Mainframe Simplification in 5 Years

IBM has announced recently a five-year $100 million project to simply the mainframe with graphical user interfaces and more automation. Many would say that its about time Big Iron brought up their flagship z-series machines into the 21st century and if they are serious about making the mainframe the centre of the new virtualised world then, even if they continue to carry the burden of the old legacy systems, they must be modernised. I think that this is key to IBMs strategy and in many ways they have to make working on the mainframe as user friendly as a networked home PC, and then avoid some of this youth anti-mainframe problem.

The key areas IBM have identified for improvemnet are :

1) Automated configuration checking: make it far easier for IT administrators and computer programmers to predict and avoid technical issues.

2) Modernise the mainframe user interface: including network configuration, systems management, and data center hardware configurationdesigned with both existing IT staff and the new generation of IT workers in mind.

3) Improve software asset management technologies: make it easier for users to control software costs and simplify/automate the acquisition of software services.

4) Modernise the mainframe development environment with visual/graphical tools that enable beginners to learn quickly how to program for the mainframe.

William Hoffman - www.mainframe-upgrade.com