Category: Blog

4 Ways BPM Can Boost Healthcare Revenue

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Healthcare – it’s the digital era’s slipperiest slope. On the one hand, technology can greatly enhance the way we document and share patient data. On the other hand, since digital health records are vulnerable to security breaches, there are complex regulations about how providers record this data.
What does this dichotomy add up to? A cluster of complicated conundrums, that’s for sure. Unused data swells up behind bottlenecks, patients don’t have enough access to information, hackers have too much access to information and confusing legislation gets churned out constantly to try and smooth out the process. On top of all that, there are old school providers who not only have trouble digitally documenting encounters, they have trouble even understanding why they’re supposed to do it this way in the first place.
That’s why I think it’s important that healthcare organizations consider using BPM (business process management) solutions. The only way to sort out the mess is to streamline your workflow, so that the decision-makers in your organization can analyze the entire landscape of your healthcare documentation process. Here are some ways BPM can help:

  • Take advantage of data analytics
  • Respond to tech and policy developments in the industry
  • Plan for and meet important state and federal deadlines
  • Manage software applications used in routine encounters
  • Coordinate information exchange, which improves quality of care
  • Get different providers and team members on the same page

So that’s a nutshell version of how BPM software can improve efficiency, streamline workflow and promote collaboration in healthcare. But what does that mean for your company? How does that translate into more revenue?
4 Ways BPM Can Boost Healthcare Revenue

  • Reduce documentation and billing errors – Less errors means more payments and better reimbursements. With a streamlined workflow you don’t have to stress out about losing income because your providers struggle with their EMRs.
  • Earn incentive payments – Payment reform is a reality. The more valuable care you provide, the more opportunities you have to receive incentive payments from the private and public sector.
  • Boost patient satisfaction – When your patients are happy, they spread the word. If your patients are unhappy, they spread it even louder. Satisfied patients improve your reputation as a provider focused on quality care.
  • Claims Processing — BPM can help you smoothly handle claims, compliance and reporting activities. You can issue invoices and receive payments in a more timely manner.

If you think BPM could help your healthcare organization unwind a few knots, you have a lot of options. However, if you find you’re short on time or personnel, consider contacting TxMQ. Our capability partnership means that we offer an initial analysis to determine your needs and then develop and deploy the right BPM solution. We also have access to highly-trained technical professionals that you can contract to maintain your solution or even train your employees on how to use it efficiently.
 

API Management Enables Dynamic Systems of Engagement

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When I first heard the term API Management, my mind went back to the mid 1990’s when I was neck deep in object-oriented programming.   Ugh, I remembered combing through reams of documentation about application programming interfaces, object structures and the like. It wasn’t necessarily the fun part of developing applications. Back then, the context was connecting core application systems together, exchanging transactional and master data between applications such as CRM, ERP, and Supply Chain.

Nowadays many of the underlying technical details remain relevant, but the context has changed from API’s as a systems development concern to API management as a business model consideration and key topic in the board room. With innovation and speed to market as primary concerns among executive ranks, key enablers such as API Management solutions are getting due attention to help unlock the creative potential of next-gen application developers, both internally and externally, and to even develop new revenue streams.

From an external perspective, API management solutions can provide a welcoming experience for customers, business partners, and communities. Hackathons have exemplified the notion of turning loose a group of talented individuals to bring a fresh perspective on how core IT assets can be turned into something new and useful in ways that perhaps would have never been conceived internally. These new systems of engagement need to plug into core IT assets in a way that is securely controlled and measured, yet easy to access and understand in a self-service approach. Done well, API management provides the virtual welcome center for a self-guided tour.

From more of an internal approach, one of the trends that reinforces the need for API management is the growing tension between line-of-business and IT, which is typified by LOB-lead projects that attempt to minimize dependencies on the core IT organization. This has been described by industry analysts, such as Gartner, as the emergence of Bimodal IT where the business intends to drive more dynamic systems of engagement that give them some degree of freedom from the back-end systems of record that are heavy and slow to change. In this case, API management serves as the clean hand-off point that can help streamline the relationship between LOB-lead projects and core IT.

