zUniversity Munich Insights

zUniversity Munich Insights

The European version of the IBM zUniversity took place in Munich on June 13-17 this year and it was a first time for me and the rest of Insoft-Infotel team to attend such event. In all there were two Planet Mainframe members to attend this event, both having our...

read more
New Hope for Mainframes

New Hope for Mainframes

For a long time now, the still young at heart mainframers have been making plans. Unfortunately, it’s not plans for how to improve mainframe performance or reduce costs, it’s what to do once they retire. And the bad news is that more and more mainframers are retiring....

read more
Agile COBOL and the x86-less Datacenter

Agile COBOL and the x86-less Datacenter

For years, pundits have predicted that a generational shift in IT would spell doom for the mainframe. But just the opposite is true. The current generational shift in IT is driving a major mainframe renaissance—along with, ironically, abandonment of x86 datacenter...

read more
The Mainframe is a Witch!

The Mainframe is a Witch!

The Mainframe Witch-Hunt The Salem witch trials were an ugly moment in US history. A combination of groupthink, bad religion and confirmation bias led an entire community to act irrationally. And the results were not pretty. Twenty people—most of them women—were...

read more
The Nexus of Forces Impacts the Mainframe, Too

The Nexus of Forces Impacts the Mainframe, Too

In 2012, analysts at Gartner described the changing dynamics of digital business as being driven by what they call The Nexus of Forces. This important concept is crucial to understand and adapt to because it is impacting all of our businesses and the computing...

read more
Will Mainframers adopt DevOps?

Will Mainframers adopt DevOps?

Mainframes are under siege. You might like to picture the mainframe department as some medieval castle surrounded by invading troops. There’s no actual fighting going on, but gradually the forces of distributed computing are waiting for the survivors inside the...

read more
A Mainframe Migration Disaster Story

A Mainframe Migration Disaster Story

A few years ago, I was speaking at a conference on the west coast—attending were mostly IT executives from startup companies, and it was a lively group. Also, some IT folks were in attendance from some more established companies. Afterwards I sat beside one such chap...

read more
How to Tell Your Mom about the Mainframe

How to Tell Your Mom about the Mainframe

So what is a mainframe? The answer to that question might, at first glance, seem to be obvious to some of us who have worked with mainframe systems our entire career. But have you ever really tried to step back and think about the question? What if your Mother asked...

read more