Latest Articles
Blockchain technology – the hype versus the reality
(Forget about the Drugs and Rock & Roll… it’s all about the SECS.) Blockchain technology could change the world as we know it, or so the hype would have us believe. Is blockchain technology really all that it’s hyped up to be? Let’s compare the traditional...
Does McKinsey Hate Betty White?
Betty White rocks. I mean, she hosted Saturday Night Live—and won an Emmy for it—at the age of 88. At 93, she is still winning awards for shows like Hot in Cleveland and Off Their Rockers, where she is also executive producer. McKinsey apparently thinks Betty White...
Mainframe batch challenges – and solutions
The ancient datacenter game of tug-of-war between the need for more computing power, and the need to more closely control ongoing IT costs is never-ending, and continues, as intensely as ever, in today’s large business datacenters. And with the mainframe enclosed...
Mainframing in the 2020’s
There are a countless number of articles on the subject of mainframe computing, and whether or not you should stay with it or replace it with a “more modern” technology. As you can probably well imagine, most vendors that are mainframe-specific will recommend that...
Mainframers are starting to ask questions about security – and that’s a good thing
IT security crises are forever making business headlines. In 2017 it was the high profile ransomware attacks and huge data breaches such as Equifax. Barely a week into 2018 and we had the revelations surrounding the Meltdown and Spectre vulnerabilities affecting...
The Modern and Mobile Mainframe
Without revealing my age, I got my first mainframe job back when terminal emulators were a new idea. They were rudimentary with only basic features like copy and paste available, but the number of licensed seats we had for those PC-based emulators was limited, so we...
The mainframe strikes back
With the mainframe’s star in the ascendancy yet again, we need to seize the opportunities presented while recognizing the risks, writes Mark Wilson, RSM Partners I was just sixteen when I started working with mainframes. That was in May 1980, a month that also saw the...
Capping is Good.
Or, Capping is no longer a bad word Okay, yes it is - nobody in their right mind is going to cap their business-critical workloads. Yes you want to save on operational spend - in fact you need to - but not at the expense of completing business-critical workloads on...
Mainframe News Out There – February
Once a month we like to pick articles from other blogs that we feel are interesting enough to talk about on the Planet Mainframe blog. Here are this week’s picks: GDPR deadline approaching The deadline for GDPR compliance is approaching fast – just months away – May...
Analytics – now – and in the future
It has been going on for decades on the mainframe The future is about doing it better in multi-platform environments And - in real time Given the meteoric rise in the use of smartphones, the increasing inter-connectivity between what were previously non-connected...



