IBM System z - zBC12 blog directory - everything you need to know about the new baby mainframe from IBM

See below for a list of blog posts from press, analysts, IBMers, BPs, etc on the recently announced zBC12:

In addition, we have published several blogs about new features (RoCE, zEDC, etc.) that were introduced with the zBC12 back in July on the IBM Mainframe Insights blog. 

Also check out the July 23rd announcement page,  the zBC12 product page and the zEnterprise innovations page.

Press Blogs

New York Times Bits blog, “Mainframe Computers That Change With the Times,”Quentin Hardy, July 23, 2013

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/07/23/mainframe-computers-that-change-with-the-times/?smid=tw-share 

Silicon Angle blog, “IBM Announces New zEnterprise Mainframe”Bert Latamore, July 23, 2013 http://servicesangle.com/blog/2013/07/23/ibm-announces-new-zenterprise-mainframe/ 

WebCommunicati, “IBM: arricchita l’offerta zEnterprise con un nuovo sistema e ulteriori innovazioni”July 23, 2013 http://webcomunicati.wordpress.com/2013/07/23/ibm-arricchita-lofferta-zenterprise-con-un-nuovo-sistema-e-ulteriori-innovazioni/ 

ARS Tecnica “IBM unveils new ‘mainframe for the rest of us’”, Sean Gallagher, July 23, 2012 http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/07/ibm-unveils-new-mainframe-for-the-rest-of-us/ 

Mainframe Update “New Business Class baby”, Trevor Eddolls, July 28, 2013 http://mainframeupdate.blogspot.com/2013/07/new-business-class-baby.html 

Analyst Blogs

IT Candor, “IBM Announces zEnterprise BC12 Business Class Booster”Martin Hingley, July 23, 2013 http://www.itcandor.com/ibm-systemz-q213/ 

Dancing Dinosaur, “New zEnterprise Business Class Entry Model—zBC12”, Alan Radding, July 23, 2013 http://dancingdinosaur.wordpress.com/2013/07/23/new-zenterprise-business-class-entry-model-zbc12/ 

Computer Weekly: Open Source Insider, “Old school IBM meets new school OpenStack”, Adrian Bridgewater, July 23, 2013 http://www.computerweekly.com/blogs/open-source-insider/2013/07/old-school-ibm-meets-new-school-openstack.html?utm_term=%23foss&utm_medium=twitter

Tech-Tonics/ Gabriel Lowy, “Can the Mainframe be a new Cloud Platform?”, Gabriel Lowy, August 1, 2013 http://tech-tonics.org/can-the-mainframe-be-a-cloud-platform/?goback=.gde_54516_member_262602555 

Bloor Research blog: The Norfolk Punt, “Enterprise server 3.0 - zEnterprise BC12”, David Norfolk, August 2, 2013 https://www.bloorresearch.com/blog/the-norfolk-punt/2013/8/enterprise-server-3-zenterprise-bc12.html 

IT Director: The Norfolk Punt, “Enterprise server 3.0 - zEnterprise BC12”, David Norfolk, August 2, 2013 http://www.it-director.com/blogs/The_Norfolk_Punt/2013/8/enterprise_server_3_0_zenterprise__.html 

Business Financing Magazine: wiredFINANCE blog, “Newest Low Cost IT and Cloud Computing Option,”Alan Radding, August 5, 2013 http://businessfinancemag.com/blog/newest-low-cost-it-and-cloud-computing-option 

IT-TNA Trends (IT Trends and Analysis), “IBM’s zEnterprise BC12: Powerful, Comprehensive, Impactful”, Joe Clabby, August 6, 2013 http://it-tna.com/2013/08/06/ibms-zenterprise-bc12-powerful-comprehensive-impactful/ 

Business Partners and ISV blogs

Brocade Community blog, “IBM System z Announcements Encourage Channel Consolidation”, Steve Guendert, July 30. 2013 http://community.brocade.com/community/blogs/mainframe/blog/2013/07/30/ibm-system-z-announcements-encourage-channel-consolidation 

Mainframe Watch Belgium blog, “zEnterprise BC12 - A technical Introduction”, Marc Wambeke, July 23, 2013 http://mainframe-watch-belgium.blogspot.com/2013/07/zenterprise-bc12-technical-introduction.html 

Republished by RealDolman http://blogs.realdolmen.com/experts/2013/07/23/zenterprise-bc12-a-technical-introduction/ 

