Influential Mainframers
Influential Mainframer Trivia: Eleanor Kolchin
For the month of April, Planet Mainframe puts the spotlight on influential mainframers, and this week our trivia quiz is all about mainframe trailblazer Eleanor Kolchin. Kolchin built her career at a pivotal moment in computing, when computing machines were...
Shelly Meierarend: “Where You Are From Does Not Limit How Far You Can Go”
Shelly J. Meierarend, PMP IBM Z and LinuxONE Client and Academic Global Skills LeaderIBM Z Ecosystem – InfrastructureIBM Buford, Georgia, United StatesThis article features Shelly J. Meierarend, one of the top four 2026 Influential Mainframers.Editor’s Note: We often...
Building Pathways in Latin America: Paolo Enrique Garcia Ramos and the Rise of “New to Z”
Paolo Enrique Garcia Ramos Mainframe Chief, Interbank Lima, PeruThis piece is part of the 2026 Planet Mainframe Influential Mainframers series.For Paolo Enrique Garcia Ramos, the future of the mainframe depends on who gets access to it. With 18 years of experience in...
A Global Movement: The Numbers Behind the 2026 Influential Mainframers
The mainframe is often referred to as the "backbone of the global economy". Although that’s true, the mainframe is more than a tired phrase. Its true strength lies in the diverse, global community of experts who push the platform forward. This year, the 2026...
Scott Brod: Proving the Mainframe is a Modern, High-Performance Engine
Scott Brod Product ManagerBroadcom Port Monmouth, NJ, USAThis piece is part of the 2026 Planet Mainframe Influential Mainframers series.In the world of enterprise computing, "legacy" is often used as a polite synonym for "outdated." But for Scott Brod, a Product...
Making Performance Visible: Scott Chapman’s Relentless Pursuit of Mainframe Clarity
Scott Chapman Chief Information Officer, Director of Software Design and DevelopmentEnterprise Performance Strategies, Inc. Galena, Ohio, United StatesThis piece is part of the 2026 Planet Mainframe Influential Mainframers series.For Scott Chapman, performance is not...
Bridging Generations of Talent: Sujit Neb’s Work to Make Mainframe Skills Scalable
Sujit Neb Lead Automation EngineerBMC Software Pune, Maharashtra, IndiaThis piece is part of the 2026 Planet Mainframe Influential Mainframers series.Across more than 14 years in the mainframe space, Neb has focused on a challenge that continues to shape the future of...
Bringing Mainframe Security Into the Spotlight: Kev Milne’s Mission
Kev Milne Instructor - CTI ManagerNeuro Training Ltd Edinburgh, Scotland, United KingdomThis piece is part of the 2026 Planet Mainframe Influential Mainframers series.The mainframe still powers a vast portion of the world’s critical infrastructure—financial systems,...
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Modernize Security with ACF2 and Top Secret Version17.0
In the world of security, many things have changed since the last release of ACF2 and Top Secret. Credential-based attacks are up - compromised credential-based attacks cost organizations $4.67m annually, while being the initial attack vector 10% of the time¹....
The Need for Effective Change Management
Introduction Over the last few years there has been an ever-increasing number of widely publicised problems involving notable corporate organisations and the failings of their IT systems. Incidents of ransomware, hacking and phishing are becoming worryingly...
Extending the Security Stack: Red Teaming, Scenarios, Risks, and Reality
Mainframes hold the heart of the most critical business processes in finance, healthcare, and government. Yet many security programmes still draw a neat line around them, treating z/OS as out of scope for red teaming, scenarios, and cyber risk quantification. This...
The Open Mainframe Project Has a Trust Problem — And the Mainframe Can’t Afford It
Open Mainframe Project Security Concerns I was chatting with a mainframer buddy the other day, and he expressed some concerns about the overall code security of the Open Mainframe Project (OMP), particularly around member vetting. So, I spent a bit of time digging...
