Latest Articles
Websphere Application Server – Now An Essential Part of z/OS
To many, z/OS is a legacy operating system where ‘old school’ technologies like CICS, COBOL and batch reign. Java, not so much. But tools and platforms usually found on Linux and Windows servers are now, not only present on z/OS, but mainstream. An example of this is...
How well is your mainframe outsourcer managing capacity and performance? – Part 1
There are many reasons why companies choose to outsource their mainframe. One of the major reasons is economies of scale—cost per unit (e.g. per MIPS or MSU) for hardware and software falls dramatically as the mainframe gets larger. Similarly, the cost of having the...
Mainframe News Out There
Once a month (or so) we like to pick blog articles from other sources that we feel are interesting enough to talk about on the Planet Mainframe blog. Here are this month’s picks: Taking Down the Mainframe Another interesting article on the Dancing Dinosaur blog:...
What was the cost of a data breach in 2020?
A data breach is every company's waking nightmare. What is the cost of a data breach for your company?Ponemon Institute and IBM Security released the 2020 Cost of a Data Breach Report. Interviews were conducted with more than 3,200 professionals from 524 companies...
More On IMS Usage
Understanding how an Input Message sent by an IMS Connect Client to IMS Connect works when OTMA NAKs the Input Message IMS Connect (ICON) is the TCP/IP gateway for IMS. So, besides running the traditional IMS transactions on z/OS, an IMS programmer/database...
The new IBM Enterprise COBOL for z/OS Migration Assistant is live to guide you through COBOL migration
The IBM Enterprise COBOL for z/OS Migration Assistant (CMA) has been very popular among COBOL migration users. It is a step-by-step wizard and an interactive checklist that guide users through the information along their migration journey from COBOL 4 or earlier to...
Cyber security and cyber resiliency for financial institutions (and everyone else)
For everyone with a mainframe, cyber security and cyber resiliency are important. For financial institutions, a major breach could, potentially, not only lead to the company going out of business, but, as we saw in 2008, could also lead to significant parts of the...
How AI Applications Are Triggering A Renaissance in Legacy Mainframe Data
Everyone is familiar with the promise of AI and machine learning. Like a human, these intelligent systems are supposed to be trainable through formal means, and also able to learn by deriving meaning from data that is presented to them. Of course, that’s the theory....
Basics of VSAM
This article will take you inside VSAM and explain the environment of Virtual Storage Access Method. VSAM has been around since the 1970s and provides a way of storing large amounts of data for 3 types of access. Random Sequential Skip Sequential VSAM has a number of...
Strengthening your network cryptographic posture with zERT
Network security is not a new topic for IT practitioners, but always a hot one. Data breaches can be devastating to business both operationally and financially. However, the cybersecurity landscape never stands still. Each day attackers invent new ways to probe...
