The mainframe computer is here to stay, according to analysts working closely with IBM. That’s despite a preponderance of cloud initiatives seen recently by the consultancy firm — the primary reason for the discovered reliance on the now-aging tech being security.

“Mainframe is seen as the pillar of security,” said Dave Knight (pictured right), solution architect and IBM alliance cloud lead at Deloitte Consulting LLP. “They hold it up as the example of security in the industry.”

The analyst firm had polled IT and business owners with the intent of exploring where mainframe falls within an evolving cloud market.

Knight, along with and Terri Cobb (pictured left), vice president of alliances at Deloitte Consulting, spoke with John Walls, host of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s livestreaming studio, during the recent IBM Think event. They discussed why the mainframe is still around and how it comingles with cloud. (* Disclosure below.)

Hybrid and the mainframe

Mainframe, cloud and hybrid are all cojoined to each other. Sixty percent of the survey respondents, in fact, said they were expanding mainframe; and further, 60% said they were “advancing it to cloud.” About half said they were looking at hybrid: A combination of technologies, in other words, all leading to hybrid.

“One of the reasons we launched the survey was really to find out what is really going on with our clients,” Cobb said. Deloitte had become confused — the cloud thrust it was seeing was augmented by clients verbalizing that they were migrating all of their applications to the cloud yet were still retaining mainframes. And indeed, Deloitte had found it was still having to jump in and solve mainframe issues for clients.

“It was surprising to get the information back and hear how important the mainframe still is,” Cobb stated.

Where cloud fits in

What, of course, the analysts were discovering was the executives were articulating that they were going for a form of hybrid cloud.

“Hybrid cloud comes to the surface and then you have people that have different meanings of hybrid cloud,” Cobb stated.

“Public cloud is a game changer; it’s here to stay, but it’s not necessarily the right answer for every workload, for every customer,” Knight said. “What we’re starting to see is a shift towards hybrid discussions and hybrid architecture discussions.”

A credit card clearing house could be an example of a business application; say, where, because of high transactional volume taking place, one might not want to use pure cloud.

“Hybrid we think is the answer,” Knight said. Something like a web server, however, doesn’t need a mainframe: “That’s significant overkill,” he added. So a mix is required, in other words.

It’s a business-specific question. There may even be occasions when one shouldn’t move anything to the cloud.

“In many cases, the answer is don’t move it,” Knight stated. “Enhance your service rather than replace it, or move it to a different location.”

Security, though, is the principal reason clients want to retain mainframe. “Security is a huge concern,” Cobb said. “We see that from all of our clients. It needs to be on-prem and secure.”

The problem fundamentally is data getting strewn everywhere. It causes security issues: “Where their data sits, how to integrate some of these applications,” Knight said. That’s a fundamental part of the work Deloitte is doing with IBM.

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of IBM Think. (* Disclosure: TheCUBE is a paid media partner for IBM Think. Neither IBM, the sponsor for theCUBE’s event coverage, nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE