IDC Survey Reveals Increased Investments in Mainframe Hardware and Software Planned Over The Next Five Years

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FRAMINGHAM, Mass., September 14, 2009– Mired in a storm of economicuncertainty, plans for increased investments in mainframe hardware and softwarerepresent a ray of light for enterprise data center managers who plan toleverage their existing mainframe deployments. According to a new,comprehensive IDC survey of 300 end users, nearly one-half of respondentsindicated they plan to increase annual spending on mainframe hardware andsoftware.

IDC's in-depth assessment of the mainframe's role in the multi-platformdata center provides insights into the current state of the IBM System zmainframe platform, examines hardware characteristics and capacity, and analyzesthe key workloads and use cases that will determine the fate of the mainframe inthe future.

The study identifies the emergence of a blended, orhybrid, approach to computing on the IBM System z platform. "Customers arefinding that new workloads, including Linux-based and Java-based workloads, canleverage the mainframe's built-in security and high levels of availability, byrunning them on mainframe specialty processors, such as the IFL, zIIP and zAAPprocessors," said Jean S. Bozman, research vice president with IDC'sEnterprise Platforms Group. "This pattern of adoption is placing softwarelicensing costs on a lower price schedule for these new workloads than if theywere running natively on the IBM System z hardware platform. In this way, customersare seeing a blended approach to deploying and maintaining workloads – carryinglongtime workloads forward on System z, even as they bring new workloads ontothe mainframe."

Changes in the storage environment are also expected. "Asmore people access these systems, investments in capacity must be made to accommodateincreased usage of existing applications," said Laura DuBois, program director, StorageSoftware. "Additionally, usage growth will bedriven by a range of new workloads coming onto the mainframe platform, and fromapplications that need access to mainframe-hosted databases." The importanceof the mainframe and its mission-critical workloads to large businesses notonly ensures its longevity, but also drives additional storage investments.

The mainframe is still seen byrespondents as a key element of centrally managed corporate data and high valuecomputing workloads by providing them with a layer of highly controllable enterprisemanagement software. Many customers reported that they can plan another wave ofinvestments in the System z platformover the next 2-5 years, given the system's high availability, reliability, andsecurity for mission-critical applications. "Customers continue to collectdividends on their System z investments, which makes future investments muchmore palatable, even in difficult economic times," said Tim Grieser, programvice president, Enterprise System Management Software. "The positiveoutlook for the mainframe is also driven by specific initiatives designed toimprove the utility and operational efficiency of the platform from theperspectives of highly scalable operations, ability to run new workloads, and totalcost of operations (TCO)."

Additional findings from this special study includethe following:

Additionalsurvey findings can be found in the IDC special study,

Mainframe Directions inthe Multi-Platform Data Center 2009-2013: Today's Workloads and Future Outlook

(IDC #219797). This study presents results of an IDC research project conductedto gain insights into usage patterns for IBM System z mainframes, and to betterunderstand user attitudes and user intentions concerning the use of suchsystems in the future. To gather information, IDC conducted a Web-based surveyof mainframe-knowledgeable IT experts and decision makers during the Winter andSpring of 2009. A total of 300 respondents provided data regarding the usagepatterns they see in their sites—and data regarding their future intentionsregarding acquisition of System z and software to run on the mainframeplatform. Follow-up in-depth interviews were conducted with 5 selectedmainframe users by IDC analysts to add depth to the analysis. Only IBMmainframe users were included in the survey population.

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