As with most any technology solution, realizing effective API management requires careful planning and perhaps some non-traditional IT skills. The rendering of IT services as API’s is not necessarily the hard part. Defining internal and external-facing processes to manage the lifecycle of API usage will be an important factor in the long term value proposition. What’s more, solid technical writing skills can be crucial to making or breaking the developers’ experience as they discover and embrace the IT assets that are made available. Nonetheless, a simplified pilot can be an effective entry point to get started on the journey.
TxMQ works with companies of all sizes and shapes to harness the potential of the digital economy. Get in touch today for information on how we can partner with you on your digital evolution.
(Image by opensource.com)
 
 

MQTT – Valuable Then and Now

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In 1999, Dr. Andy Stanford-Clark of IBM and Arlen Nipper invented a simple messaging protocol designed for low bandwidth, high-latency networks. They named it MQ Telemetry Transport, better known as MQTT. This pub/sub, lightweight protocol adds a heightened security element to messaging via highly unreliable networks. It requires minimal network bandwidth and device resources, while ensuring MQ’s noted reliability and assured delivery standards.
What makes MQTT still valuable today? This protocol has dramatic implications and growing use cases for the Internet of Things (IOT), where the world of connected ‘things’ connects an endless variety of devices, sometimes with minimal power availability. In other words, as all these devices “talk” via the Internet, the MQTT  transport protocol ensures that these conversations stay secure and private. In order to understand how MQTT can improve your company’s ability to navigate the digital economy, you’ll need to get more acquainted with the nuts and bolts of the protocol.
Standards: While in the process of undergoing standardization at OASIS, the protocol specification is openly published and is royalty free.
SCADA and MQIsdp: SCADA Protocol and MQ Integrator SCADA Device Protocol are both old names for what is now known as MQTT.
Security: You can pass a user name and password with a MQTT packet in V3.1 of the protocol. Encryption is independent of MQTT and typically handled with SSL, though this does add network overhead. Keep in mind there are other options outside of the base protocol.
Implications and use cases: One of the oft-cited use cases, likely due to the underlying popularity of the application, is the Facebook messaging application.
When Facebook engineer Lucy Zhang was looking for a new messaging mechanism for their app, she knew she had to address bandwidth constraints, power consumption and platform variety (iOS, Android, Windows, etc). She turned to MQTT. While a truly innovative use for the protocol, this type of messaging isn’t the most typical use case.
M2M: MQTT’s true power lies in machine-to-machine communication. It’s specification to cover device communications enables any device to communicate information to any other system or device. Smart meters are an excellent example of an MQTT use case. This lightweight messaging protocol excels in communication among multiple sensors, often in remote locations, with limited power and inconsistent network connectivity.
In the case of smart grids, utilities companies can use MQTT to better predict where crews need to be in advance of weather events. In addition, transportation authorities can monitor road conditions to modify routes in advance of storms or accidents and detour commuters around construction sites.
Conclusions: MQTT has only recently come into its own as a mature, supported, reliable transport protocol to enable communication in a truly connected world – a world where meters can feed their data into analytics systems, combining with other data like weather information or social media trends, to perform predictive analytics.
TxMQ is working with a number of companies on next generation use cases for MQTT that better drives the digital economy, improves outcomes in healthcare, enhances lives and improves our planet for all of us.
Get in touch today for information on how we can partner with you on your digital evolution.
Chuck Fried is the President and CEO of TxMQ, a Premier IBM Business Partner supporting customers in the US and Canada since 1979.   [email protected]

