Sidebar: Vendor Expects Mainframe Uptick

August 1, 2005 (Computerworld) NEW YORK -- Erich Clementi, general manager of IBM's Systems and Technology group and head of the company's mainframe efforts, spoke with Computerworld last week about the planned rollout of the System z9 and other issues.

Erich Clementi of IBM

Previous mainframe announcements have usually focused on performance improvements. But this time, security seemed to share center stage. Why was that? Mainframes are developed for very specific customer sets. Right now, the biggest input we get is, "Help us fix the security problem." That's why we put particular focus on these features and the availability of encryption [technology].

Who are the likely customers for this system -- existing mainframe users? I think we are going to broaden beyond that. Connecting everything is powerful, but it also comes with its set of problems. The moment you start sharing [data], you want to be pretty sure that what you share is what you intended to share. We see very interesting uses of our technology in segments of the market that previously were not typical mainframe segments.

But makers of distributed systems argue that there already is a high degree of security and reliability built into their servers. The single system needs to be secure. [But] once you connect all the systems, a new level of problem starts coming to you. You've got to manage that security and reliability.
Today, most data resides on mainframes. If you have a geographically dispersed parallel sysplex, I can assure you that I can not only save your data integrity in case of disaster; I can also restart all your applications.

Do you feel like you're running a dying business? This is not the mainframe that used to be. If we didn't open the mainframe to Java technology, to TCP/IP, to Apache, to Linux, to what are distributed technologies, this would have gone a different course. We have grown revenue -- how about that for a dying species?