Mainframe servers to survive x86 competition

Mainframes will continue to be favored by new and existing users as vendors such as IBM listen to their feedback and integrate solutions into the platform. That said, a Gartner analyst reckons that mainframes are likely to face increasing pressure from x86-based servers in the next five to 10 years.

Errol Rasit, principal research analyst at the research firm, said that in the case of dominant mainframe vendor Big Blue, its System z revenues "have been stable over the last decade" despite products such as x86-based servers coming into the market. This is indicative of the continued relevance of mainframes in today's IT environment, said the analyst.

He pointed out in his e-mail that IBM's continued commitment to its System z mainframes reflects its intention to grow, rather than maintain, its existing customer base. It efforts are being recognized through the "ongoing investment from its installed base of customers", he added.

The analyst indicated that customer loyalty is driven in part by Big Blue taking users' feedback onboard and coming out with technologies such as its zEnterprise BladeCenter Extension and Unified Resource Manager.

These technologies were introduced earlier in July as part of the company's hybrid mainframe offering, which aims to link up its system with other industry standard servers. The zEnterprise Unified Resource Manager, for instance, allows existing mainframe users to manage their workloads across different IBM server platforms, thus reducing datacenter sprawl.

"Despite migration from the [mainframe] platform to competing architectures, IBM is still able to develop interest from emerging markets and [not just to] maintain, but to grow its installed customer base, which are consolidating their workloads onto a System z," noted Rasit.

Based on Gartner's findings, System z accounts for approximately 30 percent of Big Blue's server business, which also comprises x86-based System x, Power-based AIX and i Power Systems, he stated.

However, Rasit believes that mainframes such as IBM's System z will "certainly face challenges" over the next five to 10 years as x86 technology continues to increase in functionality and decrease in price.

Keeping mainframes relevant
When quizzed on its mainframe roadmap, Richard Pape, a mainframe systems executive at IBM's growth markets department, told ZDNet Asia that its hybrid mainframe offerings are a result of "more than three years of collaboration with some of IBM's top clients around the world". The whole process cost Big Blue more than US$1.5 billion in research and development (R&D) efforts, he added.

The IBMer said in his e-mail that most of Big Blue's clients run their business applications on several operating systems (OSes) and processors as their workloads have different characteristics, which means that a one-size-fits-all approach will not be efficient or cost-effective.

"The unique advantage of our [hybrid mainframe offerings] is that not only does it extend the mainframe's quality of service to blade servers, it also provides a single point of platform management across the different [server architectures]," said Pape, who added that this helps customers reduce datacenter complexities.

He also noted that mainframes continue to be used across a range of industries such as banking, insurance, public sector and airlines because of the hardware's "scalability, availability, workload management and rock-solid security".

Mainframe users today are deploying the platform to consolidate hundreds of distributed servers with virtualization software, thus reaping savings from software licensing, networking equipment, power and cooling costs, and floor space needed, he said. More ISVs are also porting their applications to run on mainframes due to client demand, the executive added.

"We also see the mainframe positioned to be the infrastructure on which clients will deploy cloud computing," he stated.

x86 servers in ascendency
However, a recent Gartner report shows a different server industry picture to the landscape painted by Pape.

According to a report released in August, x86-based servers grew by 37 percent in revenue during the second quarter of this year compared with the same period in 2009. In the "other CPUs" category, which comprise mainly mainframes, revenues fell 22.8 percent over the same time frame.

Won Moo Kang, director of business critical sales for Hewlett-Packard (HP) Asia-Pacific and Japan's technology solutions group, agreed with the Gartner findings. He said in his e-mail reply to ZDNet Asia that the mainframe market in Asia-Pacific is "continuously declining" according to independent market data.

He went on to add that out of the major mainframe markets in region, only China and Australia are experiencing any kind of mainframe resurgence. "The resurgence there is purely on a case-by-case basis and largely driven by cultural considerations and non-market-driven factors such as public-sector purchasing," he stated.

Elaborating, Kang said that in China, for example, a lot of the big banks and manufacturing firms, among other private-sector companies, are purchasing mainframes based on the "outdated belief that mainframes have a level of reliability that Unix-based servers do not have".

However, the HP executive was quick to debunk this perception, saying that if companies want to do application transformation and modernization, they needed "less hardware to actually run the massive transactions".

"Asia-Pacific datacenter operations continue to struggle with the growing cost of operations and, increasingly, what CXOs are looking for are flexible, scalable options based on open standards that are easier and less costly to [provision for]," said Kang.

He pointed out that many of its Asia-Pacific customers have achieved cost savings of US$40 million to US$60 million over the past five years after they switched over from mainframes, and he believes this migration to other server platforms is the way forward.

When asked if mainframes would be relegated to the sidelines in the near future, Kang said that they are "already irrelevant to the IT transformation path [that] most organizations need to be making". He cautioned that mainframe users which persist with the technology will "risk falling behind".

"At the end of the day, mainframe customers that have optimized their applications on mainframes, which we call mainframe modernization, will not have saved a lot on cost," he said.

"They will still have to pay the costs for support, maintenance and software licences, let alone the [expense] of mainframe administrators from the [baby-boomers] era necessary to manage and operate the hardware."

Growing the talent pool
According to a 2009 ZDNet Asia report, mainframe engineers are a rare specimen in Asia-Pacific's IT scene. Recruiters interviewed for the story said the talent pool is increasingly limited as most IT professionals are gravitating toward more popular technologies such as Windows and Unix systems.

A separate Bloomberg article last month reported similar findings, with many schools loathe to teach mainframe skills due to the advent of newer approaches to solving computing challenges.

CA Technologies Senior Vice President Dayton Semerjian said in the article: "The big challenge with the mainframe is that the group that has worked on it--the baby boomers--is retiring. If this isn't addressed, it will be trouble for the platform." CA is the second-largest maker of mainframe software after IBM, Bloomberg stated.

For its part, Big Blue has introduced its IBM Academic Initiative System z program, which is designed to assist colleges and universities to educate students in modern mainframe technologies and concepts, said IBM's Pape.

He pointed out that more than 700 schools have participated in this program, reaching students in 61 countries. These members can access more than 1,000 hardware, software and services training resources made available online and at no costs, he added.

Singapore's Republic Polytechnic (RP), for one, is doing its part to boost the mainframe talent pool. It had earlier in July announced its partnership with IBM to be the first authorized training partner in Asean to offer professional certification and training on mainframe technology in Singapore and the region.

In an e-mail interview with ZDNet Asia, Fong Yew Chan, director of RP's school of Information and Communications Technology, revealed that the institute has an "annual intake of 50 to 60 diploma students" for its mainframe module.

While acknowledging that the shortfall of mainframe engineers "is not a new issue", he expressed confidence that the platform is not likely to face its demise any time soon. The confidence stems from the performance quality and reliability that the server gives to businesses, the director said.

Still, Fong suggested that mainframe vendors such as IBM could consider working more closely with companies and educational institutions to "incentivize" potential mainframe-skilled students and IT professionals to enter the market through "sponsored train-and-place programs".