Latest Articles
Does working on a mainframe make you happy?
We’re all familiar with the ups and downs of daily life working on a mainframe, but does it make you happy? Perhaps the best branch of psychology to use to see whether mainframers are happy at work is positive psychology. Positive psychology uses scientific...
The Five-Point Mainframe Transformation Leadership Checklist
Despite utterly foolish predictions to the contrary, the mainframe persists as the core computing engine for global commerce. That’s because 1) investments in mainframe code are irreplaceable and not practically re-platformable, 2) the performance economics of the...
DB2 for z/OS – Taking the Best Data Server on a Transformational Journey
Business transformation and agility are critical in today’s fast moving world. Clients demand insights faster, more often, and with greater accuracy based on up-to-the-second transactional data that is frequently housed in mainframe systems. The dependency on...
Bimodal IT – is it really the right way to go?
I’ve been hearing a lot about Bimodal IT—Gartner was pumping it up recently at their Gartner Symposium, while Jason Bloomberg at Forbes.com didn’t like it and neither does Compuware’s Chis O’Malley. I don’t like it either. Bimodal IT is one of those things that I...
The DB2 Performance Advisor – SQL Performance Tuning Basics
When asked what is the single most important or stressful aspect of their job, DBAs typically respond “assuring optimal performance.” Indeed, a Forrester Research survey of critical DBA concerns indicates that performance and troubleshooting tops the list of most...
Chronic Mainframe Migration Strategy
Some fun started with an interesting article from Chris O'Malley on LinkedIn a few months back about chronic mainframe migration strategy. It got some interest several months ago, and it generated some discussion at Planet Mainframe as well, with some people making up...
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...
IDUG in Austin TX shows us that DB2 z/OS is alive and well
I visited IDUG (International DB2 Users Group) in Austin, Texas, the week of May 23. We had a booth and had good traffic. Our presentations and party were well attended. It was “old home week” for me as many friends and previous colleagues dropped by to say hi. Many...
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....
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...
