Mainframes aren't dead, they're just learning AI tricks
- Reference: 1725988506
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2024/09/10/kyndryl_mainframe_survery/
- Source link:
IBM spin-off [1]Kyndryl says in its second State of Mainframe Modernization survey that big iron has become the cornerstone of a hybrid IT strategy supporting the most mission-critical workloads, at least for those companies still operating them, although skills remain a problem.
From a survey of 500 senior IT decision makers, the infrastructure services firm says it found many organizations are integrating their mainframe with public and private cloud platforms and rationalizing their modernization programs – moving some workloads off the mainframe while updating others in place to continue to benefit from the security and reliability of the platform.
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Naming 2024 as "the year of AI adoption on the mainframe," Kyndryl says 86 percent of those surveyed are deploying or planning to deploy generative AI tools and applications in their mainframe environment.
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IBM itself said that GenAI was a factor in its mainframe biz [5]bringing in more revenue in its most recent quarterly results.
The majority (80 percent) of respondents are still at the stage of exploring the possibilities, but the survey found that 41 percent of respondents hope to use GenAI to speed operational actions and make them less prone to human error. Meanwhile, 33 percent are targeting improvements to customer experience through increased personalization, for example.
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Other goals for AI are said to be unlocking mission-critical data and transforming unstructured data into actionable information, while a third of respondents expect to use GenAI to uncover business insights from their mainframe-managed data to aid the development of new products or services.
According to Kyndryl, GenAI also has the potential to aid modernization efforts by "illuminating the inner workings of monolithic applications," which it claims could offset the shortage of mainframe skills in the current workforce.
However, a minority of big iron users are not planning to use GenAI in any shape or form, citing security and regulatory concerns for their reluctance, or simply that other priorities are taking precedence.
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The survey also finds that organizations still operating mainframes are increasingly seeking to use them to best effect while also enjoying the flexibility offered by cloud services. Thus, while 96 percent of respondents said they are moving some workloads off their big iron (typically about a third), 89 percent agreed that these systems are still extremely or very important in their business operations.
In the report, Kyndryl says it distinguishes three basic patterns to mainframe modernization, with most organizations following a combination of them. One is to migrate away, transferring some or all applications and data to the cloud or to an on-premises alternative.
The second is to integrate mainframe data and applications with other platforms, allowing them to be accessed by new cloud-based applications, for example. This pattern is forecast to increase with the continuing evolution of AI and GenAI, Kyndryl says.
Number three is to modernize workloads on the mainframe, defining which applications to keep, replace, or retire. This involves modernizing application source code or using more modern languages, as well as exploiting new technologies such as AI and containerization.
According to the report, more respondents this year said they are focused on modernizing in situ or integrating with cloud, while fewer are choosing to move workloads away from the mainframe as their primary strategy.
[8]IBM reveals upcoming chips to power large-scale AI on next-gen big iron
[9]You're not hallucinating: Generative AI is helping IBM's mainframes grow
[10]AI query optimization in IBM's Db2 shows you can teach a tech dinosaur new tricks
[11]BMC's $1.6B victory over IBM is TKO on appeal
Some 53 percent of respondents said their use of the mainframe increased this year, with 49 percent saying they expect it to increase again over the next 12 months – words that will no doubt be music to IBM's ears.
The return on investment for these modernization projects is impressive, according to Kyndryl, yielding one-year returns of between 114 and 225 percent for organizations proceeding with them. The company has a vested interest in this, of course, as it styles itself as the world's largest IT infrastructure services provider and, as an IBM spin-off, has much big iron knowledge and experience.
Perhaps the growing prominence of cyber incidents is having an effect, but 66 percent of respondents in the survey said that the level of security offered by mainframes is their most important feature, and almost half cited security as the number-one driver of their investment in modernization.
One head of IT at a wholesale enterprise in the US quoted in the report said they adopted a hybrid cloud approach because it allows them to maintain sensitive data within a secure mainframe environment while leveraging the cloud for less critical workloads.
But longstanding issues with a shortage of staff with relevant experience remain, and this is being compounded by rapidly evolving areas such as AI and cybersecurity.
The report finds that 18 percent of business leaders integrating their big iron with other platforms said that insufficient expertise has been the main hurdle to project success, while more than a quarter of respondents are concerned their organization lacks the right level of skills to effectively modernize their mainframe.
Enterprises still face the twin-pronged difficulty of new hires entering the workplace with a lack of mainframe skills while experienced staff are retiring and taking their skills with them.
These are difficulties that IBM has been [12]seeking to address , unveiling a pair of initiatives earlier this year to tackle the shortage of engineers with mainframe know-how.
Kyndryl says that generative AI can help by assisting developers in modernizing and converting complex legacy code, identifying dependencies between applications, and even generating technical documentation.
