for the mainframe Precisely Announces Gio™ AI Assistant and Data Catalog Agent in the Data Integrity SuiteKyndryl launches agentic AI framework and services for the mainframe Kyndryl has introduced a new set of...