Well, it happened, and there's no going back now.
You know how they say, what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas? Not this time. This will change things forever.
Yes, here I am at CA World in Las Vegas, and we just announced Mainframe 2.0 (see http://www.ca.com/us/products/collateral.aspx?cid=192430).
I can't believe it's taken so long for someone to think of this: an intelligent graphical web-based interface to install, maintain and configure your software for you. It's like putting intelligent, bionic hands on a new generation of mainframers to get them effective the moment they come through the door!
The first hint was John Swainson's keynote on Sunday, when he briefly said something about Mainframe 2.0. Then, on Monday, in Chris O'Malley's keynote, more was said, and Vince Re gave a quick demo.
But now, it's been officially announced: the mainframe has joined the 21st century. CA's products will now have a more consistent SMP/E style so you can choose how many CSI's you want. They'll have automated health checks to enable higher quality configuration and usage. There will be an awareness of your local configuration, from dataset naming standards to the contents of configuration files. And there will be an interface that brings it all together, and can optionally even make improvements to your configuration based on health check information and best practices. And all while continuing to enable the current generation of experienced mainframers to work at the level of detail they're used to, but with greater ease given a higher quality SMP/E maintenance environment.
This really does change everything. Everyone I talk to about it is excited to see it happen.
Welcome to the golden age of the mainframe!