The Mainframe Skills Gap Is Blocking DevOps Adoption

Despite decades of predictions to the contrary, the mainframe remains central to enterprise computing. A study cited by Forrester at the time of this report found that 64 percent of enterprises planned to run more than half of their critical application workloads on the mainframe. Yet only 37 percent reported being able to keep pace with the demand for skilled mainframe professionals.

That gap between mainframe reliance and mainframe expertise is a significant barrier to modernization. As workloads grow—driven by analytics, blockchain integrations, and increased mobile traffic—enterprises face pressure to accelerate mainframe application delivery using the same Agile and DevOps practices already standard on distributed and cloud platforms.

Compuware Updates zAdviser with AI and Real-Time Metrics

To address this challenge, Compuware announced updates to its zAdviser platform, a solution designed to help mainframe development leaders track, measure, and improve development velocity, quality, and efficiency. zAdviser applies artificial intelligence and machine learning to surface connections between individual developer behaviors and key performance indicators (KPIs), and to identify DevOps trends and patterns across the organization.

The updated release introduced several notable capabilities:

• Improved dashboard interface built on Elastic’s Elastic Cloud Service, providing a more accessible and unified view of mainframe DevOps data.
• Advanced behavioral and operational metrics to give teams deeper visibility into how developers interact with their toolchains.
• Near real-time data streaming, enabling faster detection of issues and quicker response cycles.
• Expanded AI and algorithmic correlation, helping teams identify whether high defect rates follow specific code changes and whether developers are making effective use of their DevOps tooling.

The practical outcome is that engineering managers can make data-driven decisions about training, tool adoption, and process improvement—rather than relying on anecdotal evidence or delayed retrospective reviews.

“Enterprises that have put off their mainframe modernization efforts must move quickly to bring their DevOps practices on the platform up to par if they want to stay competitive in a marketplace where continuous digital innovation has become table stakes. Rich, fact-based insight into their current state—and into whatever might be impeding them from achieving their desired state—is essential for accelerated adoption of mainframe DevOps.”

— Daniel Howard, Senior Researcher, Bloor Research

Partnership with CollabNet VersionOne: Value Stream Management Comes to the Mainframe

Alongside the zAdviser updates, Compuware announced a new partnership with CollabNet VersionOne to extend enterprise DevOps automation to mainframe environments using a Value Stream Management (VSM) approach.

The integration connects two complementary tools:

• Compuware ISPW — a DevOps-enabled source code management solution purpose-built for mainframe environments, handling version control, build automation, and deployment pipelines on z/OS.
• CollabNet VersionOne Continuum — an enterprise pipeline orchestration and value stream management platform designed to track, automate, and coordinate software delivery workflows across heterogeneous environments.

By connecting ISPW’s mainframe source control capabilities with Continuum’s orchestration layer, enterprises gain end-to-end visibility into mainframe software value streams alongside their distributed system pipelines. This helps break down the historical silo between mainframe and non-mainframe development, moving away from waterfall-bound delivery cycles toward iterative, Agile-aligned practices.

“As large enterprises digitally transform to compete in today’s fast-moving markets, the smart ones are aggressively transforming their mainframes away from siloed, waterfall-bound development, leveraging the Agile and DevOps best practices they’ve brought to their other platforms. This announced partnership combines Compuware’s modern take on mainframe tooling with the cutting-edge enterprise value stream management from CollabNet VersionOne.”

— Jason Bloomberg, President, Intellyx

Why Mainframe DevOps Matters

For organizations running core banking, insurance processing, retail transaction systems, or government workloads on z/OS, the mainframe is not a legacy curiosity—it is the production system of record. Yet many of these organizations struggle to apply the same CI/CD, automated testing, and pipeline tooling that their distributed platform teams take for granted.

The combination of AI-driven observability (via zAdviser) and value stream orchestration (via the CollabNet VersionOne integration) represents a practical path forward: make the mainframe a first-class citizen in the enterprise DevOps toolchain, rather than treating it as an exception that requires entirely separate governance and delivery processes.

As Forrester noted at the time, customer-obsessed enterprises need to modernize application delivery across all platforms—including the mainframe—to remove roadblocks to innovation and keep pace with digital transformation demands.

