IBM' System and Technology Group (STG) offered analysts an update on the success of its System z family of mainframes. I wasn't at all surprised to learn that current users are buying more of these systems and new customers are buying them.
Here are a few tidbits from IBM's presentation:
Why is it, then, that IBM's System z family continues to grow? Why do mainframe configurations find their way into the data centers of new customers? The answer appears to be the same now as it was back in the 1970s and 1980s.
For some workloads, a single, very large system configuration works better and is easier to manage that a veritable herd of industry standard systems. If one examines cost of ownership or return on investment studies, staff-related costs of administration and operations far outweigh the cost of systems and software. So, any platform that minimizes those costs, can actually lower overall costs.
What IBM has done is to make the mainframe a hub of computing that can support and manage applications designed for mainframes, for UNIX, for Windows and for Linux in a unified and secure way. IBM also provides tools that allow highly distributed systems to be managed in a more unified way as well.
If anything, IBM faces the challenge of having many good solutions that can be used individually or together. This complex product portfolio can be quite daunting for some.
The key challenge IBM faces, of course, is getting IT decision makers who grew up using industry standard systems and thinking that mainframes were holdovers from some per-historic time to actually become aware of what these systems can do today, compare their own company's costs with and without the mainframe and come to the decision that today's mainframe is a valuable addition to the data center, not a relic of the past. IBM's Smarter Planet marketing campaign is designed to do just that.
Can IBM succeed in re-introducing mainframes into an industry standard world? The facts appear to say yes.