Stream: Woodcote
Time: 14:15 - 15:00
“Get off the mainframe” is often positioned as modernization—but many organizations cannot clearly explain what their mainframe actually costs per workload, per application, or in terms of business value. This session aligns with SHARE’s “Actionable Intelligence for Mainframe Ecosystems” by demonstrating how to create transparency and make decisions based on measurable data rather than assumptions. Drivers for leaving the mainframe are frequently structural: perceived vendor lock-in, limited cost transparency, and a missing relationship between platform cost and revenue. At the same time, decisions are often influenced by industry hype instead of workload-specific analysis. This session focuses on the how: building a practical framework for workload classification, capacity planning, and business cost mapping. We will walk through how to allocate costs to applications, identify real capacity drivers, and connect technical workloads to business services and outcomes. Particular attention is given to understanding workload characteristics such as transaction volume, latency sensitivity, and regulatory requirements. We will also examine when the mainframe remains the optimal choice—especially for high-volume, reliable transaction processing and regulatory-driven environments—and where distributed architectures introduce additional complexity through data movement, integration, and consistency challenges.
There is currently no attachment for Leaving the Mainframe – Strategy, Hype, or Cost Illusion?
I started my IT career in 1998 as a system controller and have been expanding my knowledge of mainframe technology ever since. I am originally from Switzerland and currently live in the Netherlands. As a Senior ITBI Consultant, I help clients around the world, with a focus on Central Europe, to utilize ITBI insights for better decision making and cost efficiency.
Click here to give some Feedback so we can make it even better next year!