Key Takeaways

• The mainframe remains critical infrastructure for a majority of large enterprises, but the skills gap threatens their ability to modernize delivery.
• Compuware’s updated zAdviser platform uses AI and ML to surface actionable DevOps metrics specific to mainframe development teams.
• The Compuware–CollabNet VersionOne partnership integrates ISPW with Continuum to bring Value Stream Management to mainframe software pipelines.
• VSM on the mainframe allows organizations to achieve end-to-end pipeline visibility across both mainframe and distributed environments.
• Enterprises delaying mainframe DevOps modernization risk falling behind competitors who are already applying Agile practices across all platforms.

Why Mainframe DevOps Matters

Traditional mainframe development often relies on batch-oriented processes, proprietary editors, and manual promotion workflows that were designed long before continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) existed. When the rest of your delivery pipeline moves at DevOps speed, a slow mainframe development cycle becomes the bottleneck that limits the entire organisation.

Key challenges teams typically face include:

• Knowledge silos: Mainframe expertise is concentrated in a shrinking pool of experienced engineers, while new hires lack exposure to COBOL, PL/I, JCL, and related technologies.
• Poor documentation: Legacy applications are often underdocumented, making it risky for anyone other than the original author to modify them.
• Toolchain fragmentation: Mainframe teams use ISPF panels and TSO commands while distributed teams use Git, Jenkins, and Jira — with no shared workflow connecting them.
• Performance bottlenecks: Without modern profiling tools, identifying and resolving performance issues in COBOL or Assembler code is a slow, manual process.

How Compuware Addresses Mainframe DevOps

Compuware positions its product suite as a way to bring Agile and DevOps principles to z/OS mainframe development. Its toolset targets three core areas:

1. Source Code Management and Version Control

Compuware ISPW provides mainframe-native source code management with automated promotion pipelines. It integrates with Git-based repositories, allowing mainframe code to participate in the same branching and merging strategies used by distributed teams. This means a single CI/CD pipeline — orchestrated through tools such as Jenkins or Azure DevOps — can include both mainframe and non-mainframe components.

2. Understanding and Working with Underdocumented Applications

Compuware Topaz Workbench provides a modern Eclipse-based IDE for mainframe developers, replacing the green-screen ISPF interface. Its program analysis features help developers understand complex, poorly documented COBOL programs by visualising data flows, copybook usage, and call chains — reducing the risk of unintended side effects when modifying legacy code.

3. Eliminating Performance Bottlenecks

Compuware Strobe is a mainframe application performance management (APM) tool that profiles CPU consumption at the statement level for COBOL, PL/I, and other z/OS languages. Rather than guessing where a batch job is spending its time, developers can pinpoint the exact lines of code responsible and make targeted, evidence-based optimisations.

Cross-Platform Collaboration

One of the more significant aspects of the Compuware approach is its emphasis on integration with mainstream DevOps tooling. Plugins and APIs connect ISPW and Topaz with:

• Jenkins — triggering mainframe builds and deployments from shared pipelines
• Git / GitHub / Bitbucket — synchronising mainframe source with distributed version control
• Jira — linking mainframe change sets to the same issue-tracking workflow used by the broader team
• SonarQube — running static code analysis on COBOL programs alongside analysis of Java or Python code
• XL Release / ServiceNow — including mainframe deployments in enterprise release orchestration

This integration layer is important because it removes the need for separate approval gates and manual hand-offs between mainframe and distributed teams, which are common sources of delay in enterprise release cycles.

Onboarding New Mainframe Developers

A recurring concern in the mainframe industry is the demographic gap: many experienced COBOL developers are approaching retirement, and universities rarely teach mainframe skills. Compuware targets this challenge by providing a development experience that looks and feels like a modern IDE, reducing the learning curve for developers who are unfamiliar with the traditional z/OS toolset. Features such as syntax highlighting, code completion, and integrated debugging in Topaz Workbench are designed to make the mainframe accessible to developers whose background is primarily in distributed or cloud environments.

Key Takeaways

• Mainframe systems are involved in the vast majority of enterprise business initiatives, making mainframe DevOps a strategic necessity rather than a niche concern.
• Compuware’s toolset — including ISPW, Topaz Workbench, and Strobe — addresses source control, code comprehension, and performance profiling on z/OS.
• Integrations with Jenkins, Git, Jira, and SonarQube allow mainframe development to participate in the same CI/CD pipelines as distributed applications.
• A modern IDE experience lowers the barrier for new developers entering mainframe roles.
• Eliminating the mainframe bottleneck is often essential for organisations that want true end-to-end DevOps delivery speed.

If your organisation runs critical workloads on IBM Z and is struggling to align mainframe delivery with the pace of your cloud and distributed teams, evaluating a dedicated mainframe DevOps toolchain is a practical starting point.