Mainframe Watch Belgium blog, “zEC12 and zBC12: new 2:1 ration for zIIPs”, Marc Wambeke, July 24, 2013 http://mainframe-watch-belgium.blogspot.com/2013/07/zec12-and-zbc12-new-21-ratio-for-ziips.html 

Republished by RealDolman http://blogs.realdolmen.com/experts/2013/07/24/zec12-and-zbc12-new-21-ratio-for-ziips/ 

Mainframe Watch Belgium blog, “Official Announcement: z/OS 2.1”, Marc Wambeke, July 24, 2013 http://mainframe-watch-belgium.blogspot.com/2013/07/official-announcement-zos-21.html 

Mainframe Watch Belgium blog, “z/VM 6.3 –Virtualization for efficiency at scale”, Marc Wambeke, July 24, 2013 http://mainframe-watch-belgium.blogspot.com/2013/07/zvm-63-virtualization-with-efficiency.html 

Mainframe Watch Belgium blog, “PL/I for z/OS V4.4 - new function and improved performance”, Marc Wambeke, July 24, 2013 http://mainframe-watch-belgium.blogspot.com/2013/07/pli-for-zos-v44-new-function-and.html 

Mainframe Watch Belgium blog, “End of marketing for z196 and z114 announced”, Marc Wambeke, July 24, 2013 http://mainframe-watch-belgium.blogspot.com/2013/07/end-of-marketing-of-z196-and-z114.html 

Mainframe Watch Belgium blog, “I’m on holiday…”, Marc Wambeke, July 24, 2013 http://mainframe-watch-belgium.blogspot.com/2013/07/im-on-holiday.html  

Infinity Systems Software blog, “Announcement: zEnterprise Customer Council in Atlanta August 23^rd”Renee Solheim, July 23, 2013 http://www.infinite-blue.com/blog/index.php/2013/07/announcement-zenterprise-customer-council-atlanta-august-23rd/ 

Maintec blog, “IBMs Business Class Mainframes zBC12, z114 and z10BC: a quick comparison”, Maintech Technologies (author unknown), July 23, 2013 http://maintec.com/blog/ibms-business-class-mainframes-zbc12-z114-z10bc-quick-comparison/ 

Mainframe Voice (CA Technologies blog), “A MANAGEMENT PLATFORM? Who needs another management platform?”, Marcel den Hartog, July 26, 2013 http://community.ca.com/blogs/mainframe-voice/archive/2013/07/26/Do-you-really-need-another-Mainframe-management-platform.aspx?c=sm 

IBM Subject Matter Expert blogs

IBM Mainframe Insights blog, “Extending enterprise-class technologies to client of all sizes,”Pat Toole, July 23, 2013 https://www-304.ibm.com/connections/blogs/systemz/entry/zenterprise_announcement_07.23.13?lang=en_us 

The Mainframe Blog, “Happy New Mainframe Day! Introducing the zBC12 (Post #1)”, Timothy Sipples, July 23, 2013 http://mainframe.typepad.com/blog/2013/07/happy-new-mainframe-day-introducing-the-zbc12-post-1.html 

The Mainframe Blog, “Happy New Mainframe Day! Introducing the zBC12 (Post #2)”, Timothy Sipples, July 23, 2013 http://mainframe.typepad.com/blog/2013/07/happy-new-mainframe-day-introducing-the-zbc12-post-2.html 

The Mainframe Blog, “Canonical (Ubuntu) Needs a Mainframe (and zBC12 Post #3)”Timothy Sipples, July 24, 2013 http://mainframe.typepad.com/blog/2013/07/canonical-ubuntu-needs-a-mainframe-and-zbc12-post-3.html 

Turbo Todd, “IBM Boosts zEnterprise Mainframe Portfolio”, Todd Watson, July 23, 2013 http://turbotodd.com/ibm-boosts-zenterprise-mainframe-portfolio/ 

Republished by Internet Evolution http://www.internetevolution.com/author.asp?doc_id=265931&section_id=587 

DB2 for z/OS blog, “The Best just keeps getting Better: the zBC12 is here... among other things”, Willie Favero, July 23, 2013 http://it.toolbox.com/blogs/db2zos/the-best-just-keeps-getting-better-the-zbc12-is-here-among-other-things-56804 

