Millennials and boomers agree on mainframe innovation, security – TechRepublic
A new survey from software company BMC showed that in spite of their differences, millennials and boomers both agree that mainframe environments are here to stay.
The report says mainframe environments have been able to handle massive influxes of data volume, transaction volume and number of databases in the past few years with room for even more growth. DevOps and AIOps were also helping to drastically modernize mainframes, BMC said.
In addition to statistics on mainframe usage, the study also noted that workforces were evolving rapidly and views were shifting about what enterprises should prioritize. BMC got a deluge of responses from younger people in this year’s survey and many have fewer years of experience than in past years.
“The Mainframe Survey solidifies the mainframe as the platform to continue handling increasing workloads and provides valuable perspective on trends affecting the industry, helping mainframe organizations understand why and how to continue modernizing,” said DevOps program vice president Stephen Elliot.
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On certain topics, like security and cost-cutting, tech workers and executives agreed strongly and had largely corresponding views related to mainframes. But some numbers indicated that each group had slightly different priorities, especially when it comes to staff capabilities.
The study found that security and compliance were cited as top concerns of everyone, with 77% of participants saying they have had a finding or potential breach. Half of all respondents reported increasing volatility.
But executives saw security as the primary concern and obstacle for mainframe usage, while most tech workers attributed it to a lack of skill or qualified staff.
“As the workforce continues to evolve and security and compliance needs escalate, IT and the business must align on mainframe strategies for optimization and innovation,” according to the report.
For larger enterprises, one of the biggest problems was unforeseen outages. Most of those surveyed was heavily in favor of cost reduction but millennials had more varied priorities which included data recovery, cloud implementation, mainframe modernization and improved DevOps practices.
This is BMC’s 14th Mainframe Survey and it included more than 1,000 executives and tech workers, many of whom are spread across industries like finance, government, technology and manufacturing.
BMC’s report says executives should lean into their younger workforce and push for innovative new ideas. They also should invest heavily into mainframe security measures to limit the damage of outages.
“Results from the 2019 BMC Mainframe Survey indicate that the evolution of today’s workforce and escalating market demands for modernization offer IT and the business exciting opportunities to collaborate on new strategies for optimization and innovation,” said Bill Miller, president of ZSolutions at BMC.
“By integrating intelligent technologies for security, privacy, and predictive automation and methodologies like DevOps and AIOps, organizations are galvanizing their growth initiatives while confidently maintaining their critical systems,” he said.
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