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Building Community Through Security and Storytelling: Niall Ashley’s Approach to a More Open Mainframe
Niall Ashley Security Consultant, Vertali United KingdomThis piece is part of the 2026 Planet Mainframe Influential Mainframers series.For Niall Ashley, the strength of the mainframe community lies in how openly it shares. As a security consultant specializing in IBM...
❓ 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...
Arcati 2026 | Business Dependence and Centrality
Is the mainframe still central to business operations — and has that changed? The 2026 survey confirms that the mainframe remains central to enterprise operations. As in 2025, a majority of respondents report that more than half of their organization’s revenue or...
Arcati 2026 | Profile of Respondents
The 2026 Arcati Mainframe User Survey, conducted in late 2025 and early 2026, reflects responses from validated participants and includes a comparable number of retained responses to the 2025 and 2024 surveys, providing a stable foundation for year-over-year...
Who Will Shape the Future? 2026 Influential Mainframers Nominations Open
2026 Planet Mainframe Influential Mainframers Nominations Now Open The search for the next class of Influential Mainframers starts now. Nominations for the 2026 Influential Mainframers award are officially open. We’re looking for practitioners, leaders, educators, and...
Arcati 2026 | Operational Enablement: Tooling, Automation, and Process
As mainframe environments become more integrated, organizations are not actively expanding headcount. Instead, they are investing in tooling, automation, and process refinement to sustain reliability while accommodating change. Rather than signaling a wholesale shift...
Business-Driven Automation, AI Confidence Outpaces Readiness, and more
BMC Advances Business-Driven Automation and Mainframe Transformation with AI-Powered Innovations Precisely’s State of Data Integrity and AI Readiness Study: AI Confidence Outpaces Readiness Rocket Software to Acquire Vertica Analytics Database Platform from OpenText...
Why IBM’s New FlashSystem Matters to Mainframe Teams
Today, IBM announced its latest FlashSystem models. There’s no new z/OS capability, no IBM Z hardware refresh, and no features aimed directly at system programmers. In fact, IBM confirmed in its media briefing that the new FlashSystem line is not intended for z/OS CKD...
Latest
Database security – You need to pay better attention to it
Almost 2 years ago, it was reported that over 10,000 MongoDB databases had been deleted by ransomware groups - and much of that was done in a week's time. Let that sink in for a minute - 10,000 databases in a week - it's mind boggling. Makes you think twice about your...
Why mainframe shops are procrastinating over multi-factor authentication
In my last article I outlined why, for a number of reasons, mainframe shops are growing increasingly aware of the importance of bolstering security on their ‘Big Iron’ box. Despite that, in this piece I want to discuss why some organizations are procrastinating over...
Who’s afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?
Or: We need to talk about mainframe hacking There’s an elephant in the room says Mark Wilson. It’s mainframe-sized, at serious risk of being hacked, and its name is Z. “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” That was US president Franklin D. Roosevelt at his...
Do I need real-time, continuous, mainframe security monitoring and auditing?
To be honest, mainframes are pretty secure, aren’t they? We’ve had RACF and other External Security Managers (ESMs) for years. On top of that, the new z14 gives us pervasive encryption. And there are any number of logs recording what’s going on on Z, and we can run...
Validating your files
Mainframe files/datasets are liable to change quite often. After all, people are using those files so they are likely to be modified/updated. So how could you tell whether there had been a legitimate change to the file or it had been hacked? How can you verify that...
Is your business affected by GDPR?
What GDPR Means for Mainframe Storage, Archive and Backup On April 27, 2016, the European Union passed regulation 2016/679, more popularly known as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). On May 25, 2018, GDPR implementation began, and enforcement activities...
Multi-Factor Authentication Has Arrived – The Mainframes Are Ready
Retinal scans. Face recognition. Fingerprint scanners. Spoken phrases. Randomized pins. Those cool full-body laser scanners from the movies. Science fiction has correctly predicted many aspects of how we live in the digital age, including the rise of security...
Q: Meltdown, Spectre (and new variants) – how best to cope?
A: Become a Grandmaster at Whack-a-mole! “…used with reference to a situation in which attempts to solve a problem are piecemeal or superficial, resulting only in temporary or minor improvement…” Much (very much!) has been written regarding the security threats posed...
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Upcoming Events
Events
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Virtual CICS User Group: Unlocking Mainframe Knowledge: Using AI to Support CICS Professionals
Zoom - Virtual MeetingMany organizations rely on large CICS applications where critical knowledge is buried in legacy code and documentation. This session explores how AI can help MF CICS professionals quickly understand applications, […]
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Virtual IMS User Group: No Data Left Behind: The Complete Guide to IMS Database Recovery
Zoom - Virtual Meeting📅 June 16, 2026 🕦 11:30 AM ET When an IMS database fails, there is no time to learn recovery on the fly. In this practical and technically grounded session, […]
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Virtual Mainframe Technical Exchange – June 23 – 25, 2026
Virtual MeetingSave the Date! Learn more about the North American and Virtual Mainframe Technical Exchanges here.
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Accelerating Mainframe Efficiency: SysProg & DBA Webinar
FeaturedZoom - Virtual MeetingAre you a systems programmer, database administrator, or mainframe operations or security leader looking to get more out of your z/OS environment? This opening session of the PopUp Mainframe Persona […]
NEWS – New Survey Findings, New FlashSystem Portfolio, and more
New Rocket Software Survey Finds 69% of IT Leaders Report Data Security Keeps Them Up at Night Kyndryl Named a Leader in 2025–2026 IDC MarketScape for Mainframe Modernization IBM Introduces Autonomous Storage with New FlashSystem Portfolio Powered by Agentic AI...
❓2026 Arcati Survey Trivia
Welcome to this week’s Planet Mainframe trivia quiz! On the heels of the 2026 Arcati Survey Results release, this round of trivia focuses on changes underway. Workforce demographics are shifting, new generations are entering mainframe computing fields (and through...
Business-Driven Automation, AI Confidence Outpaces Readiness, and more
BMC Advances Business-Driven Automation and Mainframe Transformation with AI-Powered Innovations Precisely’s State of Data Integrity and AI Readiness Study: AI Confidence Outpaces Readiness Rocket Software to Acquire Vertica Analytics Database Platform from OpenText...
❓Python Programming Trivia
We often describe Python as a “modern” language, but its story spans decades of technological change, cultural shifts, and unexpected platforms. What began as a small side project in the Netherlands evolved into one of the most widely used programming languages in the...
NEWS – Rocket Software and K2view Partnership, 2025 Gartner Peer Insights Customers’ Choice, and more
IBM Introduces New Software to Address Growing Digital Sovereignty Imperative Rocket Software and K2view Partner to Accelerate Mainframe Modernization with Governed, AI-Ready Test Data for Testing, Analytics, and AI BMC is recognized as a 2025 Gartner® Peer Insights™...
❓Mainframe Professional Skills Trivia
Our last trivia quiz explored the legacy of mainframe pioneers, and this week we’re going to continue looking into the lineage of skills in mainframe professional practice, examining how early design and operational decisions shaped the way mainframe expertise is...