Mainframes and Cloud Computing : Business Angle Article 2

Extending Mainframes into the World of Cloud: The Business Angle - II

Author:Maintec

After highlighting the mainframe-cloud alliance and its business perspective in 'Extending Mainframes into the World of Cloud: The Business Angle - I', it is time to analyse the coalition with respect to the organisation of its workload and its capabilities of virtualization.

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How can mainframe be moved the cloud?

Mainframes and could computing possesses commonalities in terms of their sharing of resources, scalability and virtualization. Over the years mainframe computing has constantly measured up in the factors of security and reliability. IBM set the grounds for endorsing mainframes as cloud platform with its last released mainframe the zEnterprise 196 that includes the capability to incorporate distributed computing platforms. The mainframe-Linux union has also been a positive factor for the mainframe-cloud assimilation.  The IT industry is bound to witness a much beneficial path breaking union if the two forms of computing merge.

To back the ardent believers of the mainframe-cloud alliance and its triumphant future, when a survey powered by CA Technologies was conducted, 73of the 200 mainframe respondents were of the opinion that mainframes were a part of the cloud plans.

What are the benefits of the alliance?

Possessing years of experience in its field, mainframe is equipped with the most sophisticated virtualization and management capabilities compared to the others in the industry. Capable virtualization ability is the foundation of cloud architecture and it plays a significant role in making mainframe conducive for cloud computing.

The perfect union of cloud and mainframe would result in:
• More agility
• Security
• Increased accessibility
• Reduced risk
• Better capability and productivity
• Less energy consumption
• Manages infrastructure elements dynamically
• Effortlessly combines with an organization\'s existing computing atmosphere.

Together, the cloud and mainframe coalition can tackle their individual fall outs of high operational costs, lack of resources and difficulty in management. Also, mainframe provides the best platform of computing environment that is favourable to facilitate cloud computing.

Despite the listed benefits, apprehensions continue to linger.

How can an organisation derive better results from cloud as it does from it's existing mainframe? Where does Linux and Windows figure with respect to the mainframe-cloud computing? How can a mainframe resource possessed by a company alter into cloud computing?

With the cloud-mainframe in its infancy it's functional pros and cons can be identified only when organisations become willing to adopt and experiment with the concept. Until then, we too eagerly await the answers of these questions.

As the saying goes, ‘time will tell', as will experimentation and the ever changing technology.

Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/information-technology-articles/extending-mainframes-into-the-world-of-cloud-the-business-angle-ii-5470759.html

About the Author

Maintec Technologies, an Remote Infrastructure Management company offering Remote infrastructure mangement services including data center management services, application services and Remote IT staffing.