IBM opened a mainframe, Linux and cloud hub in Johannesburg last month so that South African companies and information technology (IT) partners can test and experiment with modern mainframe competences, Linux operating systems and cloud technology, says IBM South Africa GM Abraham Thomas.

The new-generation IBM System Z mainframe was developed in line with the company’s goals of centralised, virtualised processing and systems, represented by its unified and integrated systems and servers, such as the PureFlex and PureApplication products.

About 40% of users of mainframe computers were using Linux before IBM extended support for Linux systems in 2000. More than 80% of mainframe computers are running on Linux-based operating systems and the use of Linux has increased by about 49% a year since 2004, highlights IBM System Z VP Deon Newman.

Clients are using the hub to test and prove concepts and their applicability, and to check whether applications run and perform as expected, he emphasises.

Further, the requirement to collect and process data centrally from multiple sources and mobile devices, and to send information back to many mobile devices in a cloud environment, has led to a resurgence in mainframe computing methods, says Newman.

“Mainframe computing, currently in its twelfth generation, is well placed as a modern platform to support the next mobile, cloud-based era of computing,” he says.

Mainframe computing also supported the growth of the financial services and airline industries, whose growth can partially be attributed to their using centralised computing, which enabled them to handle thousands of simultaneous transactions, bookings and reporting processes, he says.

The significant demands placed on centralised computing systems necessitate that they be resilient and reliable.

IT outsourcing service company Business Connexion CIO Jacques Loubser says that its Tier 4 carrier-neutral data centres, which are run as mainframe systems, have not experienced any downtime at all since 2006, owing to good operators and good management, as well as robust machines.

“The consistency, resilience and availability of the resources and our services to clients are important to us from a brand perspective and, importantly, enable us to use connected intelligence between all facets of our infrastructure and client services. Large stock exchanges and financial, retail and mining companies rely on our systems and we must ensure that they have the resources and transaction applications available whenever they need them.”

Business Connexion has six large mainframe systems in operation and it can move the workloads between these systems according to customer requirements.

Owing to virtualised mainframe systems being flexible, resilient and cost effective for large applications or being the infrastructure to support IT hosting services, they are well placed to provide the large-scale, centralised computing for cloud services, notes Newman.

“About 80% of businesses believe that a centralised, mainframe system is the most appropriate environment to host business analytics systems, especially given the processing requirements of analytics systems, while the information gleaned from analysis can be distributed to all users or clients in a cloud network,” he concludes.