BMC Survey Reveals Growth and Renewed Importance of the Mainframe

The results of BMCThe 18th Annual Mainframe Survey from, a global leader in software solutions for the “autonomous digital enterprise”, has been revealed. These results highlight the value of the mainframe and its potential for continued growth as a platform for innovation.

A renewed understanding of the robustness and scalability of the mainframe results from the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the digital environment and the heavy reliance on technology. Nearly 800 executive and technical professionals participated in this year’s study, which revealed several intriguing trends:

• 94% of respondents said they have a favorable view of the mainframe and 63% said they had invested more in it in the past year.
• DevOps and AIOps are still expanding for the mainframe, despite the fact that the amount of data and the number of databases continue to grow rapidly.
• Since their appearance in 2019, compliance and security have been top priorities for mainframe practitioners.
• Of those surveyed, 35% ranked the cloud among their top four priorities for the next year, and they were most interested in implementing cloud-based solutions such as backup and storage.

Increased uptime, early problem detection

The survey results provide further evidence that organizations need to enhance their mainframe processes with technologies that provide higher levels of security, assurance and speed.

AIOps expansion and continued DevOps innovation are expected over the next year.

THE central unitThe expansion of has led to a focus on innovation and more use of DevOps and AIOps to achieve practical results.

Using DevOps Techniques on mainframe was mentioned by 62% of respondents, who understood the need to quickly update core programs to meet business demands and improve the caliber of application development.

Between 2021 and 2023, the percentage of central unit and non-mainframe settings using AIOps increased from 25% to 32%. The cost, complexity, and need for specific skills that used to be implementation challenges for AIOps have decreased. The most important business benefits that AIOps provided, according to current users, increased availability, early problem detection and predictive trend analysis.

For the fourth consecutive year, security and compliance remain key priorities.

According to 61% of respondents, the main concerns of mainframe companies are security and compliance. This is followed by cost optimization (49%), improving automation (41%) and data recovery (80%).

These goals align with the growing use of personally identifiable information (PII) solutions, external penetration testing services, privileged user monitoring and access control, and with a 7% increase in number of respondents using specialized mainframe security information and event management (SIEM). solution since 2021.

John McKenny, Senior Vice President and General Manager of Z Optimization and Intelligent Transformation at BMC, said, “Our survey highlights that companies that invest in modernizing their application development and mainframe operations practices generate much faster innovation and achieve higher levels of resiliency. Organizations that do not invest in the mainframe expose their business and their customers to significant risk as mainframe innovation continues.