DB2 for z/OS blog, “The July 23, 2013 Announcement Letters”, Willie Favero, July 23, 2013 http://it.toolbox.com/blogs/db2zos/the-july-23-2013-announcement-letters-56828 

DB2 for z/OS blog, “Introducing the zEnterprise BC12”, Willie Favero, July 27, 2013 http://it.toolbox.com/blogs/db2zos/introducing-the-zenterprise-bc12-56884 

System z Management, “IBM Automation Control for zOS Toleration Support for new IBM zEnterprise BC12 and new IBM zEnterprise EC12 features available,”Wiltrud Rebmann, July 24, 2013 https://www.ibm.com/developerworks/community/blogs/5e65990a-9690-42e2-93b1-c2267be7620c/entry/ibm_automation_control_for_zos_toleration_support_for_new_ibm_zenterprise_bc12_and_new_ibm_zenterprise_ec12_features_available?lang=en&utm_medium=twitter&utm_source=twitterfeed 

Mainframe Performance Topics. “The Missing Link”, Martin Packer, July 30, 2013 https://www.ibm.com/developerworks/community/blogs/MartinPacker/entry/the_missing_link?lang=en 

Millennial Mainframer, 䄜Reasons Millennials should care about the Mainframe Announcements”Sean McBride, July 24, 2013 http://www.millennialmainframer.com/2013/07/care-mainframe-announcements/ 

CTO, M.Teyssedre, Le Blog “New IBM zEnterprise BC12 Entry-Level Mainframe Launches”, Michel Teyssedre, July 25, 2013 http://cto-ibmfrance.blogspot.com/2013/07/new-ibm-zenterprise-bc12-entry-level_25.html 

Business Partner Voices “Extending enterprise-class technologies to clients of all sizes”Pat Toole, July 25, 2013 http://businesspartnervoices.com/extending-enterprise-class-technologies-to-clients-of-all-sizes/ 

The Greater IBM Connection, “IBM Boosts zEnterprise Mainframe Portfolio”Khalid Raza, July 26, 2013 http://greateribm.wordpress.com/2013/07/26/ibm-boosts-zenterprise-mainframe-portfolio/ 

Storage CH Blog: an (IBM) Storage-related blog, ”IBM zEnterprise BC12 Technical Guide”, Roger Luethy, August 5, 2013 http://rogerluethy.wordpress.com/2013/08/05/ibm-zenterprise-bc12-technical-guide/ 

Misc. Blogs

Cloud Guys, “IBM Boosts zEnterprise Mainframe Portfolio”, July 23, 2013 http://cloudguys.net/2013/07/ibm-boosts-zenterprise-mainframe-portfolio-biztech2-com/ 

Global WebSphere Community blog, “IBM zBC12 announcement - smaller footprint ideal to consolidate distributed workloads on zLinux”, Elena Nanos (HSBC / Blue Cross Blue Shield), July 23, 2013 http://www.websphereusergroup.org/chicagonw/blog/2013/07/23/_ibm_zbc12_announcement_-_smaller_footprint_ideal_to_consolidate_distributed_workloads_on_zlinux 

Search Data Center, Tech Target “IBM mainframes reinvigorated at lower price for cloud apps, data analytics”Ed Scannell, July 29, 2013 http://searchdatacenter.techtarget.com/news/2240202708/IBM-mainframes-reinvigorated-at-lower-price-for-cloud-apps-data-analytics?utm_campaign=sdc_dcv3&utm_medium=social&utm_source=sprout&utm_content=1375112033 

Search Data Center, Tech Target, “Linux’s flexibility, native hardware integration as a mainframe OS”, Sander van Vugt, July 30, 2013 http://searchdatacenter.techtarget.com/tip/Linuxs-flexibility-native-hardware-/integration-as-a-mainframe-OS 

Never Talk When You Can Nod, “Should IBM drop the “Mainframe”Moniker?”, Andew Chapman (CA Technologies), July 24, 2013 http://www.memorableurl.com/2013/07/should-ibm-drop-the-mainframe-moniker.html 

The 7 Pillars of Connecting With Absolutely Anyone

The 7 Pillars of Connecting With Absolutely Anyone

1. Be genuine. The only connections that work will be the ones that you truly care about; the world will see through anything short of that. If you don’t have a genuine interest in the person with whom you’re trying to connect, then stop trying.

