In a corporate landscape increasingly driven by information security, regulatory compliance, and operational efficiency, the mainframe remains the backbone of many mission-critical processes. However, despite the platform’s robustness and reliability, it’s still common for organizations to face a silent — yet extremely costly — challenge: the lack of traceability and effective control over executions and data.

 

The Invisible Challenge: When Control is Partial

Many mainframe environments still operate with manual or fragmented controls. This includes:

  • Poorly automated tape audits
  • Job executions without prior JCL validation.
  • Lack of complete audit trails for later analysis.
  • Reliance on isolated or non-standardized logs.

These gaps can lead to direct impacts such as rework, operational failures, data loss, non-compliance with regulations like LGPD, SOX, or PCI-DSS, and even financial losses.

 

The Importance of Governance and Traceability

Traceability is not just a technical requirement. It’s a fundamental layer of governance that ensures:

  • Reliability in the execution of automated processes.
  • Clarity on who did what, when, and with what outcome.
  • Security in data recovery, especially in backup and restore routines.
  • Standardization of environments, ensuring quality and predictability.
  • Agility in responding to internal and external audits.

 

How GFS Software Supports This Process

GFS Software offers solutions that directly address these sensitive areas of mainframe operations:

AFM – Magnetic Tape Manager: Provides full control over the movement and lifecycle of tapes in the mainframe environment, ensuring greater security, traceability, and centralized management of physical and virtual resources.

TQS – Tape Quality System: Performs automated tape audits, identifying inconsistencies, duplications, and failures, and generating clear, traceable reports.

JCL Plus: Validates JCL consistency and compliance before execution, avoiding errors that could compromise production routines.

 

Visibility is Power

With the support of GFS solutions, your organization can transform the mainframe from a “blind spot” into a highly reliable, auditable environment aligned with IT governance best practices.