As an industry leader in enterprise IT and mission-critical applications, IBM Mainframe powers some of the world’s most secure and resilient infrastructures, supporting organizations across diverse industries such as banking, healthcare, and insurance.
Divya, Chief Architect at IBM Z Systems, explains how Mainframe is reinventing digital transformation for businesses. With a career in IBM Mainframe spanning over two decades, Divya is driving transformative technologies in Cloud, Virtualization, and Security. She oversees Hyper Protect offerings, shaping critical solutions for confidential computing and security at the intersection of cloud and on-premise systems. Her expertise in Confidential AI and secure encryption underscores her leadership in the digital space, highlighted through her publications and roles in global tech forums like WeQuity Spotlight, OpenStack Summit, and Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE).
“IBM Mainframe reminds me of my father – no matter what the circumstances, he was always there supporting and enabling me for my next career/personal move,” said Divya who is based in Bangalore, India.
IBM Mainframe offers unmatched reliability, enabling businesses to confidently pursue their ambitions. With its robust architecture, it empowers organizations to take risks and embrace innovation, knowing a resilient platform is backing them every step of the way.
Divya likens IBM Mainframe to the Taj Mahal – a true wonder that stands tall above other server platforms. “It uniquely stands out with its eight nines of availability, pervasive encryption, being the first quantum safe system, cryptographic accelerators, AI units and inference accelerators to name just a few,” she added. Mainframe’s ability to scale efficiently while maintaining top-tier security and performance has made it the backbone of critical industries.
One of the most astonishing facts about IBM Mainframe that Divya discovered throughout the years, is its ability to run up to 1 million Docker containers on a single system – far surpassing the operational efficiency of traditional servers. With its consolidation capabilities, IBM Mainframe reduces costs associated with software licenses, real estate, and energy consumption.
As digital transformation accelerates, businesses can no longer afford to rely on scale-out architectures that result in increased costs and environmental impact. IBM Mainframe offers an eco-friendly, high-performance solution, consolidating workloads from thousands of servers into one platform, saving both operational costs and reducing carbon footprint.
Divya highlights the role of IBM Telum processors and the upcoming IBM Spyre™ Accelerator: “IBM Mainframe introduced its first advanced on-processor chip AI accelerator (IBM Telum® processor) for inferencing way back in 2021 and the next generation of the same (IBM Telum® II processor and IBM Spyre™ Accelerator) will be available in 2025. This enables use cases, like real-time fraud detection, and ensures that data is secure.”
According to Divya, “there are misconceptions that Mainframe is not built for the newest version of Linux-based open technologies and solutions (like microservice architect based applications, containers etc), which is completely incorrect.”
IBM Mainframe is fully equipped to handle Linux-based and open-source technologies. Whether it’s containers, microservices, or Kubernetes, LinuxONE enables businesses to embrace modern development practices without sacrificing security or scalability.
Divya compares working with IBM Mainframe to experiencing the grandeur of the Himalayas – timeless and enduring: “Just like generations of people have witnessed the Himalayas, generations of intelligent people have put their best brains to keep evolving the Mainframe servers, so that it grows to the needs of the current civilization.”
One of Divya’s most proud moments came when she led the initiative to bring Confidential Computing as a service through Hyper Protect Virtual Servers in IBM Cloud VPC. This service – critical for industries like banking and digital asset custodians – ensures secure, tamper-proof execution of workloads. The excitement of seeing this technology go live is a testament to Divya’s commitment to advancing security and innovation in the cloud.
“I still vividly recollect the moment we excitedly waited until 2 AM India time and flipped the service to publicly available mode. It was one of the proudest moments of my career – making Confidential Computing available as a service in a public cloud is not something one gets to do every day!”
“The IBM Mainframe teams work across the stack,” said Divya. “From processors, to firmware, operating systems, hypervisor, systems software – all the way to the cloud, and thus, there is a broad set of technologies and skills that the Mainframers work on,” she added.
Anyone interested in the mainframe can check out the IBM Z Xplore learning platform to find basic, advanced and extended courses. You can also earn digital badges and rewards when completing these free courses.
IBM also launched the Mainframe Skills Council with SHARE and other key organizations to support professional development of its users. The Mainframe Skills Council provides a forum where global organizations will foster a skilled, diverse, sustainable workforce for the mainframe platform. In addition to IBM, the council includes organizations spanning clients, partners, academia, user groups, non-profits, and open communities that will collaborate to implement mainframe talent solutions.
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