blog post for broadcom mainframe software By Eric Newcomer
People tend to think of investments in technology in terms of new technology alone. Technology is constantly changing and evolving, but this doesn’t always mean whatever is old (or not new) is bad or made obsolete by those changes.
This is something to consider when you are upgrading your IT infrastructure. You want to make sure that all your systems are as up to date as possible, including your mainframes. To be successful, modernization projects require an up-to-date infrastructure foundation. Otherwise, modernization projects may either fail or fail to live up to expectations.
Upgrading to the current version of your database, for example, helps integrate your mainframe data with off-platform applications and the cloud. It helps you create and manage APIs to access the data from a mobile app, web app, or LLM training app. Data is more easily and efficiently managed in a hybrid cloud environment, for example, and more easily accessible for LLM training purposes.
Keeping software up to date helps maintain service level agreements (SLAs) for performance and reliability and avoids risk of being out of support.
As you make your next mainframe investment decision, be sure to check that you have allowed enough zIIP (that’s the distributed offload processing engine) processing power to more efficiently manage both your core data and AI models.
If you find you have additional unused capacity, consider deploying applications on the mainframe that you might otherwise deploy on distributed systems.
Mainframe hardware and database software changes rapidly, so be sure to check on processor and memory configurations before finalizing a purchase.
Newer mainframe software is adapted to distributed computing standards and developer experience, which helps bridge the knowledge gap and resolve skill set issues between other platforms and mainframes.
In many cases it’s more a question of finding the right intersection between old and new, and finding the right roles for each.
Modern development and deployment tools are available on the mainframe now. Developers use their IDEs of choice and set up CI/CD pipelines just as they would for distributed systems.
Dev/Ops, ML/AI, and cloud and web integration are all available and valuable for new systems. VS Code can be used for mainframe development, including COBOL.
New GUIs and dashboards are available for management, maintenance, and cybersecurity.
Virtualization technologies enable multiple operating systems and applications to run concurrently, making mainframes ideal for managing large-scale data processing, powering mobile and web application APIs and LLM model training. Modern mainframes support virtual machines, run Java, host containerized applications, and even run Kubernetes clusters (via Red Hat OpenShift).
Given all these new capabilities, when you are thinking about new applications, digital transformation, modernization, and generative AI, it makes sense to think about developing them, or part of them, on the mainframe and deploying them there as well.
How Broadcom Mainframe Software Can Help
If you are a Broadcom Mainframe Software customer you may already have one or both of their two mainframe databases: IDMS and Datacom, each of which store and retrieve operational data with high performance characteristics.
Broadcom Mainframe Software has modernized these database management systems over time and invested in connecting them to the broader IT landscape. The new capabilities are significant for any modernization project, including improving customer experience and enhancing productivity with generative AI
They have embraced DevOps and invested in new technologies as well, including:
- Development tools, so you can maintain and develop new code using VS code, as you would for any other applications in your organization.
- A CI/CD pipeline that supports mainframe code, so when you need to update or enhance your database applications you can use DevOps techniques.
- Improved database management tooling, including simplified administration GUIs, system level APIs, and streamlined, cost efficient backup and restore capabilities.
- Connected the databases to the cloud for hybrid cloud operation, including integration with object storage.
- An API generator and API gateway to access mainframe data using RESTful APIs. This is useful for seamlessly integrating mainframe data across the landscape, for mobile and web apps, and of course for feeding data into LLM training modules.
Broadcom’s database management solution includes Zowe, which increases data availability while conserving CPU resources.
With the newer versions, you can increase the ROI on your mainframe investment, further accelerate your organization’s ability to handle the growing influx of data, and easily share that data.
Broadcom Mainframe Software also invests in developing mainframe skill sets and can assist with their own specialized services staff or in finding and mentoring new mainframe specialists.
For more details on any these items, contact Broadcom Mainframe Software.
The Intellyx Take
Mainframes have been around since the dawn of commercial computing. In fact, the first business applications were developed for and ran on mainframes, often running one application per machine, and customizing the application for that machine.
Computers have come a long way since then, of course, with mobile phones offering many times the computing power of those initial systems.
But as computing systems evolved through minicomputers, PCs, public clouds, and mobile devices, they became more specialized. Applications developers for these various computing platforms optimized for their unique capabilities, much as the original mainframe applications optimized for those early systems.
And it turns out that mainframes have a unique and significant role to play in the evolution of computing. Rather than being left behind or made obsolete, they are maintained for their unique and differentiated capabilities.
Modern applications often involve processing and storage functions across these multiple types of computers. Workflows typically execute steps on different platforms and types of applications to complete a business process.
In the modern world of computing, with broad and deep IT landscapes comprising multiple types of computing systems, it’s essential to treat all of them with equal consideration. Mainframe hardware and software keep up with development and operational trends.
Nowhere is this more apparent than in the new offerings from Broadcom Mainframe Software.
Copyright © Intellyx B.V. Broadcom Mainframe Software is an Intellyx customer. No AI was used to write this content. Image by Broadcom Mainframe Software.
