Reframe the mainframe: Meet the next GEN of IMS users
This series spotlights the next generation of IMS users. These are the trailblazers who are redefining what the mainframe is. They bring fresh perspectives, bold ideas and a passion for curiosity and creativity to solve complex challenges that drive transformation. Their stories reflect a vibrant future for IMS, where tradition meets innovation and where the next chapter of mainframe excellence is being written.
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Meet Simone Gregg, an IMS engineer whose childhood curiosity grew into a career supporting some of Europe’s most critical financial infrastructure.
Simone’s journey into IMS began with a sense of wonder. Growing up, she heard stories from her father about “the big machines [mainframes] that took up whole rooms.” Those stories stayed with her and sparked a curiosity that eventually led her to peek into her first TSO session nearly a decade ago. That same sense of wonder carried her through an integrated bachelor’s program, hands-on roles across z/OS, and ultimately into a key position working with IBM Information Management System (IMS).
Today, Simone works at Deutsche Bundesbank, supporting systems that underpin Germany’s monetary policy, financial stability, and the Eurosystem’s most critical transactions. She has built an IMS career that blends deep technical expertise with a passion for mentoring newcomers at the start of their mainframe journey.
Building her path: From curiosity to expertise
Simone’s first steps into the mainframe world came through an integrated degree program at her first job with an insurance company. There, she was introduced to IBM z/OS and began building experience across multiple roles supporting core mainframe systems.
Three years ago, she joined Deutsche Bundesbank and began working with IMS. In her current role, she helps operate:
- Two fully separated IMS environments
- Multiple sysplexes supporting domestic systems and the Eurosystem’s financial infrastructure
- Systems responsible for settling payments, securities, and collateral in central bank money
Her responsibilities span performance tuning, onboarding new hires, and leading major initiatives such as IMS catalog implementation and passphrase modernization. Throughout it all, she embraces the complexity that makes IMS both challenging and rewarding.
“Performance topics are a fun mix of using your knowledge and constantly trying new ways to gather information. You need to deep dive while still keeping your head above water.”
Her team relies on a combination of IBM tools, homegrown utilities, and vendor solutions for performance analysis, problem determination, MODBLKs updates, and resource management.
“I benefited a lot from the experiences of my colleagues and others in the IMS community in Germany. The challenging part was adapting those learnings to our own Deutsche Bundesbank processes—but for me personally, it was a great learning opportunity.”
For Simone, her proudest moments aren’t tied to a single rollout or milestone. They’re about impact—especially on new colleagues.
“The ‘I can help you with that’ moments make me proud. Seeing new colleagues learn and grow isn’t easy, but every time I see their progress, I feel proud of the part I played in their journey.”
Why IMS still matters
When asked why IMS still matters, Simone points to its unmatched performance and reliability, and its unique place in computing history.
The history of IMS, the fact that it helped put someone on the moon before Linus Torvalds was even born, few platforms can compete with that.
She also values the challenge of mastering something so foundational yet largely invisible to everyday users. "Learning something most people don’t even know exists, despite using it every day, is incredibly rewarding."
One of the most tangible advantages she sees is stability. Call-outs are infrequent, especially compared to other systems. In Simone’s experience, “IMS is much more stable than Db2. Even during weekend on-call rotations, IMS rarely demands attention, and when it does, issues are typically resolved quickly."
Staying connected in a constantly evolving IMS ecosystem
Staying current with IMS isn’t just about reading release notes, it’s about being part of a community.
“I primarily stay informed through IBM Newsletters and the IMS Community Calls. The IMS community in Germany is very well connected, and the IMS GSE Working Groups provide a great forum for learning, exchanging experiences, and discussing new developments. It’s also a relatively young and active community, so the informal networking adds a fun and engaging way to keep up with what’s new.”
For Simone, this ongoing exchange of knowledge is essential, not only for keeping pace with new features and best practices, but for strengthening the ecosystem that supports IMS professionals at every stage of their careers.
The challenge: The importance of IMS is hidden in plain sight
In the world’s most advanced enterprises, some technologies operate quietly in the background; they are too stable to draw attention, yet too essential to fail. IMS is one of these foundational systems that often gets overlooked and is misunderstood, even within technical organizations.
“Most of my colleagues in other departments don’t know what IMS does or why we need it. Even if they’re aware of its importance, they often don’t know why.”
This disconnect reflects a broader industry challenge: the most essential systems are often the least understood. IMS isn’t just another system, it’s the backbone of some of the world’s most critical infrastructure. Behind the scenes, it powers the transactions that keep economies moving and services running, delivering real-time reliability at massive scale. Its value often only becomes apparent if something doesn’t work correctly.
Choosing to work with IMS means choosing a deeper technical path. It requires patience, curiosity, and a willingness to learn how the systems truly work beneath the surface. IMS professionals develop a systems‑thinking mindset, learning to reason across operating systems, middleware, data, and transaction flows rather than relying solely on isolated tools or predefined workflows. While this path is more demanding, it offers a level of insight and mastery that few modern platforms provide.
Learning IMS presents its own challenges, but Simone recognizes that the complexity of IMS is what also makes it so rewarding. For new engineers, the learning curve extends well beyond a single product or interface.
“IMS isn’t just running on z/OS—it’s integrated into it. When you face a complex problem, the solution might not be part of any IMS curriculum. As an IMS systems programmer, you often need to look around the problem instead of focusing only on the failing component. That can be challenging for people following a very structured learning path.”
For Simone, it’s this level of challenge and responsibility that make IMS meaningful. While IMS may remain hidden in plain sight across the enterprise, the expertise required to run it is anything but invisible. By choosing to learn and work with IMS, professionals step into a role of real responsibility in maintaining the systems that organizations depend on most, and building a kind of technical mastery that endures long after trends and tooling have shifted.
What’s next for IMS at Deutsche Bundesbank
At Deutsche Bundesbank, IMS Transaction Manager (IMS TM) remains a cornerstone of the infrastructure.
“IMS TM is a crucial part of the Eurosystem infrastructure. The number of processed transactions keeps increasing, and this level of critical workload can only be handled by a reliable system.”
For IMS Database Manager (IMS DB), the picture is different. Deutsche Bundesbank is actively transitioning data workloads away from IMS DB—a process that will take time. Even so, IMS DB continues to play an important role today. Its resilience, speed, and uncompromising data integrity still influence how critical data is protected and processed during the transition.
Looking across the industry, Simone sees both a challenge and an opportunity for IMS, not because it’s outdated, but because it’s indispensable and often underestimated.
“I would hope for a comeback of IMS Database Manager, justified by the increasing amount of data and the growing demand for fast processing.”
As data volumes surge and real-time processing becomes the norm, she sees room for a renewed appreciation of the performance and reliability IMS has delivered consistently for decades.
The quiet backbone of the modern mainframe
IMS may not always be in the spotlight, but it’s the system organizations depend on when failure isn’t an option. As mainframe technology evolves, IMS’s legacy isn’t fading; it continues to be the foundation for what comes next.
Because in a world that demands speed, trust, and resilience, IMS isn’t outdated. It’s underrated. And it’s ready for its next chapter.
Ready to share your IMS story?
If Simone’s story resonates with you, we’d love to highlight your journey working with IMS and the mainframe.
Whether you’re modernizing, scaling, integrating, automating, or simply keeping the world running day after day—your IMS experience has impact.
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