Virtualisation, schmirtualisation, it's old hat for IBM mainframes

Stan Beer
Friday, 17 October 2008 14:55

IT Industry - Market

While the likes of VMware and others talk up the benefits of virtualisation in server consolidation, this is really old news, according to Christopher O'Malley - in fact 37 years old. That's how long ago IBM first released VM on its mainframes says the GM of the mainframe business unit of CA.

CA is the sixth largest software company in the world and the mainframe sector comprises about 60% of its business. In an era when many consider the mainframe somewhat of a dinosaur, a sort of necessary evil used to run a plethora of unwieldy legacy applications, it may come as a surprise to find out that the mainframe market is as healthy as its ever been and still growing.

Cost cutting and carbon reduction targets have made virtualisation as a means of reducing the number of servers in enterprises all the rage these days among CIOs, CFOs and CEOs.

However, CA, which is in the performance management and security software business, believes that what organisations are trying to achieve today with servers has been standard practice for decades in the mainframe world. What's more, the traditional base of mainframes, large enterprisesare realising this more than ever.

"The mainframe market has had 20% compound growth over the past 8 years, from 3.5 million in the market to 14 million. The revival of the mainframe is bigger than anyone thought," says O'Malley.

"Another interesting fact is that the market share of IBM for the mainframe which, as IDC measures it, is any server that is greater than $100,000 in price, is larger now than it has ever been.

"We understand how clients use technology and how it relates to software. In the 1990s it was assumed that distributed computing was cheaper. In 2008 they know different. Many top 1000 companies, such as banks, say the mainframe is cheaper."

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