2. Provide massive help. Even the biggest and most powerful people in the world have something they’d like help with. Too many people never reach out to those above them due to the fear that they wouldn’t be able to offer anything in return. But you have more to offer than you realize: write an article or blog post about them, share their project with your community, offer to spread their message through a video interview with them. Give real thought to who you could connect them with to benefit their goals. If it turns out you can’t be that helpful, the gesture alone will stand out.

3. Pay ridiculous attention. It’s nearly impossible to genuinely offer help if you don’t pay attention — I mean real attention, not just to what business they started or what sport they like! Do your research by reading blog posts, books and articles about the connection beforehand. Learn about their backgrounds and passions. Invest genuine time in learning what really matters to them and how you can help.

4. Connect with people close to them. Most job openings are filled through networking and referrals, and making connections is no different. You automatically arrive with credibility when referred to someone you want to meet by a mutual friend. For example, I recently wanted to meet a best-selling author, and it turned out we had the same personal trainer. In reality, that fact means nothing, but in the world of social dynamics, it’s gold! Spend more time connecting with your current network of friends and colleagues and see where it leads.

5. Persistence wins most battles. If you can’t get a direct referral, simply click send on that email or leave a message after the beep. But do not stop there, as most the world tends to. The first attempt is just the very beginning. Realize that the first try may get you nowhere, but the fifth or the tenth tries are the ones that start to yield results. An unreturned email or voicemail doesn’t mean they don’t want to connect with you. It’s your job to be persistent! I sometimes get hundreds of requests in a day from readers who want to connect, but only about 2 percent ever follow up. Don’t be in a hurry, but don’t be invisible either.

6. Make real friends. Think about how you’ve made the friends you have. That’s all this is. You only make friends with people you genuinely want in your life. The same rule should go for bigger-name connections. Don’t over-think it. Be human, be helpful and most humans will happily be human in return, regardless of who they are.

7. Remain unforgettable. All of the above are simple — yet sadly underused — ways of standing out. Send birthday cards. Mail your favorite book with a signed personal note from you on the inside flap. Send them your family Christmas card. Be genuinely helpful. You’d be surprised how the simplest things actually never get done. Being memorable isn’t as hard as some think!

It all comes back to helping others. If you spent 100 percent of your waking hours thinking about how you can help absolutely everyone you come in contact with — from the woman who makes your latte, to the top authority in your industry — you will find everything else tends to take care of itself. The world will suddenly be in your corner.

Scott Dinsmore - 'Live your legend' coaching company wrote this and I think it has nailed the concept of connecting with people really well ! Thanks to Toby Woolfe for putting me onto this...

Pitfalls of being a 'Dedicated Follower of Fashion' the Trendy Mainframe

As the Kinks sang in 1966 a 'Dedicated Follower of Fashion' can be found "eagerly pursuing all the latest fads and trends" now whilst Vogue and GQ will tell us in their advert laden publications that is the way for us to tailor (excuse the pun) our attire as the seasons progress, taking the same approach to IT decisions is fraught with danger.  Let me elaborate on my point.

On average a CIO has a tenure just longer than a presidential term, namely 5-years according to research, details of which can be found at:

http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9214941/CIOs_aren_t_CIOs_for_long?pageNumber=1

The first year as CIO is the honeymoon. The second year is about strategy and planning, and the third year is about implementing. In the fourth year they (the higher-ups) figure out that the execution isn't going that well, and in the fifth year, you start looking for your next job.  So whilst it tempting for a CIO to back the latest fad and trend early in their tenure and look to make this their signature project, according to the research this approach does not appear to be serving CIO's well, assuming they want a job longer than 5-years that is...

The old IT maxim was that "you won't get fired for buying IBM", now this largely holds true as big Blue's list of 'bad' products over the years has been pretty small compared to it's peers, but it appears to this Blogger at least that it is still just about perceived as fashionable to move away from the mainframe.  

The rationale for this from most of my conversations with mainframe shops is that the mainframe is massively visible on IT cost reports and therefore attracts undue attention and typically not positively.  Now whilst on one level this makes 'sense' if you just drill down and scratch the surface then this simple rationale is fatally flawed.  Just because the mainframe is a single line item on a spreadsheet does not make it the least cost effective.  How hard is it to group all the x86 costs and UNIX costs into one-line item and compare them platform-by-platform.  When we did this analysis within a large UK retail bank the analysis showed that 97% of the banks IT logic ran on the mainframe and that it represented only 7% of the total IT budget.  To take a personnel approach in another of my clients their entire IT staff numbers 700 people, while only 14 of these work on the mainframe.

