Recently Published
Building What’s Next: A Journey Through Mainframe Vitality Training
I’ve always been a bit obsessed with computers—especially niche hardware. Growing up, I recall my dad having a collection of old systems from companies that no longer existed. They were different from the standard beige DOS and Windows boxes that had taken over, and I...
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™...
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...
Turning Nightly Downtime into a Competitive Advantage with VSAM File-Sharing
If you run on IBM Z, you may still stop CICS overnight so batch jobs can update VSAM files. That pause might be necessary today, but it is no longer a requirement. We will show you how to remove the trade-off between fresh data and uninterrupted access with VSAM...
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...
📰Agentic AI framework, and an AI Assistant and Data Catalog Agent
Kyndryl launches agentic AI framework and services for the mainframe Precisely Announces Gio™ AI Assistant and Data Catalog Agent in the Data Integrity SuiteKyndryl launches agentic AI framework and services for the mainframe Kyndryl has introduced a new set of...
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,...
SQL & SQL PL Enhancements in Db2 12 and 13 — Technical Insights from the Virtual Mainframe User Group with Chris Crone
In this session of the Mainframe Virtual User Groups, Broadcom Distinguished Engineer Chris Crone provided a practical walkthrough of SQL and SQL PL enhancements across Db2 12 and Db2 13. Drawing on 35 years of experience working in Db2 internals, including SQL...
Latest
Understanding Downtime – Quantifying the Impact of Mainframe Outages and the Value of Observability
No matter what your business is, chances are good that at least part of it is completed online. Whether that is records management, payroll, or customer purchases, the online portion of your business is most likely a very critical component of overall success. That is...
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,...
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Upcoming Events
Events
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Virtual CICS User Group | March 17, 2026
Zoom - Virtual Meeting -
Virtual Db2 User Group | March 24, 2026
Zoom - Virtual Meeting -
Essential z/OS Performance Tuning Workshop – Registration Deadline: March 16, 2026.
The 4-day z/OS Performance Tuning Essentials Workshop introduces the foundational terminology, metrics, and practices necessary to measure, understand, and improve z/OS system performance. Participants will gain a comprehensive understanding of […]
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Virtual IMS User Group | April 14, 2026
Zoom - Virtual Meeting
❓ Workforce and Training Trivia
Happy 2026—and welcome to a whole new year of Planet Mainframe Trivia! As our January theme focuses on Workforce and Training, this quiz looks at mainframe pioneers and the early decisions that shaped how mainframe skills are learned and passed on. Mainframe expertise...
Newest Virtel Release, SHARE Orlando Tickets, and more
VIRTEL announces release of Virtel 4.63: a major new version to better connect, secure, and simplify access to any mainframe application SHARE Orlando Early Bird Tickets Available Hitachi Vantara's Virtual Storage Platform One Wins CRN 2025 Products of the Year Award...
❓What 2025 Taught Us About Mainframes: A Trivia Quiz
As the year closes, and the year-end reflections roll in, we’re taking a closer look at key findings from the latest BMC, Kyndryl, and Planet Mainframe Arcati surveys. The results point to a platform that is evolving in response to cost pressures, skills gaps,...
Real-Time Data Replication, Quantum Safe Assessment Service, and More
Precisely Accelerates Mainframe Modernization with Real-Time Data Replication to Amazon S3 Kyndryl Unveils Quantum Safe Assessment Service to Enable Enterprise Readiness for the Quantum Era IBM Turbonomic and IBM Kubecost unite to optimize Kubernetes performance and...
Mainframe Miscellaneous Trivia!
As the year draws to a close (whether your days are growing shorter and darker or longer and brighter), December tends to invite a little reflection. Over the past year, Planet Mainframe Trivia has dished out a veritable smorgasbord of topics, from the early days of...
More Mainframe Lingo Trivia
Mainframe environments come with their own vocabulary, much of it precise, legacy-rich, and completely opaque to anyone who hasn’t spent time in the ecosystem. And there really is no end to the alphabet soup. Even seasoned professionals pick up new terms over the...