After many years of service, the mainframe computer was officially retired on April 1, 2020. The mainframe computer was used by the university for more than 40 years and was one of the only computing platforms available to the university that housed academic, administrative and research data.

In recent years, more modern and secure ways of storing data became available. The mainframe was no longer cost-efficient to operate, and the hardware and storage media were outdated and difficult to support.

Moving programs and data from the mainframe was a multi-year project. In 2013, student data was moved from the mainframe as part of the OneCarolina project and last year, human resources and payroll information was converted to PeopleSoft.

Retiring the mainframe is a huge step forward for the university. University data and systems have been moved to a more secure and reliable environment and since antiquated equipment will no longer be supported, the university will see a cost-savings.