IBM’s System Z and the proprietary operating system, z/OS, now has support for Python and the Anaconda science stack by Continuum Analytics. The porting of that stack of APIs and frameworks brings about a major change for the platform, allowing easier access to what was before a more restricted and exclusive community.
Future System Z devs don’t need to muddle through COBOL anymore
Compatibility of the Anaconda stack for System Z was announced at AnacondaCON, a new convention designed to celebrate the achievements of scientific Python libraries and the companies that use them. Anaconda allows System Z owners the ability to more easily analyze data at rest or actively by using the same system the data resides on. This can help reduce the cost to find valuable insights and save time due to being a more easily accessible programmatic language, Python. Now, z/OS can natively run Python, and quite quickly, to help analyze trends on the mainframe itself. Having Python available also has the added effect of making System Z and z/OS more easily understood and accessed by programmers. COBOL is not an easy language to learn and Python let’s the system be much more flexible.
System Z is a little-known architecture from IBM that powers a plethora of different financial and even retail services with historic roots anchored in the original IBM System 360. The processors are incredibly reliable and adept at processing transactions, hence why they’re still used in industries that need that sort of reliability. System Z also provides backwards compatibility with programs created for the original System 360, another good feature when the porting and upgrading of financial history is at stake.