Throughout the years, mainframe systems have maintained their unique niche in supporting some of the most throughput-intensive and business-critical applications around the world. The bulk of the world’s financial transactions, easily over a billion per day, are processed primarily by mainframes. Healthcare providers, government agencies, telecom companies, manufacturers, shipping companies and other industries all rely on the speed, reliability, security and integrity of the mainframe.
Mainframe applications have changed substantially in the past couple of decades, as they leverage other technology improvements such as the internet and high speed global communications. Today’s mainframe application paths are increasingly extending beyond the firewall, and out to the web, where they become customer-facing. Banking at home, paying your credit card provider online, and making travel reservations are just a few examples of modern applications powered by mainframe applications.
However, there can be a dark side to the extended-enablement of mainframe applications. Poor application quality no longer impacts company insiders alone. It now impacts the customer and can literally translate to multi-million dollar losses if the customer is alienated and takes their business elsewhere.
Mainframe applications are key drivers of business agility and revenue generation, and organizations relying on them face intense pressures to deliver and maintain the highest quality and performance. But they face a quandary: a rapidly retiring field of mainframe development expertise, combined with constant pressures to do more with less in terms of people, time and money. Resources are further affected as cost cutting pressures increase offshore outsourcing, which can lead to an even greater decrease in skill level.
To overcome these challenges, businesses using mainframes must attract top developers and empower them to maximize productivity while maintaining efficiencies gained over the years. This presentation will explore:
- How businesses can give their developers, particularly the newer generation, the tools they need to do their jobs successfully, while ensuring a smooth knowledge transfer from more experienced generations and extending the value of existing mainframe investments.
- The value of creating a “bridge” between the newer and less experienced, and more experienced “veteran” generations of mainframe developers – a modernized, intuitive development environment which increases less experienced developers’ comfort level with the mainframe and makes them happier while shortening their mainframe learning curve.
- Key considerations for modern development environments and tooling interfaces: cost-efficiency, ease of installation and ease of use.
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