The Value (Or Lack Thereof?) Of User Groups

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For the past 25 years I’ve played an active role in a variety of information-technology user groups. Back in the 1980s, we called these special interest groups (SIGs). I started off with several Delphi groups and then, as my interests evolved, moved on to Paradox. After that I participated in enterprise groups centered on IBM products and open-source technologies.
Then something happened – The Internet.
When I first went online in the late 1980s with Compuserve, it wasn’t easy. I predate AOL, and though I never did find much use for it, I don’t judge those that did (or still do). I ran a few SIGs on Compuserve, or CIS, as we called it (Compuserve Information Service).
Then, as more and more people and companies moved online, a trend started to develop – fewer and fewer users attended SIGs in person. I moderate groups in the US and Canada covering mostly, but not exclusively, IBM products. I also assist IBM in building up its user-group participation. In addition, I attend SalesForce user-group meetings, since I’m both a user and my firm also does some SFC consulting and integration work.
Across the board, there has been a marked decline in user-group attendance for cities both big and small. I notice the difference when I attend and run groups in larger metrocenters like New York City, Toronto and Chicago, along with smaller cities like Buffalo, Cleveland and Pittsburgh. This summer, I hope to attend some in Europe and be able to glean some insight there.
The attendance decline brings about many challenges. I’m involved with one group that struggles each year to spend (that’s right – spend) the money accumulated through corporate membership fees. Another nagging concern is getting users to present at these meetings. The issue isn’t with the speakers, but rather with their employers’ legal teams. Many times legal restrains employees from presenting, which is a real problem when it comes down to the value of these sessions. There’s no shortage of vendors and manufacturers (of hardware and systems) who like to speak at user groups. That means these meetings can end up turning into sales pitches and commercials for software and systems. That defeats the whole point.
There’s no measure to the value of engaging with peers who face the same daily industry and workplace issues. Not only have I made priceless professional connections, but I’ve also formed lifelong friendships because of these groups. I’m never at a loss for a peer to bounce ideas off, ask  a quick question to or explore an innovative deployment tactic. The purpose of user groups is to share experiences, successes and pains. We can speak candidly on challenges we’ve faced and how we’ve resolved them. And yes, occasionally vendors step in to discuss coming releases, new features and use cases for their implementation.
Of course, user groups aren’t limited to just IT. As a weekend-warrior fitness junkie, I’m also involved in several running and triathlon clubs. As a result, I’m never at a loss for friends to join me on a long run in the evening or a lunchtime run during a sunny workday. Every group I participate in makes me better, stronger and more effective at whatever I’m focused on, be it professional or personal.
We are a tactile species. In our digital world, we forget the power of meeting people face-to-face. True, we can accomplish great feats behind our screens and phones, but forming trusting, long-term friendships usually isn’t one of them.

Hacking into Healthcare: Why hackers want health data and how healthcare SMBs can protect their patients

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As I was reading about Cedar Sinai’s recent implementation of Bottomline’s Healthcare Data and Security Solution, I couldn’t help but to wonder – why is patient data at risk in the first place?
Clearly, we can all understand why big box shops like Target and Home Depot were hacked; credit card numbers are better than cash. Siphoning electronic funds is the digital age’s form of Bonnie and Clyde-style bank robbing. So, realistically, what could a hacker possibly stand to gain from breaching healthcare data security and gaining access to my records?
After consulting with a few colleagues in the healthcare industry, I realized there is one extraordinarily valuable piece of information that all U.S. residents have – a social security number. With that 9-digit treasure chest, individuals with more nefarious tendencies can open a line of credit under your SSN, file for a fraudulent tax refund and open financial accounts. But, that’s not all.
Medical identity threat was up 40 percent in 2013. Stolen health credentials go for about $10 each, double and sometimes triple the black market value for credit card numbers. This information can be used in hundreds of ways, but what they’re really after is your identity.
In some cases, only a few that I found, are hackers ever really interested in your maladies. Social security checks, yes, credit lines, yes… your latest blood pressure reading? Not so much. But it does happen. Mostly, though, they’re breaching healthcare data security so they can pretend to be you, convincing a bank they are you, which is much more valuable than health history.
So that’s why protecting patient data is extremely important to healthcare organizations. It isn’t just about not having the world know about your heart condition, although that certainly is one reason. It’s about what people are capable of doing once they get ahold of all the information that they need to take control of your financial credibility. Cedar Sinai’s decision to implement Bottomline puts them one step farther away from a reputation-damaging data breach.
That being said, what can smaller companies do for healthcare data security? Bottomline has a price tag that could bankrupt small specialty providers. What are the security options out there for the healthcare SMBs?
While there are many options out there, IBM has a whole arsenal of data, application and integration security options – many of which are scalable for both size and budget. Fortune 500s all the way to private locally-owned practices can benefit from a number of these solutions. These security products are packaged to meet individual organizations’ needs, ranging from identify protection to fraud prevention, from encryption to vulnerability assessment. How do you know what’s right for you? As an IBM Business Partner, TxMQ assists companies with the selection, deployment and maintenance of enterprise security options. As experts in securely integrating solutions in the cloud, we can not only help make your patient records more secure, but we can help you digitize them, as well. We’ll stay with you for as short or as long as you need us.
Photo from BrainFoodTV.com

Why Should I Use An IBM Business Partner?

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Wouldn’t it make more sense to deal directly with IBM?

