Mainframers around the world are helping customers implement, optimize and secure their environments as the global market continues to evolve. What does the modern mainframer look like across different regions? Here, six specialists share their perspectives on the challenges and opportunities shaping the industry.
Working on projects worldwide, Bulgaria-based Technical Consultant Vanyo Nikolov says the teams he supports are focused on improving stability, reducing operational risk, and making environments easier to support. “An important part of my job is adapting the right technical solutions to meet the needs of different operating models, team structures, and levels of process maturity in different places,” he says.
A Sea of Risks
Risk is a recurring theme. For Tamás Kiss, technical consultant, z/OS System Programmer and keen astronomer, based in Hungary, the stakes are high and adaptability is essential. “Cyberattacks are clearly one of the biggest risks, as attack sophistication continues to grow," he says. "A colleague describes the mainframe as being under siege. But of course, there are also many opportunities to improve security, resilience and trust. As part of modernization, organizations need to focus on protecting the platform as proactively as possible.”
“For years, we mainly talked about perimeter defences, keeping the bad guys out,” says Mark Wilson, technical director and security specialist with a global remit. “Today, we have to assume compromise is possible," he explains. "The conversation then becomes detecting attacks early, containing damage quickly, recovering precisely, and restoring trusted operations fast. And I think that requires a different mindset: an end-to-end, multivendor, GUI-based approach that includes real-time threat interception and automated recovery.”
Now based in the U.K., Technical Consultant Sruthi Srinivasa Baba has worked in India and Hungary. “Mainframe teams face a range of operational and security challenges,” she says. “For example, legacy systems can become increasingly difficult to patch, monitor and secure. So, mainframe modernization is a big trend, with costs and regulatory pressures, such as the NIS2 directive, pushing organizations away from older systems.”
Sruthi also notes that cloud migration introduces its own considerations. “The shift toward cloud platforms, often driven by cost and compliance deadlines, can bring their own new security and compliance risks if not handled correctly. In effect, both retaining ageing systems and migrating too quickly can carry significant risk," she explains.
Skills, Specialization and Knowledge Transfer
“In my region, one of the biggest challenges is a continuing skills gap and the concentration of knowledge in too few experienced specialists,” Nikolov says. “But the opportunity is also significant: strong engineers can make a real impact in automation, resilience, modernization, and operational improvement. It helps if you’ve gained broad experience across different delivery models and environments.”
He believes a major difference between regions is not talent, but the quality of mentoring, documentation and knowledge transfer. “Companies need to continue investing in mentoring, structured professional development, and knowledge transfer. Mainframe skills are built not only through product knowledge but also through judgment, production awareness, and learning how to automate safely,” he says. Providing the specialist expertise needed to meet rising market demand remains critical as organizations continue investing in the platform.
Rising Demand
“India is still showing strong demand for mainframes, in the banking sector, in particular, as they remain critical for handling high volumes of transactions and ensuring secure systems,” Baba says. She adds that rapid fintech growth and a reported rise in government-targeted cyberattacks are further increasing demand for secure mainframe modernization initiatives.
“Both Hungary and India are also focused on connecting traditional COBOL systems with modern cloud APIs, enabling application modernization without entirely retiring legacy systems that are still highly reliable,” Baba adds.
Working Collaboratively
Given the complexity of the mainframe landscape, regional differences, and varying operational requirements, it is impossible for a single in-house team, external services provider, or technology stack to address all requirements.
Vertali’s Channel Partner Development Manager Andrew Penlington says the key is combining local knowledge and insights with the widest mainframe experience possible, recognizing and responding to local differences and needs in the right ways. “It’s a two-way street," he explains. "You need to work with local and national organizations that properly understand the regulatory, cultural, and operational context, which may have many local nuances. Specialist IBM Z and mainframe security services can then be aligned and delivered in line with them.”
Again, with knowledge sharing critical and a key growth lever for the platform globally, Penlington believes industry collaboration is accelerating mainframe growth and modernization on a global footing.
“Working together across borders means you can join-the-dots and help teams to reframe, rethink, and de-risk the platform," he says. "To see it not as legacy infrastructure to be ‘dealt with’ but as a secure, modern, strategically valuable environment to drive long-term innovation and growth.”
Looking Ahead: The Next 5 Years
The mainframe is increasingly part of wider discussions around modernization, observability, AI, security, and hybrid integration. “Most enterprises now run hybrid architectures, where mainframes remain the trusted system of record,” says Baba. “The future is not mainframe versus cloud; it’s mainframe and cloud working together.”
AI will clearly be a big aspect of how mainframes operate. “AI will help people make decisions in real time, simplify working with older systems, and automate operations,” says Technical Consultant and IBM Champion Elitsa Popova. “We’re likely to see more self-managing systems through AIOps, with AI handling routine tasks while people focus on higher-level decisions. Overall, AI will help improve speed, reduce complexity, and make systems easier to manage,” she explains.
Baba adds, “Newer systems like the z17 include built-in AI accelerators which enable in-transaction processing, allowing AI to analyse transactions for fraud in real time in a few milliseconds without having to move data outside the platform.”
“Another important shift is moving away from the traditional ‘narrow screens’ of ISPF, with developers using modern interfaces, IDEs, and open technologies to interact with the mainframe more efficiently,” says Kiss. Over the next five years, the mainframe will “move further away from traditional tooling toward modern developer experiences, DevOps practices, and open technologies, making it far easier to attract new skill sets. At the same time, its core strengths in resiliency, availability, and security will ensure the platform remains central to critical workloads all over the world.”