While it's more common these days to hear of companies migrating away from the mainframe, at least one company recently returned to mainframe -- thanks to the introduction of the z13.

Software company Radixx International decided to migrate to the z13 in February after years of operating hundreds of physical machines, according to Baseline Magazine.

But the critical need for high availability -- 70 million requests a day -- and high reliability for their customers in the travel industry led CEO Ron Peri to seek an alternative. The incredibly complex environment demanded excessive resources and near constant upgrades. Then z13 entered the picture.

In z13, Peri saw an opportunity to streamline his company's IT and unify the previously distributed environment on a single platform. It's scalable to Radixx's needs, including its ability to process massive quantities of mobile transactions, such as ticket sales or reservations.

"It was an opportunity to greatly simplify and streamline IT," Peri told Baseline. "Instead of having to make sure that a wide array of components would work together seamlessly, it offered a closed system with a much higher level of security."

And all of this will come with a lower price tag: Peri anticipates that the total cost of ownership will be 40 percent lower than the "server farm" the company ran before. What's more, the z13 equips Radixx's IT to remain for years to come.

"We now have the ability to expand and grow without undergoing technology upgrades and changes," Peri told the magazine. "The technology positions us extremely well for the future."

Do you think Radixx's migration to z13 is a sign of things to come? Will IT shops that previously transitioned off the mainframe return?

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