Bryan Smith
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IDG Contributor Network: How mainframes change our lives
When people think about uses for mainframes, they often think of the financial and public sectors. And while it’s true that many banks and government agencies would have a hard time getting through their countless interactions swiftly and efficiently without the processing power of Big Iron. But mainframes handle more than just our interactions with governments and our money — they are used in many industries that influence and improve our daily lives in ways we often don’t even think about. Let’s take a look at several walks of life and businesses where we depend on mainframes every day, even if we don’t think about it.Power: don’t get dressed in the dark Our modern world runs on electricity, and electricity providers run on mainframes. Only Big Iron is dependable enough to regulate power generation and output, as well as monitor and analyze power usage across countless households within each provider’s power grid. Mainframes help automate power generation to be self-sufficient and reliable, ensuring people can wake up to their alarm clock or work late shifts.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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IDG Contributor Network: Data virtualization: Like rocket fuel for your mainframe
It goes without saying that mainframes are powerful. These computers can perform more operations per second than any other commercial system, which is why most banks (not to mention many government agencies, insurance companies, retailers and other businesses that manage massive amounts of data) rely on Big Iron for their indispensable data analytics functions.And to say analytics are indispensable is underselling their value. Data analysis is an absolutely integral part of the new economy, and any organization seeking an edge needs an edge in analytics. Mainframes are a good match to provide the speed that leading companies are looking for, but many companies are still held back by their software.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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IDG Contributor Network: Data virtualization: Like rocket fuel for your mainframe
It goes without saying that mainframes are powerful. These computers can perform more operations per second than any other commercial system, which is why most banks (not to mention many government agencies, insurance companies, retailers and other businesses that manage massive amounts of data) rely on Big Iron for their indispensable data analytics functions.And to say analytics are indispensable is underselling their value. Data analysis is an absolutely integral part of the new economy, and any organization seeking an edge needs an edge in analytics. Mainframes are a good match to provide the speed that leading companies are looking for, but many companies are still held back by their software.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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IDG Contributor Network: Blockchain is the perfect data protection tool for banks using mainframes
Technophobic thrillers in popular media are always trying to convince us hackers are just a few malicious keystrokes away from crashing the world economy. And while doing such a thing is more complicated than just “deleting all the money,” one could certainly do a great deal of damage by changing what a computer thinks is true.Wouldn’t it be great if there were software that could guarantee which data was and was not correct, backed up by the most powerful computer processors available? I give you blockchain, which more and more fiscal institutions are using to protect their data, backed up by the undeniable power of mainframes.RELATED: Inside Bank of America's IT transformation Blockchain first entered the public’s (OK, the techie public’s) awareness in the orbit of Bitcoin, as a means of securing that controversial digital currency’s code against someone who decided to break into the right server and add a couple zeroes to their account. But Bitcoin haters need not close this tab in disgust just yet, as blockchain has come into its own as a reliable security measure for more than just black market storefronts.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please Continue reading
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IDG Contributor Network: Blockchain the perfect data protection tool for banks using mainframes
Technophobic thrillers in popular media are always trying to convince us hackers are just a few malicious keystrokes away from crashing the world economy. And while doing such a thing is more complicated than just “deleting all the money,” one could certainly do a great deal of damage by changing what a computer thinks is true.Wouldn’t it be great if there were software that could guarantee which data was and was not correct, backed up by the most powerful computer processors available? I give you blockchain, which more and more fiscal institutions are using to protect their data, backed up by the undeniable power of mainframes.RELATED: Inside Bank of America's IT transformation Blockchain first entered the public’s (OK, the techie public’s) awareness in the orbit of Bitcoin, as a means of securing that controversial digital currency’s code against someone who decided to break into the right server and add a couple zeroes to their account. But Bitcoin haters need not close this tab in disgust just yet, as blockchain has come into its own as a reliable security measure for more than just black market storefronts.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please Continue reading
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IDG Contributor Network: Blockchain the perfect data protection tool for banks using mainframes
Technophobic thrillers in popular media are always trying to convince us hackers are just a few malicious keystrokes away from crashing the world economy. And while doing such a thing is more complicated than just “deleting all the money,” one could certainly do a great deal of damage by changing what a computer thinks is true.Wouldn’t it be great if there were software that could guarantee which data was and was not correct, backed up by the most powerful computer processors available? I give you blockchain, which more and more fiscal institutions are using to protect their data, backed up by the undeniable power of mainframes.RELATED: Inside Bank of America's IT transformation Blockchain first entered the public’s (OK, the techie public’s) awareness in the orbit of Bitcoin, as a means of securing that controversial digital currency’s code against someone who decided to break into the right server and add a couple zeroes to their account. But Bitcoin haters need not close this tab in disgust just yet, as blockchain has come into its own as a reliable security measure for more than just black market storefronts.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please Continue reading
