Recently Published
The 2026 Arcati Mainframe User Survey Results Are Now Available
In an era defined by AI hype and cloud-first declarations, the mainframe environment, in contrast, appears quiet and refined. Organizations running IBM Z continue to anchor revenue, enforce governance, and modernize on their own timetable. Nothing is happening...
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...
Leadership in the mainframe community: Lessons from Industry Trailblazers
Careers in enterprise technology are rarely linear, and mainframe careers are no exception. At the GS UK Conference, a panel of industry leaders came together to share personal reflections on leadership, career growth, and what it takes to build a meaningful,...
Enterprise IT Trends: Reflections on a Year of Adjustment (and a Look Ahead)
As I reflect on yet another year of tectonic adjustment across the technology sector, I see little evidence that things are about to calm down. If anything, the forces reshaping enterprise IT feel more entrenched, more demanding, and more consequential than ever....
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...
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...
Latest
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...
Surprising Revelations from the recent Rocket Software Security Study
While at GSE UK, Planet Mainframe’s own Amanda Hendley, the Managing Editor of Planet Mainframe, interviews Phil Buckellew, President of Infrastructure Modernization at Rocket Software, and discusses the importance of mainframe security, emphasizing that while the...
Securing software products—protecting the supply chain
Earlier this year, I presented sessions at SHARE New Orleans on mainframe security, hacking, and security assessments. These spiked quite a bit of interest among attendees. In particular, a conversation kicked off with several leading mainframe-focused software...
Hybrid Cloud: The Key to Marrying Security & Modernization
As of 2023, over 72% of businesses worldwide have been affected by ransomware attacks. With new attacks seemingly every day and the cost of these attacks on the rise, companies know they can’t afford to joke around about security. Because of this, many are opting to...
How to Prevent Scary Cyberattacks with Mainframe Cyber Resiliency
Preventing ransomware attacks has become one of the top cybersecurity priorities for organizations. Mainframes are not immune to ransomware or any other cyberattack. Yes, the most secure platform on the planet that runs mission-critical applications and holds...
History of Cybercrime and Cybersecurity
For a long time, mainframes seemed like a safe room where a company’s most precious data possessions would be secure. But while mainframes still present unique challenges to bad actors, the days of mainframe impenetrability are most definitely over. Ever since the...
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Upcoming Events
Events
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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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You’ve never mainframed like this : Navigating the BMC AMI DevX Platform to Understand Code Faster Using AI
FeaturedVirtual MeetingMarch 31 | 2:30 PM(UTC+11:00) Sydney REGISTER Mainframe development is evolving - and you deserve tools that empower you, not hold you back. Join us for a technical workshop and […]
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Virtual IMS User Group | April 14, 2026
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European Mainframe Technical Exchange – Prague – April 21-23
Prague, Czech Republic Prague, Czech RepublicRegistration is open for the 2026 European Broadcom Mainframe Technical Exchange! This year’s event will take place in Prague, Czech Republic, from April 21 - 23. Register today to reserve […]
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❓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...
❓ 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...