But wouldn't you know it, 43 percent of respondents indicated they lack the skills to use AI and GenAI capabilities, leading more organizations to turn to external providers – like Kyndryl – to deliver their modernization projects.
Overall, the report concludes that the mainframe remains a critical pillar of the IT environment for many enterprises, and is even becoming more relevant again thanks to its security, reliability, and performance.
"Mainframes continue to occupy a central role in the hybrid world and evolve to serve new use cases, with technologies such as AI and security increasingly influencing modernization plans," said Kyndryl's Global Practice Leader for Core Enterprise & zCloud, Petra Goude.
But it is vital the skills shortage does not become a roadblock to progress, she added. ®
Get our [13]Tech Resources
[1] https://www.kyndryl.com/us/en
[2] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/systems&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2ZuDBgmw1q7ksbMC_IZ-4OwAAAdI&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/systems&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44ZuDBgmw1q7ksbMC_IZ-4OwAAAdI&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/systems&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33ZuDBgmw1q7ksbMC_IZ-4OwAAAdI&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[5] https://www.theregister.com/2024/07/25/ibm_q2_2024/
[6] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/systems&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44ZuDBgmw1q7ksbMC_IZ-4OwAAAdI&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[7] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/systems&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33ZuDBgmw1q7ksbMC_IZ-4OwAAAdI&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2024/08/27/ibm_telum_ii_mainframes/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2024/07/25/ibm_q2_2024/
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2024/06/27/ibm_ai_optimization_db2/
[11] https://www.theregister.com/2024/05/01/bmc_ibm_appeal/
[12] https://www.theregister.com/2024/03/08/ibm_mainframe_skill/
[13] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
You'll find a dictionary is quicker and more convenient than asking questions on forums. Though in this case an Encyclopedia does a better job:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mainframe_computer
cynical answer...
I suspect, being it is Kyndryl's survey, I suspect they meant "IBM Z systems".
What the respondents meant, no idea...
However, reading the statements with a cynical interpretation, it looks like a lot of people doing what everyone should do... "how do we get the best return from our investment". But often the answer is "not this way". (or politely telling Kyndryl, "yeah, we'll keep you in mind. Don't call us, we'll call you")
Cratering market share...
Though a few years old now, this is the best visual of IBM Mainframe market share I've seen:
https://itjungle.wpenginepowered.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/tfh012521-story01-fig01.jpg
From: https://www.itjungle.com/2021/01/25/taking-the-full-measure-of-power-servers/
It wouldn't be fair to naively project that going down to zero in a few years, but it's safe to say it's a precipitous decline.
Kyndral's finding that "Ninety-six percent (96%) of respondents are moving some workloads off the mainframe" sounds about right to me.
Being a normal Linux/Unix/Network/SAN IT guy who has been supporting mainframe systems for several years, I can easily see why...
IBM firmly embraces proprietary systems and protocols, making them mandatory wherever possible, and slowly and reluctantly including "Open Systems" (i.e. standard) support only once their solutions are woefully unable to compete. And they keep as much lock-in as they can manage... z/OS still requires expensive and proprietart FICON/ECKD SAN disk (DASD) solutions, while Linux s390 can use any normal fibre channel SAN. IBM could easily emulate ECKD (and I think they eventually will have to), but that would undermine their storage system sales.
IBM publishes a huge amount of documentation, but you need to read something like 100X as much of it to accomplish the same tasks as on an x86-64 server... IBM documentation has a certain consistent style that is both incredibly wordy with useful bits of info very sparsely dispersed. Similarly, there's quite a few documents for every piece of hardware and software, and it's not obvious which 400+ page documents you should/need-to bother to read through.
Additionally, they don't produce any introductory documentation, and it doesn't appear anyone else does, either (awful light on z/System introductory books on the market)... I occasionally stumble upon a piece of documentation with a chapter or two that would have been a good introduction, but I was never able to find it with google/keyword searches back when I needed it, and it's typically 15 years out of date, so enough has changed in the IBM world to limit its usefulness.
Similarly, they hold strong to their legacy terminology... Perhaps wanting to keep all the nearly-retired IBM sysprogs comfortable and happy, or perhaps intentionally raising a barrier to entry for beginners (and also making sysprogs unable to operate or even cooperate with the non-IBM computer world. Terms like "storage" referring to RAM, "DASD" referring to disk, "CEC being the IBM preferred term for a mainframe but IBMer's still calling it a "processor" or "CPC" in the same breath.
I'd advise almost everyone to move any processes they can off of their mainframes. (I'd similarly advise to move services off of Kyndryl, as my experience with them was both technically disastrous, and terribly over-priced for the service offered.) Besides extracting a huge toll for companies to keep their IBM systems operating, fighting futilely against market forces to stay relevant, the crunch of the needed skilled individuals, they're also an ever-present obstacle to integrating with any and all other services or modernization initiatives.
Define "mainframe" please. It's not at all clear what you're talking about. A modern multi-node cluster?