Lets take an alternative look, a large retail bank in the UK has for the last 5-6 years been looking to migrate off their mainframe platform to a more fashionable COTS (Commercial Off The Shelf) application.  The previous CIO (are you seeing the trend yet) embarked on this high profile project convinced he could remove the single largest item on his cost spreadsheet.  Well with the help of our DeLorean we can move forward to the latest press release on this project:

http://www.computerworlduk.com/news/it-business/3466507/co--op-bank-writes-off-148-million-in-it-costs/?olo=rss

Where the bank decides to stay on the mainframe as it's strategic platform and mothball the reputedly £600m+ 'investment' it has made in trying to get off the mainframe.

Now I am not saying that everybody should remain on their current hardware platform and every IT shop needs progress and cost reduction initiatives, IT Execs need to be sure and damned sure they are making financially sound well thought through business driven decisions rather than following the latest trend.  Only then in this Bloggers view will they look to get the career stability at least some of them crave...

Keen to get your insight so post your comments below or ping me @StevenDickens3 or jst post using the hashtag #mainframedebate

Using Facts To Go On Offense Against Distributed FUD (copy of CA Blog)

"The highest form of flattery is to plagiarise" Steven Dickens

Original blog can be found at:

http://community.ca.com/blogs/mainframe-voice/archive/2013/07/15/using-facts-to-go-on-offense-against-distributed-fud.aspx?c=sm

In my last post, “Myths and Misconceptions about the Costs of Mainframe Computing” I wrote about the challenges facing IT executives who see their department’s task list grow year after while their budgets shrink, and how the financial analysts and business managers are likely to take aim at the biggest line items. The result is that mainframe takes a hit because its costs are neatly conveyed as large line items while distributed costs are distributed across the financial report. Fighting budget battles is no fun and can easily take more time—and have a greater impact on overall IT department performance—than the real work of IT. But since many of you are likely to have to fight those battles, here are some points to help you.
To go on offense (or at least provide a robust defense), you need to shift the conversation from obtrusive or highly variable numbers on the spreadsheet to a reasoned discussion around the total cost of ownership (TCO) and total cost of acquisition (TCA) of various parts of the IT infrastructure. No reasonable business professional will ignore the facts of the situation. However, given insufficient and/or incorrect information, even reasonable business pros can—and will—come to faulty conclusions and make poor decisions.
When making IT purchasing decisions, in addition to the obvious incremental costs of hardware and software, ask whether your business management takes any or all of the following into account:

1. The cost to power IT equipment (servers, switches, etc.)
2. The cost of the space occupied by IT equipment?  Do you even have enough space to contain additional servers and switches
3. The cost to cool IT equipment. In many cases, an increased workload can be absorbed by System z equipment already on the floor (by simply enabling the additional needed capacity), meaning there is no incremental cost for your System z equipment.
4. The additional cost of all of the above for development/test/QA environments
5. Enabling backup/recovery, disaster recovery and/or business continuity capability in the environment
   In many cases, the distributed system "bid" does not include any of these costs. When you parachute a new workload into an existing System z environment, it tends to already have these capabilities "in the base." The incremental cost can be far less than having to newly establish these capabilities for a distributed implementation.
6. The cost of new personnel to manage the systems. Typically on System z, as long as the workload is not a complete departure from what is currently in the environment, the demands of new workloads are easily absorbed by existing staff. My observations show that the number of administrators for an IT group is a function of the number of servers. The cost of the required additional admins required by the new implementation should also be included into the distributed bid.
7. The cost to upgrade or refresh the systems:  make sure that the bids cover enough time to include at least one hardware technology refresh at some predicted application growth rate

When you replace a server or blade you have to purchase a new one. The cost of a technology refresh is likely to be rather close to the original technology outlay plus the new capacity to accommodate application growth. On the mainframe side, when you upgrade your System z server, IBM gives you a significant credit for the capacity in your current servers, you essentially only pay for the additional capacity needed for application growth, even if you are replacing the physical System z server.

Also, there's this funny thing about the cost of System z software:  for most products, incremental increases in software capacity always costs less per MSU than existing capacity--each incremental MSU costs less than the previous one. This means is two things: first, the cost of the added capacity will actually be less than the capacity you are already using. Second, adding new capacity reduces the average cost of all of your current capacity. That’s right, adding new workload actually reduces the cost of the workload that is currently running.

