If you're an insurance company using mainframes, you may believe some common misperceptions about the platform, and may need a refresher on its virtues.

The mainframe remains the most secure, lowest cost and best performing computing platform on the planet. According to IBM, all of the world's 10 largest insurance companies continue to run mainframes. These platforms process roughly 30 billion business transactions per day, including most major credit card transactions and stock trades, money transfers, manufacturing processes, and ERP systems. The mainframe retains a unique distinction as the mission-critical heartbeat of the digital economy, supporting cutting edge web and mobile transactional applications.

Some argue the mainframe is old, and needs to be replaced with a (supposedly) better, more "modern" distributed environment. However there have been far too many examples of organizations attempting to "rip and replace" their mainframes, only to find that it is way too costly, time-consuming and expensive. In fact, Gartner found that only 42 percent of migration projects in the insurance industry meet the original budget and 82 percent take longer than expected, or are never fully completed. These organizations would be much better served by focusing on rejuvenating versus replacing; modernizing and better managing their mainframe environments.