The Arcati Mainframe Yearbook 2014 is now available for download from http://www.arcati.com/newyearbook14 – and it’s FREE. Each new Yearbook is always greeted with enthusiasm by mainframers everywhere because it is such a unique source of information. And each year, many people find the results of the user survey especially interesting.
The results came from the 100 respondents who completed the survey on the Arcati Web site between 1 November and 6 December 2013. 51% were from North America, 33% were from Europe with the remainder from the rest of the world.
Half of the respondents worked in companies with upwards of 10,000 employees worldwide. Below that, with 24 percent of respondents, were staff sizes of 1001-5000, 10 percent with staff sizes of 0-200, nine percent with staff sizes of 201 to 1000, and only seven percent with staff sizes of 5001 to 10,000. In terms of MIPS, 28 percent had 1000-10,000 MIPS, down again from last year’s figure of 36 percent. 16 percent had under 500 MIPS, only 15 percent had 500-1000 MIPS, 13 percent had 10,000 to 25,000 MIPS, and 17 percent had over 25,000 MIPS installed.
Looking at MIPS growth produced some interesting results. 71 percent of sites of mainframe installations are experiencing some growth, with three sites claiming growth in the region of 26-50 percent. Only eight percent of sites are reporting a decline in mainframe capacity growth. 11 percent of sites are not expecting any kind of change in their MIPS this year. Small sites (32 percent) are most likely to have seen some kind of decline or to have stayed the same, and yet, in complete contrast, they were more likely to see growth in the 26-50 percent range. While some larger sites (above 10,000 MIPS) did report a decline or no growth, the majority were anticipating some kind of growth possibly up to 50 percent per year. Mid-range respondents were typically expecting some kind of growth (89 percent of sites). It is a confusing picture with nearly a third of small sites, 10 percent of medium sites, and 17 percent of larger sites showing no growth or a decline. Perhaps sites have been holding off on growth until the global economic climate brightens up.
The survey looked at whether sites currently used their mainframe for cloud computing. Only seven percent of respondents said they did. The survey also asked whether respondents were planning to adopt cloud computing as a strategy. 50 percent said they weren’t at present. 16 percent thought some mainframe applications would be cloud enabled in the future. And 15 percent claimed that some of their applications are using the cloud model.
There’s been a huge growth in the use of social media in recent years, and the survey wondered whether those people “using their dad’s technology” found social media (Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, etc) useful for their work on the mainframe. 18 percent said that they did, with 13 percent not sure, and the rest not using it at all. With IBM having Facebook pages dedicated to IMS, CICS, and DB2, it seems a shame if they’re not being used.
With the growth in number of software products that allow users to monitor the mainframe from a browser on a tablet/iPad or smartphone, the survey looked at whether mainframers were using these devices to monitor or control their mainframe. Only nine percent said that they were.
Another hot topic through 2013 has been Big Data and all the things associated with that (such as Hadoop). The survey asked whether sites had any plans to use Big Data. Just two percent of sites said that they were already using Big Data, with a further 12 percent planning to do so.
The survey also asked about BYOD (Bring Your Own Device). It wanted to know how important sites thought it was to make mainframe data available to other platforms. 78 percent of sites said that it was very important to the way they work at the moment. Three percent are in the planning stage, and nine percent expect to do some work on this in the future. When it comes to how important is the idea of people using their own devices (BYOD) to access mainframes, 15 percent of sites said it was very important to the way they work now – but 47 percent said it wasn’t important.
Anyway, full details of the responses to many other questions can be found in the user survey section of the Yearbook. It’s well worth a read.
The Yearbook can only be free because some organizations have been prepared to sponsor it or advertise in it. This year’s sponsors were: Software Diversified Services (SDS), Software AG, zIT Consulting, and CA Technologies.
Sunday, 26 January 2014
Sunday, 19 January 2014
The Arcati Mainframe Yearbook 2014 has been published
Every year, about this time, mainframe users are excited to get their hands on the latest edition of the Arcati Mainframe Yearbook. What makes the Yearbook stand out is that it’s an excellent reference work for all IBM mainframe professionals – no matter how many years of experience they have.
What makes this annual publication so important? The answer is that it provides a one-stop shop for everything a mainframer needs to know. For example, the technical specification section includes model numbers, MIPS, and MSUs for zEnterprise processors (zEC12s, z196s, and z114s). There’s also a hardware timeline, and a display of mainframe operating system evolution.
In addition, there’s the glossary of terminology section explaining what all those acronyms stand for, in a way that means you can understand them. And this year we’ve added a number of Big Data terms that are becoming commonly used.