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IDG Contributor Network: Blockchain the perfect data protection tool for banks using mainframes
Technophobic thrillers in popular media are always trying to convince us hackers are just a few malicious keystrokes away from crashing the world economy. And while doing such a thing is more complicated than just “deleting all the money,” one could certainly do a great deal of damage by changing what a computer thinks is true.Wouldn’t it be great if there were software that could guarantee which data was and was not correct, backed up by the most powerful computer processors available? I give you blockchain, which more and more fiscal institutions are using to protect their data, backed up by the undeniable power of mainframes.RELATED: Inside Bank of America's IT transformation Blockchain first entered the public’s (OK, the techie public’s) awareness in the orbit of Bitcoin, as a means of securing that controversial digital currency’s code against someone who decided to break into the right server and add a couple zeroes to their account. But Bitcoin haters need not close this tab in disgust just yet, as blockchain has come into its own as a reliable security measure for more than just black market storefronts.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please Continue reading
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IDG Contributor Network: How mainframes prevent data breaches
2016 was a strange year marked by everything from election surprises to a seemingly endless spate of celebrity deaths. But when historians look back at this mirum anno—weird year—it may end up being known as the year of the data breach. Of course, this sort of thing isn’t restricted to 2016, but its impact on the world was hard to ignore. Among government organizations, the IRS and FBI suffered data breaches, and corporate victims included LinkedIn, Target, Verizon and Yahoo. Literally millions of people had their private information exposed to black hats, thieves and other ne’er-do-wells of the digital world. This epidemic of data theft calls upon security experts to get serious about creating new solutions.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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IDG Contributor Network: How mainframes prevent data breaches
2016 was a strange year marked by everything from election surprises to a seemingly endless spate of celebrity deaths. But when historians look back at this mirum anno—weird year—it may end up being known as the year of the data breach. Of course, this sort of thing isn’t restricted to 2016, but its impact on the world was hard to ignore. Among government organizations, the IRS and FBI suffered data breaches, and corporate victims included LinkedIn, Target, Verizon and Yahoo. Literally millions of people had their private information exposed to black hats, thieves and other ne’er-do-wells of the digital world. This epidemic of data theft calls upon security experts to get serious about creating new solutions.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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IDG Contributor Network: How mainframes prevent data breaches
2016 was a strange year marked by everything from election surprises to a seemingly endless spate of celebrity deaths. But when historians look back at this mirum anno—weird year—it may end up being known as the year of the data breach. Of course, this sort of thing isn’t restricted to 2016, but its impact on the world was hard to ignore. Among government organizations, the IRS and FBI suffered data breaches, and corporate victims included LinkedIn, Target, Verizon and Yahoo. Literally millions of people had their private information exposed to black hats, thieves and other ne’er-do-wells of the digital world. This epidemic of data theft calls upon security experts to get serious about creating new solutions.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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IDG Contributor Network: Why banks love mainframes
If you’ve been following this blog, you may have seen me mention mainframes are popular with banks and financial institutions. In reading that again and again, you may have thought to yourself, “So what?” After all, banks are notoriously hidebound and slow to adopt new ideas (there’s a reason Mary Poppins’ Mr. Banks worked for the bank of London and not a toymaker to represent being conservative and slow to change.)And slow to change though the banks may be, what they most certainly are not is impractical. Banks don’t just love mainframes because that’s what they’ve always used. They love mainframes because they’re the right tool for the job: a tool with power.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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IDG Contributor Network: Why banks love mainframes
If you’ve been following this blog, you may have seen me mention mainframes are popular with banks and financial institutions. In reading that again and again, you may have thought to yourself, “So what?” After all, banks are notoriously hidebound and slow to adopt new ideas (there’s a reason Mary Poppins’ Mr. Banks worked for the bank of London and not a toymaker to represent being conservative and slow to change.)And slow to change though the banks may be, what they most certainly are not is impractical. Banks don’t just love mainframes because that’s what they’ve always used. They love mainframes because they’re the right tool for the job: a tool with power.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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IDG Contributor Network: Mainframes 2026: What the future holds for big iron
For more than 50 years mainframes have powered thousands of organizations around the world, from banks to militaries to government agencies. Looking looking back at all that history makes me think about the critical role that big iron has played in the world, but it also gets me thinking about the future and what the next 10 years holds for the mainframe industry.+ Also on Network World: The future of virtualization: Don’t forget the so-called 'old' +What makes me so confident that mainframing even has a 2026 worth looking forward to? After all, hasn’t the cloud revolutionized data storage and processing and ushered in the end of mainframes? The truth is that not every disruptive development replaces what it disrupted—sometimes not immediately and sometimes not at all. Globalization did not kill American IT jobs, Metallica didn’t negate Van Halen, and the cloud won’t kill mainframes because mainframes have something that the cloud will need over the next decade: power.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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IDG Contributor Network: Mainframes 2026: What the future holds for big iron