This is a topic of much discussion around the TxMQ office these days, as it is at other solutions providers. Prospective customers often ask us: If my company’s able to go direct with my manufacturer/vendor (be it IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, or whomever), why shouldn’t we?
It’s a fair question. Companies, especially large ones, oftentimes have multilayered supply-chain relationships for acquiring software, hardware, and talent.
On the one hand, long-standing, embedded relationships often dictate the way a company acquires technical solutions. A friendship nurtured through years of trusted business dealings – sometimes called a “trusted advisor” relationship – may be the perfectly legitimate and ideal way of solving technical challenges. Yet sometimes things change. What happens when your salesperson – the same salesperson who’s covered your company for years – resigns?
Back to the broader topic of direct or business partner: As software and hardware companies like IBM and the other majors evolve over time, their business models push more sales through channel partners. Business partners are inevitably smaller companies, and are typically far better equipped to build and maintain longstanding, deep customer relationships. Sales teams at the major vendors change, oftentimes annually, leading to spotty coverage of accounts, and occasionally even leaving some companies with no direct coverage at all.
Business partners typically offer more consistency and stability of coverage. In addition, as IBM and the majors continue to add layers of complexity to their brands, and shift products in their portfolios, it’s very difficult for companies (and even their field salespeople), to keep products straight.
Surprisingly, this is a knowledge area in which partners tend to excel. Most of the leadership at business partners were themselves former employees of the majors. They left the majors to explore greater freedom to engage with customers, and to build deeper, better relationships over longer periods of time without the bureaucracy that comes with working in a large shop, or the threat of annual account “realignment.”
Also, as solutions offered to customers become more complex and cross over traditional brand borders, business partners are better able to navigate these tricky waters.
Recently IBM, along with other majors, went through internal realignments that left salespeople covering products new to them, and others were shifted to entirely new lines of business. Not so with business partners, who are free to engage as they always have.
What about software and hardware sales? Logic says it must be cheaper to buy direct. No indeed. IBM, as one example, has dramatically shifted internal teams, and reduced field and inside sales coverage to better align their resources with today’s market. What does this mean? It means it’s usually cheaper to order software and hardware from a partner. IBM knows it’s very expensive to have a large, geographically dispersed sales team, and far more cost-effective to let IBM business partners sell more and more software, services and hardware for them.
Partners therefore have full access to special bid requests, discounting, plus any and all sales tools a direct seller has in the arsenal. In addition, it goes without saying that a business partner’s services rates are nearly always below IBM direct rates.
Conclusion
In the end, each company must decide what’s best for itself, but don’t presume that the way you engaged with IBM and others in the past is the best way to engage in the future. A business partner can be your best ally to stay current with technology, and enable the nimble, robust infrastructure your company needs to compete and win in today’s marketplace.
Let’s take this conversation a bit further – email me at [email protected].
(Image by Flazingo Photos)
 
 

How Do You Support Your Software?

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Software/OS services & support not your core competencies? We support more than just WebSphere.

In today’s reality of constantly evolving technology, managing software support is critically important. There are never-ending changes to core products, changes to deployment options (on-premises, cloud, hybrid), and a new generation of changes is most certainly lurking around the corner. Especially in IBM’s Systems Middleware world.

The effort to support this endless hodgepodge has grown increasingly complicated. In point of fact, most companies run multiple versions of software on different operating systems, which makes support options even more confusing. That’s why more and more companies are facing hard decisions about whether to continue their vendor-support agreements for software and OS, and why more and more companies are running unsupported software and OS, even if it’s occasionally side-by-side with a newer, supported version of the same.

That’s why more and more companies are partnering with TxMQ for support of their IBM environments, WebSphere systems and far more.

TxMQ is uniquely able to design and deploy support solutions across almost any software/OS environment. And we’ll design a solution that fits right – whether it’s short-term support until the patch/upgrade is finished, or long-term permanent outsource options and partnerships. All options are available 24/7/365.
In addition, we’re one of the few firms that supports legacy mainframe, systems I and P (aix), alongside Linux (all major flavors), Solaris, Windows and other variants. So yes, we’re a lot more than just pure IBM.
A few other notes about our capabilities…

Additional Offerings
TxMQ support customers can also take advantage of reduced rates for TxMQ services, discounted purchasing of IBM software and hardware, and related services like software asset management (ILMT, SUA, SCCD), patch management and other managed services.

Implementation Support
TxMQ’s deeply technical talent can also help with planning for upgrades, replatforming, license optimization and integration services. In select cases, we can also work with in-house development teams to offer support for custom home-built applications.