With regards to the fact that variable costs draw attention when high as discussed in my previous post, a little conversational jiu-jitsu might be helpful. Rather than responding to the complaint in a defensive way, "Well, it was a busy month.  Last month, the cost was only 70 percent," try turning it around. Remember that overall cost of the distributed infrastructure (when fully discovered and added together) is going to be a rather large fixed cost, regardless of whether the infrastructure performs a single transaction or one billion in a particular month. You can say something like, "Yes, absolutely it cost more this month. We did twice as many trades as the previous month, which cost about 70 percent of this month. What was the cost of the distributed side last month? Was it any different than this month?  Do you even know how much they cost? Does that cost include…(and rattle of the list of items above)?"

Finally, this may be a way to get this conversation kick started. An IT analyst named Dr. Howard Rubin has done extensive research into the comparative economics of System z and distributed deployments. His research has found that, when you look at the costs of IT for product or service delivered, companies that use relatively more System z capacity deliver those products and services with an overall lower cost of IT than those that use more distributed. It may be helpful to have some of your company's financial people have a look at this research and consider the impact on your business.

Here are some links:
http://www.rubinworldwide.com/files/Mainframe_Economics.pdf
http://www.rubinworldwide.com/files/Mainframe_Cost_Effectiveness.pdf
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y8PwBKJaSBI

It may just may be true that distributed IT at your company is being delivered in a more cost effective manner. However, if you and your company are serious about good IT cost management, this kind of exercise and visibility can yield other areas where you can become more cost efficient.

Systems of Record and Systems of Engagement

As the mainframe moves into its 50th year and its 'death' predictions fade into folklore then the role of the mainframe evolves. A lexicon I have heard that perfectly describes the mainframe in 2013 is the System of Record. This is opposed to Systems of Engagement whose role is to provide access.

This Forbes article expands on the terms:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/joshbersin/2012/08/16/the-move-from-systems-of-record-to-systems-of-engagement/

Increasingly CIO's have to focus development effort on getting apps out to the marketplace; be that the internal Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) driven internal customer of the IT department or external customers. Whilst this form of development is becoming 'table stakes' rather than optional, the challenges this type of 24x7x365 access creates for back end systems cannot be over exaggerated.  Let me expand. I met with a client last week who has their back-end logistics and stock management systems running on the mainframe, and whilst this is the crown jewels of their IT operation and is continually being developed they face key architectural challenges moving forward into a world of increased access.  Their requirement is for customers and internal users to access the back-end systems via mobile apps.  Whilst this on the surface sounds simple, just develop and app and hook it up to the mainframe right!! The reality is somewhat different, the back end data is in a system which is batch orientated and is brought down between 4-5 days a year for application maintenance and also is not tuned for random SQl queries at any time of the day...

So as you can see how you architect mainframe systems to handle these new systems of engagement is key.  Also don't let this challenge be met with the standard - just ETL it off the mainframe and do it there - as this approach also has its challenges:

• Data currency
• Managing and Backing up yet another system
• Often ETL load is as bad as keeping the system on the mainframe
• Multiple copies of data to manage

So lets look at technologies that may be able to help:

• Running the app serving and web layer as close to the data as possible, i.e. on a Linux partition on the mainframe.
• Accelerate and optimise the DB2 query using the DB2 Analytics Accelerator
• Re-architecting your IMS and DB2 databases to facilitate better 24x7 access
• Leverage the web services layer in CICS

If you need more help get in touch via Twitter - @StevenDickens3, but don't let mobile apps that access mainframe data become just another distributed platform, engage the brave new world...

Systems of Record and Systems of Engagement

As the mainframe moves into its 50th year and its 'death' predictions fade into folklore then the role of the mainframe evolves. A lexicon I have heard that perfectly describes the mainframe in 2013 is the System of Record. This is opposed to Systems of Engagement whose role is to provide access. 

This is just a prelude to a more detailed blog post hopefully later this week.  But thought I would solicit feedback before I expand further...

Check this out...

Got to give credit where it due, check out this very interesting article:

http://www.share.org/p/bl/et/blogaid=234?sf13371142=1

Definitely worth a read, love the comment about the car being 100-year old technology...  Perhaps we should see the mainframe as a 911, almost 50-years old and still at the top of the game...