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A mainframe skills crisis and the need to innovate is forcing organisations to move from the mainframe to cloud deployment models.

Businesses are moving from the mainframe to cloud deployment models.

There are still the high end users of the mainframe, such as HSBC, Bank of America, Morgan Stanley, the large global banks or insurance companies that still use the platform. But these users of the mainframe only account for a couple of hundred companies. What about the rest?

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A sudden wave of retirements has left the mainframe industry suffering from a skills shortage, according to figures compiled by LzLabs

Mainframe migration specialist LZLabs has carried out a global survey to get a clear picture of what is happening at a customer level and discovered that just shy of half of those responding saw the loss of skills to support applications as the main concern.

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Moving to the cloud seems to be the best option, new report claims.

Businesses that rely on critical mainframe IT systems are faced with a “skills crisis”, a new report by LzLabs and Vanson Bourne suggests. The report claims that all organisations (99 per cent) consider their mainframe applications critical to business operations, yet more than nine in ten (93 per cent) worry about the impending skills crisis.

This skills crisis is most present in two ways: supporting mainframe applications (49 per cent) and operating the platform itself (48 per cent). For most businesses, not having properly skilled workers to handle their mainframe could potentially put them out of business.

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Almost two thirds of respondents globally say the loss of critical mainframe skills represents a big risk to their entire business.

LzLabs has published the results of its latest global survey, conducted by Vanson Bourne, which has revealed the extent of the skills crisis affecting businesses reliant on critical mainframe IT systems. Almost all respondents to the survey (99%) consider their organization’s mainframe applications as important or critical to business operations, yet a staggering proportion (93%) also expressed serious concerns about the mainframe environment itself.

The overriding source of concern regarded the impending skills crisis, as respondents are seeing the specialist mainframe skills required to keep these systems running rapidly disappearing from their organization. Of the top mainframe concerns reported by respondents two of the of the pressing issues were the loss of necessary skills to support mainframe applications (49%) and operate the platform itself (48%).

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Most businesses that are heavily reliant on mainframes fear a shrinking skills pool

Almost all IT decision makers believe mainframes are important to their business, but most of them are concerned about the computing environment.

The diminishing number of professionals with the required skills to support mainframe applications and operate them are seen as major problems for about half of IT decision makers.

The survey of 650 professionals at organisations with over 100 people, carried out by Vanson Bourne for software company LzLabs, found that two-thirds of businesses believe the loss of mainframe skills is a big risk to their entire business.

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