BMC, Compuware take aim at mainframe costs

Two of the biggest mainframe software companies, BMC and Compuware, are integrating three key technologies which they say will drive mainframe cost savings for customers.

They say that web, mobile, and Internet of Things applications are drive increasing mainframe transaction volumes, driving up costs which CIOs need to keep under control.

The companies said the integrations are the first of several they plan as part of a broader partnership that also includes use of each other's technology within their own organizations.

The three technologies are:

• BMC Cost Analyzer for zEnterprise: This is BMC's workload management solution that aims to help customers identify monthly license cost (MLC) drivers and take measures to reduce those costs. These can include moving workloads to non-peak periods, running IBM subsystems on fewer logical partitions (LPARs) and capping LPAR utilisation.

• BMC MainView: This aims to give real-time identification of application performance issues, so helping customers to eliminate wasteful consumption.

• Compuware Strobe: This aims to delivers granular and actionable insight into the behavior of application code in the IBM z Systems environment. The aim it to let mainframe administrators pinpoint inefficient sub-routines that can result in MSU consumption that is 20 or more time greater than necessary, according to Compuware.

The companies point to one integration which uses BMC Cost Analyzer to call Compuware Strobe for a detailed analysis of the specific application component for peak MLC periods. This allows the customer to proactively tune applications that have the greatest impact on their monthly software licensing costs, the companies said.

Integration with BMC MainView allows customers to either automatically or manually invoke Strobe performance analysis, letting mainframe staff more quickly and consistently perform cost-saving while tuning tasks.

According to Bill Miller, president of ZSolutions and Select Technologies for BMC, "The integration of our key solutions helps mainframe customers achieve even greater cost efficiencies as they cope with the challenging combination of intensifying business demand and tight resource constraints."

Further Reading:

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IBM rolls out z13, repositions mainframe for mobile transactions

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