One section provides a media guide for IBM mainframers. This includes information on newsletters, magazines, user groups, blogs, and social networking information resources for the z/OS environment. Amongst the things it highlights are Enterprise Tech Journal, IBM Listservs, SHARE’s Five Minute Briefing on the Data Center, Facebook pages, and LinkedIn discussions; as well as user groups such as SHARE and IDUG.
The vendor directory section contains an up-to-date list of vendors, consultants, and service providers working in the z/OS environment. There’s a summary of the products they supply and contact information. As usual, there are a number of new organizations in the list this year – indicating that this is still an exciting market place to be in.
The mainframe strategy section contains articles by industry gurus and vendors on topics such as:
For many people, the highlight each year is the mainframe user survey. This illustrates just what’s been happening at users’ sites. It’s a good way for mainframers to compare what they are planning to do with what other sites have done. I will be looking at some of the survey highlights in a future blog.
The other great thing about the Yearbook – as far as many of the 20,000 people who download it are concerned – is that it is completely FREE.
It can only be free because some organizations have been prepared to sponsor it or advertise in it. This year’s sponsors were: Software Diversified Services (SDS), Software AG, zIT Consulting, and CA Technologies.
To see this year’s Arcati Mainframe Yearbook, click on www.arcati.com/newyearbook14. If you don’t want to download everything at once, again this year, each section is available as a print-quality PDF file.
You won’t want to miss out on this excellent publication.
What makes this annual publication so important? The answer is that it provides a one-stop shop for everything a mainframer needs to know. For example, the technical specification section includes model numbers, MIPS, and MSUs for zEnterprise processors (zEC12s, z196s, and z114s). There’s also a hardware timeline, and a display of mainframe operating system evolution.
In addition, there’s the glossary of terminology section explaining what all those acronyms stand for, in a way that means you can understand them. And this year we’ve added a number of Big Data terms that are becoming commonly used.
One section provides a media guide for IBM mainframers. This includes information on newsletters, magazines, user groups, blogs, and social networking information resources for the z/OS environment. Amongst the things it highlights are Enterprise Tech Journal, IBM Listservs, SHARE’s Five Minute Briefing on the Data Center, Facebook pages, and LinkedIn discussions; as well as user groups such as SHARE and IDUG.
The vendor directory section contains an up-to-date list of vendors, consultants, and service providers working in the z/OS environment. There’s a summary of the products they supply and contact information. As usual, there are a number of new organizations in the list this year – indicating that this is still an exciting market place to be in.
The mainframe strategy section contains articles by industry gurus and vendors on topics such as:
- Research Report – Software Diversified Services’ E- Business Server: Encryption, Compression, Key Creation and Management?
- The Challenge: Actively Control MLC Costs for IBM’s System z
- Mainframe meets mobile
- Your Business is Dynamic – Are You? Empowering the Dynamic Data Center.
For many people, the highlight each year is the mainframe user survey. This illustrates just what’s been happening at users’ sites. It’s a good way for mainframers to compare what they are planning to do with what other sites have done. I will be looking at some of the survey highlights in a future blog.
The other great thing about the Yearbook – as far as many of the 20,000 people who download it are concerned – is that it is completely FREE.
It can only be free because some organizations have been prepared to sponsor it or advertise in it. This year’s sponsors were: Software Diversified Services (SDS), Software AG, zIT Consulting, and CA Technologies.
To see this year’s Arcati Mainframe Yearbook, click on www.arcati.com/newyearbook14. If you don’t want to download everything at once, again this year, each section is available as a print-quality PDF file.
You won’t want to miss out on this excellent publication.
Sunday, 12 January 2014
2013 at iTech-Ed Ltd
Because it’s the start of the New Year, I thought I’d review the events of 2013 through the lens of events at iTech-Ed Ltd.
In January, The Arcati Mainframe Yearbook 2013 was published. It had around 20,000 downloads during the course of the year, and I’m Editorial Director for this highly-respected annual source of mainframe information. My article entitled, “IMS: Stretching Across Computing Platforms and Applications” was published in Enterprise Tech Journal. My blog, “Needing That Network Guy”, was published on the Destination z Web site. And the Virtual CICS user group meeting on 15 January had a presentation from IBM’s Nick Garrod and Ted Caffarelli entitled, “CICS V5.1 – Portfolio Update”.
On 5 February, the Virtual IMS user group enjoyed a presentation from SQData’s Scott Quillicy entitled, “Best practices: maximizing the use of your IMS data through replication”. My blog entitled. “What’s Skeuomorphism and Why Should I Care?” was published on the Destination z Web site. And at the very end of February, I heard that I had been recognized by IBM as a 2013 IBM Champion – that’s the fifth year in succession.
