US IT provider brings mainframe services to UK

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Ensono highlights importance of mainframes still to major industries

US hybrid IT services provider Ensono is further strengthening its presence in the UK with the launch of its Managed Mainframe service, providing enterprises with Remote Infrastructure Management (RIM) and hosting options for IBM’s z Systems.

UK businesses will have access to a managed service layer for their mainframe systems from Ensono, including Linux on z, which the company says will give those using mainframe services “a stepping stone to modern Linux-based virtualised hardware.”

Ensono acquired UK-based Microsoft cloud specialist Inframon in June, as well as hybrid IT services provider Attenda in September 2016.

Skills shortage

The firm highlights an imminent skills shortage in managing and supporting the mainframe environment, with an estimated 84,000 positions becoming vacant by 2010 as mainframe IT veterans retire.

It says enterprise mainframe environments contain critical business information supporting non-mainframe applications, and so it provides organisations with the capability to aid the integration, optimisation and management of these systems.

“While mainframe is often considered a legacy technology, without it global banks, insurance companies, retailers and many other major industries would not function,” says Ken Harper, director, mainframe product leader at Ensono.

“Mainframe runs business critical services in over 90 percent of the global Fortune 500 companies and in a recent report from IBM, it was reported that the mainframe supports over $23 billion in ATM transactions per year. With mobile transactions increasing, mainframe captures, analyses and crunches data that impacts businesses and their consumers’ lives positively every day. Mainframe is built to handle these consumer driven transaction loads reliably and securely.”

IBM Z Systems

Ensono also says that enterprises will benefit from its experience in consolidating and standardising the complex mainframe ecosystem, reducing the monthly mainframe bill by decreasing software license costs and optimising the infrastructure and applications to run more efficiently.

“The addition of managed mainframe to our UK toolkit places us in a leading position to help our clients to compete in the digital era, helping as they navigate their business transformation in the fast-paced digital world,” says Harper.

Ensono has 1150 employees, with a revenue of approximately $285 million. In the last 12 months it says it added $80 million in annualised revenue through a combination of 31 new client wins, expanding its existing client base geographically – including the UK – and across new industries.

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