Better Metrics for Assessing Mainframe's Value to Business

by Brenda J. Christie

I attended an impressive CompuWare-sponsored webinar yesterday, "The Surprising Economics of Mainframe Technology." Many issues relative to IT Costs were presented during the webinar. Some of my takeaways were: 

1. It is still cheaper to run a mainframe than a series of servers. 
2. Mainframes scale better than connected servers.
3. IT's Cost of operations has surpassed revenue generated by the companies in which they are found. 
4. The cost of running applications on a mainframe cannot be calculated solely based on licensing costs, but should instead be presented in terms of how much of the organization's business is supported by the mainframe. When compared to a server-based environment, mainframe supports more. 

The webinar resonated and extends the metrics which should be used when determining the value of mainframe technology in computing.  It extends a concept ,Total Cost of Ownership, which has appeared in several posts appearing in IT Thru the Prism of Time (here, here and here).

Look for more discussion on the economics of mainframe technology in subsequent posts.

Subsequent to that webinar I came across an article, "Understanding Web-Scale Properties" which presents an overview of a practice and platform whose use is on the rise, and whose goal is to further reduce IT costs in an intelligent, efficient way.  This topic is of interest due to the rise in interest and discussion of the changing anatomy of infrastructure and the datacenter.  Look for more in-depth topics on this subject as well.

Bye for now.

Brenda J. Christie