Reports of the death of the mainframe have long been
exaggerated. Most business data is stored on mainframes and a new
breed of mainframe running on Linux is becoming
popular.
However, in a series of surveys users have claimed that mainframe
licensing costs are too high and the software too expensive.
Users of older mainframes are "locked in" to the machines, because
years of investment in the technology means an upgrade would be
prohibitively expensive and risky to the business. Another option
is to outsource the running of a mainframe to a supplier.
IBM is encouraging users to buy mainframes running on Linux by
offering discounts for its newer models, such as the eServer
zSeries 990, launched in May 2003.
For example, earlier this month, German national rail company
Deutsche Bahn announced it was migrating to Linux-based mainframes
to run its critical business applications. Deutsche Bahn moved
55,000 Lotus Notes users to an IBM eServer zSeries 990 mainframe
running Novell's SuSE Linux Enterprise Server 8. It plans to
migrate other enterprise-wide applications, such as SAP systems,
from Unix onto the Linux mainframe by the end of the year.
Last December, Dundee City Council replaced 11 servers with one IBM
zSeries 800 mainframe running SuSE Linux on 25 virtual servers to
run council systems including payroll, housing, social services and
web services.
The new type of mainframe dates back to 2002 when IBM invested
£529m in its family of zSeries mainframes, revamping the line with
the zSeries 800. IBM slashed its pricing by almost 90%, driving it
into the mainstream and enabling it to compete with Sun,
Hewlett-Packard and Compaq.
IBM's z800 provided an upgrade path to the z900, with a Linux-only
model driving down costs even further.
IBM has increasingly adopted Linux in its products, reducing
mainframe costs. As a result, industry insiders said the z800 was
the most important announcement the firm had made in the past 30
years.
However, there are signs that mainframes have had their heyday and
are now on the decline, mainly because of the high costs of
third-party application licences, maintenance and support.
A survey of IT directors , commissioned by software firm Macro 4
found that 44% were unhappy with mainframe costs, which they
thought were high and unpredictable.
The survey, carried out last year, found that the problem was most
severe in the retail and logistics sectors. David Chalmers, product
strategy director at Macro 4, said, "High costs combined with
unpredictability are bad news for IT directors looking to establish
consistency and value for money. Software licensing costs are a
blocking factor in most cost-cutting initiatives."
Research from analyst firm Gartner echoed this point. It found that
52% of mainframe owners cited high third-party software costs as
inhibiting their organisation's mainframe growth, and 15% said the
second biggest inhibitor was the management perception that the
mainframe is outdated.
The high cost of running mainframes will force most companies with
small or medium-sized mainframe installations to move to
alternative platforms in the next five years, according to analyst
firm Meta Group. Only organisations with large mainframe sites will
continue to view these as essential, because of the prohibitive
cost of moving to a newer system.
Meta said users could stay on old mainframes, move to a new
mainframe (typically Linux-based), or run certain business
operations on a smaller server, for example, Windows 2003. However,
this would require IT staff to rewrite some of the code on the old
mainframe.
The main attraction of upgrading to a Linux-based mainframe is the
potential to cut costs. Robin Bloor, president of Bloor Research,
said, "Linux on the mainframe has a lower total cost of ownership
than Linux on anything else, if you take into account that managing
Linux on the mainframe is easier and the virtualisation
capabilities enable a Linux instance to be very resource
efficient."
Many companies have chosen the first option - to stay on their
mainframes. "A proportion of firms with mainframe installations are
finding that continuing upgrades and replacements is a very
workable option," said Julie-Ann Williams, special interest group
chairwoman at IBM user group Guideshare Europe.
Williams added that "remarkably few" companies had taken the second
route: replacing home-grown mainframe applications with equivalent
software packages.
"Most mainframe applications are so complex and tailored to
organisational requirements that an off-the-shelf package can
rarely reproduce the information which can be simply obtained using
the old mainframe applications," she said.
But Gary Sullivan, vice-president for datacentre services at
consultancy firm Capgemini, said replacing some mainframe functions
with packaged applications running on servers had briefly been a
popular tactic.
"Some years ago, organisations did not properly consider total cost
of ownership and IBM was pricing itself out of certain markets.
This meant that mid-range servers appeared attractive, resulting in
most enterprise resource planning and customer relationship
management products not running on mainframes. IBM has woken up to
this challenge with hardware and software pricing models that make
the mainframe an equally viable solution."
Sullivan singled out the IBM z800 eServers as a range of mainframes
that could match any organisation's processor requirements. "A
truly scalable processor range [using on-demand computing
technology] with a number of on-demand offers make this platform a
much more compelling proposition, with its applicability not being
limited to just legacy systems," he said. On-demand computing, also
known as utility computing, allows an enterprise access to
bandwidth, computing, storage and other resources as they require
it.
Given the continued pressure on IT directors to reduce running
costs, upgrading mainframes to run on Linux appears to be a logical
move. However, upgrading a mainframe will be one of the most risky
IT projects, given that they are the main repository of information
in many organisations.
The outsourcing option
Some companies are outsourcing the management and running of
their mainframes to reduce costs.
Julie-Ann Williams, chairwoman at IBM user group Guideshare
Europe, said, "The main reason for this is an impression by
management that they will be able to save costs. A number who try,
take it back in-house when it turns out they do not really make
savings."
Gary Sullivan, vice-president for datacentre services at
Capgemini, said drivers behind outsourcing the mainframe include
skills shortages, company acquisitions, shedding a non-core
business process and the view that the mainframe is a legacy
platform.
He said, "Outsourcers will typically be able to offer material
cost advantages because of scale, relative to an in-house
function.
"Outsourcing is a well-proven means of delivering IT services.
When clients consider any form of outsourcing, they need to develop
a clear understanding of how to ensure they receive cost-effective
services through the term of any agreement."
Sullivan advised companies to use external benchmarking via
organisations such as Gartner to ensure the charges align with
current and future market rates.
The mainframe market
Mainframe leader IBM will see 22% to 25% full-year growth in
zSeries revenue for 2004. Forrester anticipates more modest IBM
zSeries growth in 2005.
IBM will continue to have a dominant market position, offering
stiff competition to rivals Sun, Hewlett-Packard, Fuijitsu Siemens
and Unisys; with Microsoft partnering a number of these to compete
against IBM's z/OS operating system in the datacentre.
Source: Forrester Research