5 March saw a great presentation by Fundi Software’s Reuben Andrews to the Virtual CICS user group entitled “No more Cold Start surprises – how Deployment Analysis in IBM CICS Configuration Manager for z/OS saves your bacon”. My blog entitled, “What is the ‘Third Platform?’” was published on the Destination z Web site.
My blog “Linux All the Way Down” was published on the Destination z Web site in April. And on 9 April, the Virtual IMS user group heard a presentation from James Martin of Fundi Software entitled “IMS Configuration Manager: streamlining the transition to dynamic resource definition”.
In May, my blog “The Internet of Things” was published on the Destination z Web site. And on 14 May, at the Virtual CICS user group meeting, HostBridge Technology’s Director of Technical Services, James Alexander, gave a presentation entitled, “Integrating Life-Comm, Life/70, or other CICS resident insurance and annuity applications with distributed applications utilizing the ACORD standard”.
There was a great presentation to the Virtual IMS user group on 11 June entitled, “Taking IMS to New Heights – What the Future Holds for IMS” by Betty Patterson, IMS Chief Architect with IBM. Also in June, my blog entitled, “Biological computers” was published on the Destination z Web site.
The Virtual CICS user group meeting on 11 July was packed with people enjoying a terrific presentation from IBM’s CICS and CICS Tools Technical Specialist, Satish Tanna, entitled, “Extracting optimum performance out of CICS”. The session was introduced by Ted Caffarelli, CICS Tools Product Line Manager with IBM. In addition, July saw my blog entitled, “IMS 13 Aims to Reach New Heights”, published on the Destination z Web site.
In August, my article entitled, “Strategies for Migrating Your Mainframe to IPv6” was published in Enterprise Tech Journal. And my blog entitled, “The Ongoing Evolution of Cognitive Computing”, was published on the Destination z Web site. The meeting of the Virtual IMS user group on 6 August enjoyed a presentation from Rocket Software’s Wayne Morton entitled, “Putting IMS/DB in Business Analytics / Intelligence”.
In September, my blog “Security Threats Require Constant Vigilance Even on the Mainframe” appeared on the Destination z Web site. Also in September, my blog, Lync and Yammer, appeared here on the IT Central Station Web site. And on 10 September, the Virtual CICS user group meeting was enthralled by a presentation entitled, “Creating Modern CICS Web Applications by Exploiting Open Source Javascript Libraries” from Stephen Mitchell, Managing Director of Matter of Fact Software Limited.
BMC Software’s Glenn Witt gave a good presentation to the 8 October meeting of the Virtual IMS user group entitled, “Tuning Your Mainframe IMS Batch Processing”. In the same month, my blog, “Looking forward to IOD 2013”, appeared on the IOD 2013 Web site. And my blog, “An Absolute Beginner’s Guide to Big Data”, was published on the Destination z Web site.
In November, my blog, “What is Bring Your Own Identity?”, was published on the Destination z Web site. My blogs, “What’s been happening at IOD?” and “IOD 2013: What you missed!”, were published on the IOD 2013 Web site. Also, on 12 November, the Virtual CICS user group meeting was packed to hear a presentation entitled, “Programming with CICS TS Channels and Containers” from CreativeDataMovers’ Mary Abdill.
The 3 December meeting of the Virtual IMS user group enjoyed a presentation entitled, “IMS in the Connected World – Why You Should Pay Attention!” from Dusty Rivers, Principal Technical Architect with GT Software. And my final blog of the year, “Fat Clients Ride Again”, appeared on the Destination z Web site.
I continued to blog at Mainframe Update (mainframeupdate.blogspot.com) and Mainframe World (it.toolbox.com/blogs/mainframe-world/). And I continued to tweet at twitter.com/t_eddolls, twitter.com/virtualims, and twitter.com/virtualcics. And on Facebook you can find me at fb.com/itech-ed, fb.com/VirtualIMS, and fb.com/VirtualCICS. And I have groups on LinkedIn for Virtual IMS (www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=379256) and Virtual CICS (www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=3847862). And I’m on Google plus (gplus.to/teddolls).
And don’t forget, the Arcati Mainframe Yearbook 2014, will be published very shortly. And look out for this year’s meetings of the Virtual IMS and Virtual CICS user groups.
Trevor Eddolls
In January, The Arcati Mainframe Yearbook 2013 was published. It had around 20,000 downloads during the course of the year, and I’m Editorial Director for this highly-respected annual source of mainframe information. My article entitled, “IMS: Stretching Across Computing Platforms and Applications” was published in Enterprise Tech Journal. My blog, “Needing That Network Guy”, was published on the Destination z Web site. And the Virtual CICS user group meeting on 15 January had a presentation from IBM’s Nick Garrod and Ted Caffarelli entitled, “CICS V5.1 – Portfolio Update”.