IBM z17 NTS Enhancements: Securing Time Synchronization
In October 2025, Planet Mainframe published the first article of this two-part series on IBM z17 Time Synchronization Enhancements. That article focused on time synchronization resiliency and accuracy enhancements introduced on IBM z17. This article continues with a...
z/OS Security Assessments: What We Missed in 2015 vs. Today
My career has, over the nearly four years of working in this field, predominantly been comprised of RACF Administration and Engineering, interspersed with other opportunities that I foolishly volunteered myself for. Such opportunities have included writing articles,...
PowerTerm End-of-Life: Why Organizations Must Act Now – And Why the December 10 Webinar Is Critical
In March 2025, Ericom PowerTerm, a terminal emulator still used by thousands of organizations to access mainframes, IBM i systems, Unix hosts, VMS machines, and other mission-critical environments, officially entered End-of-Life (EOL). For decades, PowerTerm provided...
Mainframe AI Agents: The Interns Who Never Sleep
A conversation with BMC Anthony Doroand Leah Sokalov.A Knowledge Problem That Can’t Wait Amanda Hendly, Managing Editor of Planet Mainframe, met with Distinguished Engineer Anthony Doro and Senior Product Manager Leah Sokalov, both from BMC. The conversation focused...
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European Mainframe Technical Exchange – Prague – April 21-23
Prague, Czech Republic Prague, Czech RepublicRegistration is open for the 2026 European Broadcom Mainframe Technical Exchange! This year’s event will take place in Prague, Czech Republic, from April 21 - 23. Register today to reserve […]
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GSE UK Virtual Conference 2026 including Mainframe Trends 2026: Insights from the Mainframe User Survey
GSE UK Virtual Conference 2026Do More at the Core. Built to Learn, Engineered to Lead. Join the global mainframe community for the GSE UK Virtual Conference 2026, taking place April […]
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Virtual CICS User Group | May 12, 2026
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Virtual Db2 User Group | May 19, 2026
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Influential Mainframer Trivia: Eleanor Kolchin
For the month of April, Planet Mainframe puts the spotlight on influential mainframers, and this week our trivia quiz is all about mainframe trailblazer Eleanor Kolchin. Kolchin built her career at a pivotal moment in computing, when computing machines were...
Introducing IBM’s New SQL Tool, Virtel 4.64 now Available, and more
Bringing AI to Mainframe Data: Introducing IBM SQL Data Insights Pro Virtel 4.64 Now Available: Stronger Session Security, Enhanced Japanese Codepage Support, and Key Usability Improvements BMC Advances Trusted AI Orchestration With New Control-M Kyndryl awarded a...
Influential Mainframer Trivia: Bob Evans
At Planet Mainframe, April is dedicated to honoring influential mainframers past and present. This week’s quiz dives into the life and times of Bob Evans (1927–2004), who played a central role in shaping modern enterprise computing during his career at IBM. ...
Kyndryl Readiness Report, Precisely and Matillion Partnership, and more
Kyndryl Readiness Report reveals misalignment between infrastructure investment and preparedness for converging modernization demands Precisely and Matillion Partner to Accelerate Data Modernization and Agentic AI Readiness IBM Completes Acquisition of Confluent,...
Open Tools, Modern Workflows: A Next-Gen Mainframe Quiz
This week, our Planet Mainframe quiz continues the “Next-Gen Mainframe” theme. For decades, mainframe development operated in its own world—but as the broader industry converged on open-source tooling, Git-based collaboration, and cloud-style DevOps pipelines, the...
2026 X-Force Threat Index, Expanded Data Integrity Suite, and more
IBM 2026 X-Force Threat Index: AI-Driven Attacks are Escalating as Basic Security Gaps Leave Enterprises Exposed Precisely Expands Data Integrity Suite with New AI Agents for Enhanced Data Quality, Data Enrichment, and Location Intelligence BMC Signs Five-Year...