In my experience working with customers, I’ve found that the most successful organizations share an important discipline. They remove hype and bias from their technology decisions. Typically, they start with a clearly identified business objective in mind. Then ...they assess. “What capabilities do we need? What do we already have? Where are the gaps?” And, “How do we close them?” These are very practical conversations.
The successful executives I know – in and out of tech – are not interested in a popularity contest. They’re laser-focused on a capability contest.
Instead of getting caught up in the allure of tech for tech’s sake, they select the most suitable computing solution for the job, be it cloud, mobile, distributed, or mainframe. This is totally appropriate since, increasingly, enterprises are all living in a Hybrid Cloud reality – a reality where enterprise applications are typically multi-platform with mobile, web, and cloud front ends connecting to backend on-prem and mainframe systems where much of the heavy lifting takes place. People sometimes refer to this as “mobile to mainframe.”
Therefore, the key to fully embracing – and exploiting – this Hybrid reality is to leverage the technologies and platforms that are part of your overall IT ecosystem based on the individual strengths each provides. Doing so makes your whole Hybrid Cloud environment stronger and more efficient.
The mainframe is one of those platforms with incredible individual strengths. Mainframes enhance your Hybrid Cloud, bringing all the “ilities” to every transaction that runs across it. There is, however, an issue that used to pose a dilemma (note carefully my use of the past tense). The mainframe workforce has been viewed as limited and constrained, unwilling to use modern processes and tools. Think waterfall development. Think green screens. Think ISPF. The next generation of mainframe developers, system administrators, etc., will NOT be as productive as possible or as HAPPY as possible following in those footsteps. Fortunately, they now have a new path to follow. An open path. One where the next generation of IT practitioners is empowered with freedom of choice.
At Broadcom, our mission is to make the mainframe user experience as much like the cloud or distributed user experience as humanly possible. That’s why Broadcom has an Open First strategy. What does this mean? It means we contribute to and leverage Open Source software. It also means we have opened APIs to our solutions, those you depend on for some of your most critical business needs. In combination, these actions enable integrations between OSS and our commercial solutions that were not previously possible. And it allows for choice...the experienced mainframe practitioners can use the tools they are familiar and comfortable with while their next gen counterparts are free to use the same tools and development processes they would on any other platform without domain-specific skills or knowledge. Think VS Code for editing. Think Git UI for source management (synching with Endevor). Think “mobile to mainframe” CI/CD pipelines. Think consolidated management and monitoring dashboards. Think CHOICE!
I’ve spent much of my career trying to make the mainframe as accessible as possible, and I’m happy to say that no one invests, believes, and shares in that goal today more than Broadcom Mainframe Software.
It’s time to say “goodbye” to the days of the mainframe being a silo and to say “hello” to the modern Hybrid Cloud reality.
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