When people think about uses for mainframes, they often think of the financial and public sectors. And while it’s true that many banks and government agencies would have a hard time getting through their countless interactions swiftly and efficiently without the processing power of Big Iron. But mainframes handle more than just our interactions with governments and our money — they are used in many industries that influence and improve our daily lives in ways we often don’t even think about. Let’s take a look at several walks of life and businesses where we depend on mainframes every day, even if we don’t think about it.

Power: don’t get dressed in the dark

Our modern world runs on electricity, and electricity providers run on mainframes. Only Big Iron is dependable enough to regulate power generation and output, as well as monitor and analyze power usage across countless households within each provider’s power grid. Mainframes help automate power generation to be self-sufficient and reliable, ensuring people can wake up to their alarm clock or work late shifts.

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It goes without saying that mainframes are powerful. These computers can perform more operations per second than any other commercial system, which is why most banks (not to mention many government agencies, insurance companies, retailers and other businesses that manage massive amounts of data) rely on Big Iron for their indispensable data analytics functions.

And to say analytics are indispensable is underselling their value. Data analysis is an absolutely integral part of the new economy, and any organization seeking an edge needs an edge in analytics. Mainframes are a good match to provide the speed that leading companies are looking for, but many companies are still held back by their software.

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Technophobic thrillers in popular media are always trying to convince us hackers are just a few malicious keystrokes away from crashing the world economy. And while doing such a thing is more complicated than just “deleting all the money,” one could certainly do a great deal of damage by changing what a computer thinks is true.

Wouldn’t it be great if there were software that could guarantee which data was and was not correct, backed up by the most powerful computer processors available? I give you blockchain, which more and more fiscal institutions are using to protect their data, backed up by the undeniable power of mainframes.

Blockchain first entered the public’s (OK, the techie public’s) awareness in the orbit of Bitcoin, as a means of securing that controversial digital currency’s code against someone who decided to break into the right server and add a couple zeroes to their account. But Bitcoin haters need not close this tab in disgust just yet, as blockchain has come into its own as a reliable security measure for more than just black market storefronts.

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2016 was a strange year marked by everything from election surprises to a seemingly endless spate of celebrity deaths. But when historians look back at this mirum anno—weird year—it may end up being known as the year of the data breach.

Of course, this sort of thing isn’t restricted to 2016, but its impact on the world was hard to ignore. Among government organizations, the IRS and FBI suffered data breaches, and corporate victims included LinkedIn, Target, Verizon and Yahoo. Literally millions of people had their private information exposed to black hats, thieves and other ne’er-do-wells of the digital world. This epidemic of data theft calls upon security experts to get serious about creating new solutions.

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If you’ve been following this blog, you may have seen me mention mainframes are popular with banks and financial institutions. In reading that again and again, you may have thought to yourself, “So what?” After all, banks are notoriously hidebound and slow to adopt new ideas (there’s a reason Mary Poppins’ Mr. Banks worked for the bank of London and not a toymaker to represent being conservative and slow to change.)

And slow to change though the banks may be, what they most certainly are not is impractical. Banks don’t just love mainframes because that’s what they’ve always used. They love mainframes because they’re the right tool for the job: a tool with power.

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