Survey: Mainframe computing kicks on

Mainframe computing was "alive and well" in Australia with few owners formulating an exit strategy, according to the latest BMC Software mainframe report.

The survey, which included 71 mainframe owners in Australia (and 153 in Asia Pacific) found the mainframe remained a "consistent platform for businesses", according to BMC's mainframe service management director James Russell.

"Overwhelmingly, 94 percent of Australian respondents believe the mainframe is a viable platform, with none of the participant’s citing an exit strategy for the mainframe platform in the near future," he said in a statement.

Skills availability continued to be an area of concern by about one-third of respondents.

That figure had "more or less stayed the same over the past three years", according to BMC.

Russell said that some mainframe owners were looking to system management software and third-party companies to alleviate the issues, although he acknowledged neither would resolve the skills shortage in the long-term.

"We're still at the point where [skilled] people are available in the marketplace today and where there are enough people at the moment, but we need to be mindful there is a future [where highly-skilled people will be in short supply] and we need to be planning for that," he said.

"As an industry we need to be planning about how we bring new talent into the mainframe business, which is something we do as a matter of course.

"But I think it's one of the challenges businesses have to look at."