Lighting Up the Mainframe: Why Organizations Must Include the Mainframe in their Application Performance Management (APM) Strategies

- Thomas Fisher, Senior Product Marketing Manager, Compuware’s APM Business Unit, says:

The mainframe has long been established as a stable, reliable and consistent platform for high‐value, business-critical transactions such as enterprise resource planning, online order‐taking and financial transaction processing. But in recent years we have seen the mainframe’s role evolve, largely as a result of the “self-service” explosion on the web.

For example, it used to be that mainframe applications did not directly interact with customers. Consider the banking industry. Banking customers used to walk into a bank branch to request their account balance, which a teller would then convey to them using a mainframe-based application to access customer data and process the transaction.

Nowadays, end users check their accounts directly and conduct basic transactions via the web, and increasingly the mobile web. To complete these types of transactions, mainframe-based applications are still used to access customer data and process transactions, but they are a part of a much larger and more complex set of systems known as the application delivery chain. Requests from millions of end users are hitting the mainframe every day, which impacts mainframe resources while simultaneously demanding exceptionally high levels of mainframe speed and availability.

Given the sheer number of mainframe transactions, subtle mainframe optimizations can exert an enormously positive and measurable impact, in terms of both optimizing expensive mainframe resources and ensuring superior end-user experiences. Organizations are remiss if they do not include the mainframe as part of their APM efforts.

To address this need, Compuware has announced Compuware APM^® for Mainframe, the industry’s first and only solution for deep transaction management from the edge through the mainframe. By combining Compuware dynaTrace’s patented PurePath Technology^® with Compuware Strobe’s unrivaled mainframe application management expertise, distributed system and mainframe teams can resolve performance problems faster, reduce MIPS costs, postpone hardware upgrades and accelerate time-to-market for new applications.

Compuware APM for Mainframe allows organizations to see, with granular visibility, transactions that are going on inside the mainframe. Specifically, organizations can see how an application is spending its time and what may be taking too long, combined with deep analysis of application code and logic. This helps organizations identify precious opportunities to optimize end-user application experiences while keeping costs in line.

Compuware APM for Mainframe provides unprecedented visibility into mainframe applications and reduces complexity in several unique ways:

·         Deep Transaction Management From the Edge Into Mainframe CICS and Java Procedures: automatically discovers, maps and monitors all transactions through distributed tier and mainframe applications with complete mainframe CICS and Java transaction steps and timings;

·         Mainframe CPU MIPS Savings: by optimizing transaction requests and improving application performance efficiency, expensive mainframe upgrades are eliminated or delayed;

·         Zero-configuration Instrumentation: automatic discovery, transaction mapping and out-of-the-box dashboards for 100 percent deep visibility into mainframe transactions, with no code changes required; easy to deploy and manage; and

·         One-click Hotspot Analysis: provides faster mean-time-to-resolve (MTTR) with one-click hotspot analysis of mainframe applications, including long-running and highly distributed jobs; shows root cause in minutes instead of hours or days.

Previously, when organizations had mobile, web or business applications that put performance pressures on the mainframe, they lacked visibility and couldn’t trace transactions deep into the mainframe. For the first time ever, Compuware APM for Mainframe extends deep transaction management into the mainframe. This innovation propels Compuware’s APM leadership and competitive advantage, by providing customers with an unmatched new-generation APM offering for mainframe.