The mainframe has found another role, thanks to Japan's IT services giant NTT Data which has decided to build a hybrid cloud service based on the IBM

NTT Data, IBM, team on mainframe cloud for banks

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2024-09-19 16:00:08

The mainframe has found another role, thanks to Japan's IT services giant NTT Data which has decided to build a hybrid cloud service based on the IBM LinuxONE platform.

NTT Data envisions that it will be useful for workloads found in core banking applications, lending and risk management applications, and allow consolidation of compute resources and budgets.

"As enterprises consolidate their workloads, they will be able to reduce their datacenter footprint, driving higher sustainability," NTT Data asserted, trumpeting performance that will beat x86 servers – "especially" when it comes to enterprise software license costs and running AI/ML apps.

Analyst firm Gartner in April opined that "organizations that own a mainframe periodically question the future of the platform because it is perceived as outdated, difficult to manage and costly compared with alternatives such as client/server and public cloud computing."

The firm added that IBM's ongoing success selling mainframes owes plenty to the machines' features – but also fear about "the cost, complexity and risk of migrating off of it."