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Planet Mainframe

ROI, Business Case and Tuning for Value Trivia: Round One

Jul 13, 2026

Cost Optimization, Trivia, z/OS Tuning

ROI, Business Case and Tuning for Value

Sonja Soderlund

Sonja Soderlund is an Oregon-based B2B freelance writer. Whether writing about mainframe computers, educational technology, or sustainable retail, she strives to bring clarity to complex issues. Connect with her or LinkedIn.

For July’s Planet Mainframe Trivia Quizzes, we’re exploring the fundamentals of measuring value and making informed technology decisions. Whether the investment involves modernizing a mainframe environment, optimizing workloads, or deploying new enterprise applications, technology initiatives are expected to both keep systems running and deliver measurable business value. IT leaders must balance costs, benefits, risks and long-term impact, using concepts such as return on investment (ROI), total cost of ownership (TCO) and business cases to guide their decisions.

Take our quiz and test your knowledge of the principles that help organizations maximize the return on their IT investments!

1. Which of the following best describes return on investment (ROI)?

 
 
 
 

2. A well-developed business case is primarily intended to:

 
 
 
 

3. Which cost is typically included in a Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) analysis but may be overlooked in an initial purchase decision?

 
 
 
 

4. In traditional mainframe sub-capacity pricing, software licensing costs (MLC) are primarily determined by which metric?

 
 
 
 

5. Performance tuning delivers the greatest business value when it:

 
 
 
 

6. Which action is most likely to reduce IBM mainframe software licensing costs by improving system efficiency?

 
 
 
 

7. Why are specialty processors such as zIIPs often included in ROI calculations?

 
 
 
 

8. Why is capacity planning an important component of maximizing ROI?

 
 
 
 

9. Technical debt most often results from:

 
 
 
 

10. In business planning, opportunity cost refers to:

 
 
 
 

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