Check Point® Software Technologies Ltd.(link is external) announced the launch of its next generation Quantum(link is external) Smart-1 Management Appliances, delivering 2X increase in managed gateways and up to 70% higher log rate, with AI-powered security tools designed to meet the demands of hybrid enterprises.
Until recently, many IT leaders still believed they could allow their mainframe environments to languish in two-code-drops-a-year waterfall mode, while they embraced DevOps and Agile across their distributed and cloud environments.
This so-called "Bimodal lT" strategy has proven to be dangerously flawed. The fact is, if your business has a mainframe, that's probably where your most important applications and data live. As such, there's no way your business can remain competitive unless you can quickly adapt your use of those applications and data to keep pace with your rapidly and relentlessly evolving market demands.
That's especially true given the fact that your customer-facing mobile and web systems of engagement almost universally leverage your back-end mainframe systems of record.
So how do you actually get your mainframe environment up to speed? Given the fact that your existing mainframe dev/test processes and tools are pretty entrenched, how can you integrate the platform into a truly nimble and unified cross-platform enterprise DevOps environment?
Different organizations will take different approaches to this challenge. But here are three principles to bear in mind as you go about the difficult but ultimately extremely rewarding work of bringing your mainframe into the DevOps fold:
1. Transform the developer workspace
Most mainframe dev, test and ops work is still performed in "green screen" TSO/ISPF environments that require specialized knowledge, constrain productivity, and are extremely off-putting to the kind of skilled, ambitious programmers who are the lifeblood of Agile and DevOps transformation. It is therefore essential to migrate to more modern, graphical tools within a preferred DevOps toolchain that empower staff at all experience levels to perform mainframe tasks in much the same manner as they do other non-mainframe work.
Also, mainframe applications are typically large, complex and poorly documented. These attributes are a major impediment to mainframe transformation — and they tend to make enterprise IT highly dependent on the personal/tribal knowledge of senior mainframe staff.
To overcome the skills-and-knowledge gap, it's not enough to just make mainframe workspaces more graphical. You also need tools that enable new participants in mainframe DevOps to quickly and easily "read" existing application logic, program interdependencies, and data structures.
Recent innovations in mainframe workspace technology can also give developers on-the-fly feedback on any new bugs and quality issues they inject into their code. By investing in these tools, IT can empower even mainframe-inexperienced developers to quickly produce quality work that fits within the daily requirements of an Agile process. In addition, the latest mainframe development dashboard solutions enable managers to track defects, program complexity and technical debt so they can better pinpoint issues requiring additional coaching or training.
2. Remodel mainframe processes
Once you've built a better working environment for the mainframe, you can start to aggressively shift your process from a traditional waterfall model with large sets of requirements and long project timelines to a more incremental model that allows teams to quickly collaborate on so-called user "stories" and "epics." By estimating the size of these stories and assigning them their appropriate priority, your teams can start engaging in scrums that allow them to quickly iterate towards their goals.
The move from large-scale waterfall projects to Agile scrumming represents a significant change in work culture for most mainframe teams. Training in Agile process and work culture is therefore a must. You may also want to build your initial Agile mainframe team by choosing select mainframe developers and pairing them with Agile-experienced developers from other platforms to work collaboratively on user stories and epics.
You'll obviously also need the right enabling technologies for this shift. Key requirements include Agile project management software that supports Agile methodology — as well as Agile-enabled Source Code Management (SCM). The latter is especially pivotal since traditional mainframe SCM environments are inherently designed for waterfall development, and are thus incapable of providing essential Agile capabilities — such as parallel development work on user stories.
When engaged in this re-tooling, it is generally wiser to leverage best-in-class tools rather than fall into a monolithic approach that requires all SDLC activities to be performed within a single vendor's solution set. That's because best-in-class tools allow you to avoid vendor lock-in while taking advantage of the latest innovations in Agile management.
3. Integrate mainframe workflows into the cross-platform enterprise DevOps toolchain
The target state of mainframe transformation is ultimately a de-siloed enterprise DevOps environment where the mainframe is "just another platform" — albeit an especially scalable, reliable, high-performing, cost-efficient and secure one — that can be quickly and appropriately modified as needed to meet the needs of the business by whoever is available to do so.
This requires integration between mainframe and distributed tools (typically via REST APIs) so that DevOps teams have a single point-of-control for all changes across z/OS, Windows, Unix and other platforms. An effective cross-platform toolchain will also provide cross-platform impact analysis — so your developers can see how the code they're working on in one tier of an application (e.g. a mobile app server) may potentially affect another application tier (e.g. a DB2 database).
The de-siloing of your mainframe can also lead to unified IT service management (ITSM) for both mainframe and non-mainframe applications. This unified ITSM model is for companies with large numbers of multi-tier applications that are critical to their financial performance.
Of course, it takes budget, hard work and strong leadership to turn these principles into in-the-trenches realities. It is important for mainframe users to align themselves with others that don't just pay lip service to bringing the mainframe into the DevOps fold, and are committed to actually doing what it takes to get it done, and have experience doing it within their own organizations. Getting the mainframe up to DevOps speed is possible — and is being done by enterprises that recognize the need to complement their existing advantages of scale with new advantages of speed. And the alternative of "bimodal," "two-speed," or "multi-speed" IT is simply untenable.
Every company with a mainframe therefore needs to get with the mainframe DevOps program. Now.
Industry News
Salesforce and Informatica have entered into an agreement for Salesforce to acquire Informatica.
Red Hat and Google Cloud announced an expanded collaboration to advance AI for enterprise applications by uniting Red Hat’s open source technologies with Google Cloud’s purpose-built infrastructure and Google’s family of open models, Gemma.
Mirantis announced Mirantis k0rdent Enterprise and Mirantis k0rdent Virtualization, unifying infrastructure for AI, containerized, and VM-based workloads through a Kubernetes-native model, streamlining operations for high-performance AI pipelines, modern microservices, and legacy applications alike.
Snyk launched the Snyk AI Trust Platform, an AI-native agentic platform specifically built to secure and govern software development in the AI Era.
Bit Cloud announced the general availability of Hope AI, its new AI-powered development agent that enables professional developers and organizations to build, share, deploy, and maintain complex applications using natural language prompts, specifications and design files.
AI-fueled attacks and hyperconnected IT environments have made threat exposure one of the most urgent cybersecurity challenges facing enterprises today. In response, Check Point® Software Technologies Ltd.(link is external) announced a definitive agreement to acquire Veriti Cybersecurity, the first fully automated, multi-vendor pre-emptive threat exposure and mitigation platform.
LambdaTest announced the launch of its Automation MCP Server, a solution designed to simplify and accelerate the process of triaging test failures.
DefectDojo announced the launch of their next-gen Security Operations Center (SOC) capabilities for DefectDojo Pro, which provides both SOC and AppSec professionals a unified platform for noise reduction and prioritization of SOC alerts and AppSec findings.
Check Point® Software Technologies Ltd.(link is external) has been recognized on Newsweek’s 2025 list of America’s Best Cybersecurity Companies(link is external).
Red Hat announced enhanced features to manage Red Hat Enterprise Linux.
StackHawk has taken on $12 Million in additional funding from Sapphire and Costanoa Ventures to help security teams keep up with the pace of AI-driven development.
Red Hat announced jointly-engineered, integrated and supported images for Red Hat Enterprise Linux across Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Cloud and Microsoft Azure.
Komodor announced the integration of the Komodor platform with Internal Developer Portals (IDPs), starting with built-in support for Backstage and Port.
Operant AI announced Woodpecker, an open-source, automated red teaming engine, that will make advanced security testing accessible to organizations of all sizes.