For more than 50 years mainframes have powered thousands of organizations around the world, from banks to militaries to government agencies. Looking looking back at all that history makes me think about the critical role that big iron has played in the world, but it also gets me thinking about the future and what the next 10 years holds for the mainframe industry.+ Also on Network World: The future of virtualization: Don’t forget the so-called 'old' +What makes me so confident that mainframing even has a 2026 worth looking forward to? After all, hasn’t the cloud revolutionized data storage and processing and ushered in the end of mainframes? The truth is that not every disruptive development replaces what it disrupted—sometimes not immediately and sometimes not at all. Globalization did not kill American IT jobs, Metallica didn’t negate Van Halen, and the cloud won’t kill mainframes because mainframes have something that the cloud will need over the next decade: power.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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IDG Contributor Network: Mainframes and the API economy
A few weeks ago I found myself in a meeting with the technical team at a major investment company that uses mainframes to support the massive amounts of data they work with every day. I spend just about all of my time talking with mainframers, but this conversation took a bit of an odd twist: they wanted to talk about application programming interfaces (APIs).It wasn’t what I expected, but after thinking about it more, it makes perfect sense. After all, APIs are driving just about everything these days. It’s no wonder so many people are (unironically) talking about the “API economy.”+ Also on Network World: The cloud’s silver lining: the mainframe +To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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IDG Contributor Network: 4 things you can do on a mainframe—without knowing how to use a mainframe
Remember when you got your driver’s license? That was a pretty big day. Now imagine that as the person at the DMV handed you your card, he or she also slipped you permits to operate a boat, drive a motorcycle and fly the Space Shuttle. Sounds crazy, right? Yet it’s happening in the world of mainframes every day thanks to new tools that make it possible to program and manage big iron in just about any language and on any platform. Even five years ago it would have been inconceivable for this to happen. If you wanted to use a mainframe, you had to know COBOL. That’s all fine and good—if you graduated from college in 1978. But what about the next generation of mainframers? How were they supposed to use computers that required users to know a language that wasn’t even taught in most computer science programs anymore?To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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IDG Contributor Network: 4 things you can do on a mainframe—without knowing how to use a mainframe
Remember when you got your driver’s license? That was a pretty big day. Now imagine that as the person at the DMV handed you your card, he or she also slipped you permits to operate a boat, drive a motorcycle and fly the Space Shuttle. Sounds crazy, right? Yet it’s happening in the world of mainframes every day thanks to new tools that make it possible to program and manage big iron in just about any language and on any platform. Even five years ago it would have been inconceivable for this to happen. If you wanted to use a mainframe, you had to know COBOL. That’s all fine and good—if you graduated from college in 1978. But what about the next generation of mainframers? How were they supposed to use computers that required users to know a language that wasn’t even taught in most computer science programs anymore?To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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IDG Contributor Network: 3 reasons to be a 20-something mainframer
We all know the stereotype of a mainframe programmer or admin: gray hair, graduated from college in 1965, drives a Chrysler—and is about to retire, leaving a massive hole that his employer will find difficult to fill because no one under 60 knows how to use a mainframe.Now, let’s look at another stereotype: the millennial programmer. He/she is a few years out of college, with a degree in computer science, green or blue hair, and enough student debt to sink a yacht. The usual next step is to move to San Francisco, pay $2,200 a month to live under a staircase like Harry Potter and dream of joining a company that has a one-in-a-million chance of becoming the next Google.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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IDG Contributor Network: 3 reasons to be a 20-something mainframer
We all know the stereotype of a mainframe programmer or admin: gray hair, graduated from college in 1965, drives a Chrysler—and is about to retire, leaving a massive hole that his employer will find difficult to fill because no one under 60 knows how to use a mainframe.Now, let’s look at another stereotype: the millennial programmer. He/she is a few years out of college, with a degree in computer science, green or blue hair, and enough student debt to sink a yacht. The usual next step is to move to San Francisco, pay $2,200 a month to live under a staircase like Harry Potter and dream of joining a company that has a one-in-a-million chance of becoming the next Google.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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IDG Contributor Network: The platform wars are over
We’ve all heard the expression, “Everyone else was playing checkers, but that guy was playing chess.” And “that guy” is usually the person who came out ahead because he (or she) was able to see past the immediate short-term problems and make plans that would win in the long run.In many ways, this is a microcosm of the battle over what hardware computing platform to use. And while everyone scurried around to figure out what platform won, a clear victor emerged: data.That’s right: data is the big winner.Of course, you are probably wondering why I think the so-called “platform wars” are over. My answer is simple: they’re not over, but they’re not as important as they once were. That's because while the rest of us were busy debating the merits of mainframes, IBM i, UNIX and Windows, data managed to work its way free of any one platform. In fact, any piece of data created on any system can be accessed and used by just about any machine in the world. It’s sort of like driving. Anyone can pull into any service station and fill up their tank regardless of whether they’re driving a Porsche, Chevy Continue reading