Custom Solutions
TxMQ engineers and developers can work for you, or with your teams, for custom-application development needs. As with the above services, customers under support agreements with TxMQ are entitled to these services at a discount.
Let’s start a conversation on the advantages of getting back to basics and focusing on your core competencies, then letting TxMQ worry about your support.
Email [email protected] or [email protected] for more information, or call 716-636-0070 x222.

How (NOT) To Buy Enterprise Software

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Whether you’re in IT, or in a line of business (LOB), at some point in your career you’ll likely be given a budget with authority to acquire enterprise software or an integrated solution for your company.
You and your team will do an analysis, possibly have a “bakeoff” of some sort to eliminate a vendor or two, and ultimately make a selection of what you believe to be the right enterprise solution.
Maybe it’s a cloud-based black-box type of solution like Workday or Salesforce. Maybe it’s a platform product, like WebSphere Application Server or SharePoint, used to support other solutions. Maybe it’s none of the above. Regardless, the proposal will inevitably include a component to stand up and install supporting services, plus after-support.
Do yourself a favor: Spend the time during your internal evaluation to ask your team and your leadership if you truly have budget to extend beyond the basic enterprise software acquisition cost.
Here at TxMQ, we’ve noticed a trend the past few years, and it’s a challenging one. We see more and more companies slash budgets for services other than the bare license cost of the software. That usually means the company’s left with acquired software products they’re not necessarily able to stand up themselves, let alone support and integrate.
In many cases this isn’t so problematic. After all, some solutions are certainly straightforward enough. Yet even cloud-based tools like Salesforce are, in fact, extremely complex systems that require extensive pre-planning, integration and ongoing support. This role can be tough to manage internally, and is oftentimes better suited to a solutions provider like TxMQ.
TxMQ has helped countless companies fix bad or poorly planned installations of enterprise software – installations that went south because budget was restricted solely to the license. We’ve seen outages, lost revenue and actual firings due to poor planning – again, only because budget was cut to the bare minimum and only covered the software-license cost. And the corrective engagements are costly – for the demands on internal staff and dollars spent on consultants. In nearly all cases, these costs could have been avoided with upfront planning for the installation and deployment of the solution.
By planning, I mean understanding internal needs, skills, integration points, storage needs, security, networking and more.
It was Abraham Lincoln who was famously quoted as stating: “If I had 6 hours to cut down a tree, I’d spend the first 4 sharpening the axe.” If you’re being asked to acquire and install a solution – whether it’s enterprise software, hardware or hybrid – don’t just grab the axe and start swinging. You’ll hurt yourself, likely break the axe and end up with a very damaged tree.
Save a tree. Email TxMQ today.

MQTT Repositories Review – Mosquitto, MessageSight & More

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In my previous blog (Rigorous Enough! MQTT For The Internet Of Things Backbone), I presented the MQ Telemetry Transport (MQTT) protocol, which helps provide the required communication for smart devices. But without a broker repository or destination to support the protocol, MQTT can’t complete its mission.

In this article, I’ll first review one of the open-standard MQTT repositories called Mosquitto, and then cover IBM MessageSight. In future blogs I’ll present additional information on both the security component and additional broker functionality.

Mosquitto is an open-source (BSD-licensed) message broker that implements the MQTT protocol versions 3.1 and 3.1.1. It provides a lightweight server implementation of the MQTT and MQTT-SN protocols, written in C, so it can run on machines that can’t run a JVM.

Mosquitto regularly has an executable in the order of 120kB that consumes around 3MB RAM with 1,000 clients connected. There have been reports of successful tests with 100,000 connected clients at modest message rates.

In addition to accepting connections from MQTT clients, Mosquitto can bridge to other connected MQTT servers, including other Mosquitto instances. It’s thus possible to architect MQTT server networks, and pass MQTT messages from any network location to any other.

A second repository for MQTT is IBM MessageSight, which is built for high performance to offer persistent, transactional messaging. The hardware is 2U form factor. IBM MessageSight includes built-in security to enable integration with external Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) security systems. MessageSight also offers Transport Layer Security (TLS), Secure Sockets Layer (SSL), FIPS 140-2, NSA Suite B ciphers and Level 1 secure Crypotgraphic Store securities.

Fine-grained messaging-authorization policies restrict access based on combinations of: user or group, client identifier, protocol, network interface, listening address and/or port, client IP address or range and destination topic and queue name.

