Analysts predict virtualised mainframe 2.0 environment

According to recent IDC research, 26.7 percent of Australian organisations do not fully understand the benefits of virtualisation.

Research conducted by the IBRS concurs with this, citing resistance to change and a fear of the unknown as two of the main barriers facing virtualisation.

IBRS has a vision for the future it has dubbed “mainframe 2.0”. Instead of buying proprietary servers, mainframe 2.0 comprises racks of multiple x64 servers and iSCSI storage arrays, unified and managed through virtualisation.

The analyst firm claims that there are many benefits to a virtualised mainframe 2.0 environment.

The first of these is that utilisation rates can be much higher than they currently are, reaching up to 90 percent as opposed to the 10 percent that is the norm. This will have the desirable consequence of driving down hardware costs and also lowering software costs when software is licensed on a per CPU basis.

In a virtualised environment it will also be far easier to provision new workloads that can support unexpected or new business needs.

During peak workloads resources will be able to be easily moved around to provide capacity where it is needed the most. The end result will mean that the maintenance and disaster recovery becomes far easier to undertake.