The Arcati Mainframe Yearbook 2022 – available now

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. You can download a free copy here. [update]

The Yearbook provides a one-stop shop for everything a mainframer needs to know. For example, the mainframe evolution section includes a hardware timeline, and a graphic illustrating 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. Amongst the terms that have been added this year are: AIOps (Algorithmic IT Operations), Ansible, Breach, Cloud Paks, Cyberattack, CyberSecurity Mesh Architecture (CSMA), Kyndryl, SASE (Secure Access Service Edge), Site Reliability Engineer (SRE), Telum processors, and Zoom.

One section provides a guide to sources of information for IBM mainframers. This includes information on newsletters, magazines, user groups, blogs, mainframe-related apps, and social networking information resources. Amongst the things it highlights are Enterprise Tech Journal, the TechChannel website, IBM Listservs, SHARE’s Five Minute Briefing from Database Trends and Applications, Facebook pages, and LinkedIn discussions; as well as user groups such as SHARE and IDUG. There’s also a short discussion about IBM Expert TV.

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 marketplace to be in.

The mainframe strategy section contains articles by industry gurus and vendors on topics such as:

• Always Ready for What’s Next: Mainframe Fuels Hybrid Cloud’s Future
• Why the call for Zero Trust in 2022
• Mainframe Modernization: How a Data-Centric Approach Creates More Business Value

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 21,000 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 sponsor are: Broadcom Mainframe Software Division, Model 9, and Vanguard integrity Professionals. Our advertisers are: Action Software International, DataKinetics, Enterprise Systems Associates, Inc (ESAi), Fujitsu, Information Technology Company (ITC), Key Resources Inc, Tone Software, and Zetaly.

The Arcati Mainframe Yearbook is now available. You can download your free copy here. [update] As usual, if you don’t want to download everything at once, each section will be available as a print-quality PDF file.