While newer technologies like commodity clusters and Hadoop have gained popularity, mainframe systems still power many critical applications today. A survey found that over 350 organizations still own and manage mainframes, which is likely more than the number of large-scale Hadoop clusters worldwide. Mainframes have been in use for over 60 years and are still relied on by most Fortune 500 companies, banks, retailers, insurers, and governments for applications like banking, manufacturing, defense systems, and more. New tools are now available to connect mainframe data with modern analytics platforms.

1. THE ORIGINAL BIG DATA PLATFORMS

2. THEN CAME BIG IRON UNIX MIDRANGE

3. NEXT WE HAD COMMODITY PC CLUSTERS

4. In the rush from the Dot Com boom, through Web 2.0 to chasing
Unicorns, we appear to have forgotten which platform is still
powering many of our biggest mission critical systems..
Banking, Wealth Management & Insurance
Airline Booking & Flight Management
Federal & State Government
Retail & Manufacturing
Medical Systems
Defense Systems
Transport & Logistics
Telecommunications infrastructure
MAINFRAME IS A DATA WORKHORSE

5. It’s easy to be fooled by the media’s shift from Big Iron to racks
of COTS clusters, into thinking the Mainframe died & went
away.. But the data says the Mainframe is here to stay..
70% of enterprise data still resides on a mainframe
71% of Fortune 500’s run core business systems on mainframe
92 of the top 100 banks still run core banking systems on mainframe
23 of the world’s top 25 retailers use mainframe based systems
10 out of 10 of the top insurers run their cloud services on mainframes
225+ state & local governments worldwide rely on a mainframe
Most nations still run their key Defense systems on mainframe
SO WHO STILL USES A MAINFRAME

6. In a 2015 survey by IDC, 350 CIO’s reported
they still owned & managed Mainframes.
It’s likely that this is more than the number of
large scale Hadoop clusters currently in
production worldwide !!
HADOOP CLUSTERS VS MAINFRAMES?

7. IN 2015 IBM GAVE US THE MIGHTY Z13

8. The 3270 text terminal has been replaced by web browsers and
mobile apps.. Now we’re adding off the shelf analytics tools..
The Mainframe has been in place for 60 years !!
That’s longer than most living IT professional’s careers span
IBM sold 2,300 mainframes in 2002
IBM sold 2,700 mainframes in 2013 !!
Hadoop & Spark now native on the z13 from IBM
IBM are not alone, Unisys, Fujitsu, and Bull still make Mainframes
Including Mainframe platforms in your Big Data strategy is a must
Connectivity & interfaces for your Analytics tools to Mainframe hosted
data should be a key part of enterprise & government Big Data plans
NEW TOOLS TALK TO OLD SYSTEMS