Workforce & Training
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...
SHARE Cleveland 2025: Mainframes, Music, and Milestones
We declare SHARE Cleveland a rockin’ success! The rock ‘n roll theme permeated the city, exhibitor booths, and giveaways, culminating in a live music reception at the Rock ‘n Roll Hall of Fame. Have you seen someone wearing a leather kilt play bagpipes to AC/DC? Now...
How to Build an Internal Mainframe Talent Pool
Modern mainframe organizations recognize the persistent shortage of external, mainframe-skilled personnel and ensure long-term mainframe workforce vitality and efficacy by building internal mainframe talent pools. The synergy of workforce succession planning,...
Mainframe Skills in the Heartland
If you have journeyed out for a Conference lately or joined virtually, you have likely seen that there were several sessions addressing the same mainframe skills gap, and how companies can get a leg up on attracting and retaining talent. I still see many...
Mainframe Education for All Skill Levels
Written by: Lauren Valenti A new InfoTech Research Report found that Broadcom’s education programs lead the industry by scoring “exemplary” in every category assessed. Shortly after, Broadcom Mainframe Software was also recognized as the “Best Learning Team”...
Eastern Illinois University—a Renewed Hotbed for Mainframe Education
Bridging the Gap Pundits have been ringing mainframe technology’s death knell since the early 1990’s, but industry needs for information security and big data computing power have kept mainframes very much alive. Mainframes continue to be the workhorse for...
CICS Programming Best Practices
ASRA Abend Code In discussing aspects of CICS Command level Programming, have you ever wondered why a Program Interrupt (S0C4, S0C7) results in an ASRA Abend code? Firstly, it is important to remember that the middle 2 characters of every Abend code tells us who...
Mainframe Education for New and Experienced IT Professionals
By: Angelica Giraldo Like many, when I’m not working, my second full-time job is taking care of my fur baby. As a dog owner, I am always on the lookout for the newest and most interesting gadgets to make dog ownership a little less of a hassle. One of the recent...
Latest
What You Said – (ClownStrike) CloudStrike
According to The Guardian, the Crowdstrike outage crashed an estimated 1% of all Windows PCs worldwide—or about 8.5 million—and is estimated to have cost the US Fortune 500 USD $5 billion. We asked you, Planet Mainframe readers, to share your thoughts on the...
Share Your Thoughts — What Does a Global Blackout Mean for Mainframe Companies?
Calling Crowdstrike’s global technology outage “inconvenient” is the understatement of the year. From airlines to banking, 9-1-1 emergency services to grocery stores, and hospitals to telecommunications, millions are maddeningly stuck. The technology blackout began...
The Most Important Part for Cybersecurity
The relationship between education and security The digital age is a double-edged sword. While it offers unprecedented connectivity and innovation, it also presents a vast and ever-evolving landscape of cyber threats. From the devastating "mother of all breaches" in...
Cybersecurity in the Age of IoT: Safeguarding the Internet of Things
The emergence of the Internet of Things, or IoT, as it’s commonly known, has been a massive boon to just about every aspect of our society. It allows a multitude of physical objects in our everyday lives to connect us to the Internet. Popular products include home...
Total Network Failure on your Production System – What are the Chances?
Perhaps higher than you may think. Total loss of network connectivity is a critical event that can be hard to diagnose and recover from, especially if the systems specialists cannot connect to the system. The three mostly likely causes for total network failure on a...
Surveys, security and spaghetti
Mark Wilson reflects on the findings of a recent mainframe survey, explaining why security should be the number one priority, and why we need to start talking about complexity and observability. I read with interest the highlights of the Arcati Mainframe survey 2024,...
Vertali zTrust: Detect Network Activity and Control Traffic to Enhance Cybersecurity and Compliance
Vertali’s zTrust is a unique software solution that dramatically reduces the time, effort and costs needed to secure your operations and prove compliance with data standards and industry regulations. zTrust reveals network activity to and from your mainframe,...
Ransomware Attacks and your Health
Artificial intelligence (AI) is becoming more common place, and many people have used things like ChatGPT, a popular generative AI (GenAI) that can answer questions, write essays and poems, or summarize a book. However, like most things, AI can also be turned to the...
Sign up to receive the latest mainframe information
Upcoming Events
-
-
Virtual CICS User Group | The IT Stairway to Heaven. CICS Testing Pyramid: From Unit to Integration to Production-Like Environment
Zoom - Virtual MeetingEffective testing is essential for building robust systems. Dive deep into a structured approach to the testing pyramid for CICS applications. Using Test4z, we will demonstrate how unit tests form […]
-
Virtual Db2 User Group | January 20, 2026
Zoom - Virtual Meeting -
-
Virtual IMS User Group | February 10, 2026
Zoom - Virtual Meeting -
-
Virtual CICS User Group | March 17, 2026
Zoom - Virtual Meeting
📰 Top 100 Most Loved Workplace, Workload Automation in Industry Report, and more
Kyndryl Cloud Readiness Report: Hybrid Cloud Shapes the Future of AI and Enterprise Agility BMC Selected as Overall Leader for Workload Automation in Industry Report Kyndryl Named a Top 100 Most Loved Workplace® by the Wall Street Journal IBM and Groq Partner to...
❓ History of Artificial Intelligence Trivia
November at Planet Mainframe is all about AI, and you don’t need us to tell you that artificial intelligence has now been integrated into many of our daily routines. But long before AI became a household term, IBM was shaping the foundations of this increasingly...
IBM’s decision to discontinue support for the zPDT standalone offering threatens the mid-tier ISV market
IBM’s zPDT Decision Risks Mid-Tier ISVs and Mainframe Innovation I’ve been a passionate mainframe (System z) advocate for over 45 years and a staunch supporter of IBM and most of their decisions. However, when I received an email from IBM on 30 September 2025...
Data Integrity Award Winners, Workload Automation in Industry Report, and more
IBM Announces New Platform for Financial Institutions and Regulated Enterprises Entering the Digital Asset Economy Precisely Announces 2025 Data Integrity Award Winners Driving AI Innovation, Business Impact, and Societal Good BMC Selected as Overall Leader for...
Mainframe Artificial Intelligence Quiz
At Planet Mainframe, we’re spending the month of November focusing on AI and the mainframe. Once viewed as separate worlds, AI and IBM Z now work hand in hand to deliver real-time insights, predictive analytics, and intelligent automation across enterprise-scale...
NEWS – Granite 4.0, Free Cybersecurity Labs, and more
IBM Announces Granite 4.0 Free (Cybersecurity) Labs! Upcoming IBM Z Day Chase Card Decommissioning All Mainframe Code, with AI Assistance IBM z/OS Core Collection v1.15.0 GA ReleasedIBM Announces Granite 4.0 IBM has introduced Granite 4.0, initiating a new era for its...