The MessageSight repository supports connectivity to WebSphere Message Broker via JMS and/or MQTT nodes. It also integrates with Java environments and with rich HTML5-based web applications. Additionally, MessageSight allows development of interactive mobile-messaging applications with IBM Worklight Studio Developer, which delivers:

  • Friendly APIs and libraries
  • MQTT clients and libraries for a variety of platforms (C- and Java-based APIs)
  • Libraries for Google Android and Apple iOS
  • JMS client
  • JavaScript API for HTML5-based applications
  • PhoneGap MQTT plugins with JavaScript API for use with IBM Worklight
  • Apache Cordova
  • Adobe PhoneGap

MessageSight also offers simple and scalable management through policies. A single user ID is defined on the queue manager for IBM MessageSight, which enables a business to sense and respond to data coming from the edge of the enterprise. IBM MessageSight offers high availability with either an active or passive standby.

There are several public repositories that include Hive MQ, which provides a repository that anyone can engage with. In addition, there is cloudMQTT, which is a repository hosted in the cloud. There are other implementations of the broker space, namely gnatMQ, which is an implementation of MQTT but specifically for.Net, and ActiveMQ, which is a product of the Apache group.

I'm A Mainframe Bigot

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I make no apologies for my bigotry when I recommend mainframes for the new economy. Dollar for dollar, a properly managed mainframe environment will nearly always be more cost effective for our customers to run. This doesn’t mean there aren’t exceptions, but we aren’t talking about the outliers – we’re looking at the masses of data that support this conclusion.
To level-set this discussion: If you’re not familiar with mainframes, move along.
We aren’t talking about the Matrix “Neo, we have to get to the mainframe” fantasy world here. We’re talking about “Big Iron” – the engine that drives today’s modern economy. It’s the system where most data of record lives, and has lived for years. And this is a philosophical discussion, more than a technical one.
I’d never say there aren’t acceptable use cases for other platforms. Far from it. If you’re running a virtual-desktop solution, you don’t want that back end on the mainframe. If you’re planning to do a ton of analytics, your master data of record should be on the host, and likely there’s a well-thought-out intermediate layer involved for data manipulation, mapping and more. But if you’re doing a whole host (pun intended) of mainstream enterprise computing, IBM’s z systems absolutely rule the day.
I remember when my bank sold off its branch network and operations to another regional bank. It wasn’t too many years ago. As a part of this rather complicated transaction, bank customers received a series of letters informing them of the switch. I did some digging and found out the acquiring bank didn’t have a mainframe.
I called our accountant, and we immediately began a “bake off” among various banks to decide where to move our banking. Among the criteria? Well-integrated systems, clean IT environment, stability (tenure) among bank leadership, favorable business rules and practices, solid online tools, and of course, a mainframe.
So what’s my deal? Why the bigotry? Sure, there are issues with the mainframe.
But I, and by extension TxMQ, have been doing this a long time. Our consultants have collectively seen thousands of customer environments. Give us 100 customers running mainframes, 100 customers who aren’t, and I guarantee there are far more people, and far greater costs required to support similar-size adjusted solutions in non-mainframe shops.
Part of the reason is architecture. Part is longevity. Part is backward-compatibility. Part is security. I don’t want to get too deep into the weeds here, but in terms of hacking, unless you’re talking about a systems programmer with a bad cough, the “hacking” term generally hasn’t applied to a mainframe environment.
Cloud Shmoud
Did you know that virtualization was first done on the mainframe? Decades ago in fact. Multi-tenancy? Been there, done that.
RAS
Reliability, Availability and Serviceability define the mainframe. When downtime isn’t an option, there’s no other choice.
Security
Enough said. Mainframes are just plain more secure than other computer types. The NIST vulnerabilities database, US-CERT, rates mainframes as among the most secure platforms when compared with Windows, Unix and Linux, with vulnerabilities in the low single digits.
Conclusion
I had a customer discussion that prompted me to write this short piece. Like any article on a technology that’s been around for over half a century, I could go on for pages and chapters. That’s not the point. Companies at times develop attitudes that become so ingrained, no one challenges them, or asks if there’s any proof. For years, the mainframe took a bad rap. Mostly due to very effective marketing by competitors, but also because those responsible for supporting the host began to age out of the workforce. Kids who came out of school in the ’90s and ’00s weren’t exposed to mainframe-based systems or technologies, so interest waned.
Recently, the need for total computing horsepower has skyrocketed, and we’ve seen a much-appreciated resurgence in the popularity of IBM’s z systems. Mainframes are cool again. Kids are learning about them in university, and hopefully, our back-end data will remain secure as companies realize the true value of Big Iron all over again.