On 5 February, the Virtual IMS user group enjoyed a presentation from SQData’s Scott Quillicy entitled, “Best practices: maximizing the use of your IMS data through replication”. My blog entitled. “What’s Skeuomorphism and Why Should I Care?” was published on the Destination z Web site. And at the very end of February, I heard that I had been recognized by IBM as a 2013 IBM Champion – that’s the fifth year in succession.
5 March saw a great presentation by Fundi Software’s Reuben Andrews to the Virtual CICS user group entitled “No more Cold Start surprises – how Deployment Analysis in IBM CICS Configuration Manager for z/OS saves your bacon”. My blog entitled, “What is the ‘Third Platform?’” was published on the Destination z Web site.
My blog “Linux All the Way Down” was published on the Destination z Web site in April. And on 9 April, the Virtual IMS user group heard a presentation from James Martin of Fundi Software entitled “IMS Configuration Manager: streamlining the transition to dynamic resource definition”.
In May, my blog “The Internet of Things” was published on the Destination z Web site. And on 14 May, at the Virtual CICS user group meeting, HostBridge Technology’s Director of Technical Services, James Alexander, gave a presentation entitled, “Integrating Life-Comm, Life/70, or other CICS resident insurance and annuity applications with distributed applications utilizing the ACORD standard”.
There was a great presentation to the Virtual IMS user group on 11 June entitled, “Taking IMS to New Heights – What the Future Holds for IMS” by Betty Patterson, IMS Chief Architect with IBM. Also in June, my blog entitled, “Biological computers” was published on the Destination z Web site.
The Virtual CICS user group meeting on 11 July was packed with people enjoying a terrific presentation from IBM’s CICS and CICS Tools Technical Specialist, Satish Tanna, entitled, “Extracting optimum performance out of CICS”. The session was introduced by Ted Caffarelli, CICS Tools Product Line Manager with IBM. In addition, July saw my blog entitled, “IMS 13 Aims to Reach New Heights”, published on the Destination z Web site.
In August, my article entitled, “Strategies for Migrating Your Mainframe to IPv6” was published in Enterprise Tech Journal. And my blog entitled, “The Ongoing Evolution of Cognitive Computing”, was published on the Destination z Web site. The meeting of the Virtual IMS user group on 6 August enjoyed a presentation from Rocket Software’s Wayne Morton entitled, “Putting IMS/DB in Business Analytics / Intelligence”.
In September, my blog “Security Threats Require Constant Vigilance Even on the Mainframe” appeared on the Destination z Web site. Also in September, my blog, Lync and Yammer, appeared here on the IT Central Station Web site. And on 10 September, the Virtual CICS user group meeting was enthralled by a presentation entitled, “Creating Modern CICS Web Applications by Exploiting Open Source Javascript Libraries” from Stephen Mitchell, Managing Director of Matter of Fact Software Limited.
BMC Software’s Glenn Witt gave a good presentation to the 8 October meeting of the Virtual IMS user group entitled, “Tuning Your Mainframe IMS Batch Processing”. In the same month, my blog, “Looking forward to IOD 2013”, appeared on the IOD 2013 Web site. And my blog, “An Absolute Beginner’s Guide to Big Data”, was published on the Destination z Web site.
In November, my blog, “What is Bring Your Own Identity?”, was published on the Destination z Web site. My blogs, “What’s been happening at IOD?” and “IOD 2013: What you missed!”, were published on the IOD 2013 Web site. Also, on 12 November, the Virtual CICS user group meeting was packed to hear a presentation entitled, “Programming with CICS TS Channels and Containers” from CreativeDataMovers’ Mary Abdill.
The 3 December meeting of the Virtual IMS user group enjoyed a presentation entitled, “IMS in the Connected World – Why You Should Pay Attention!” from Dusty Rivers, Principal Technical Architect with GT Software. And my final blog of the year, “Fat Clients Ride Again”, appeared on the Destination z Web site.
I continued to blog at Mainframe Update (mainframeupdate.blogspot.com) and Mainframe World (it.toolbox.com/blogs/mainframe-world/). And I continued to tweet at twitter.com/t_eddolls, twitter.com/virtualims, and twitter.com/virtualcics. And on Facebook you can find me at fb.com/itech-ed, fb.com/VirtualIMS, and fb.com/VirtualCICS. And I have groups on LinkedIn for Virtual IMS (www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=379256) and Virtual CICS (www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=3847862). And I’m on Google plus (gplus.to/teddolls).
And don’t forget, the Arcati Mainframe Yearbook 2014, will be published very shortly. And look out for this year’s meetings of the Virtual IMS and Virtual CICS user groups.
Trevor Eddolls
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