Planet Mainframe

Welcome to the current edition of Planet Mainframe, which is published by Keith Allingham.This part of the website talks about trends in the marketplace, and how DataKinetics® solutions can make significant improvements to your mainframe architecture, and help protect your investment for years to come.

Get at that mainframe data faster

Jan 30, 2012
Getting at your reference data fast is of prime importance, and using in-memory access techniques is the industry standard in fast data access. You might think that using buffered DB2, buffered VSAM or CICS managed tables, you're doing everything you can. The truth is, these techniques will buy you faster access than you get straight from DBMS I/O access, but you can do better-- a lot better.

DataKinetics' tableBASE and tableEXTENZ are optimized for high-speed access of your reference data. Some of your transaction-intensive applications can be made to run 3000% faster. Unbelievable? Not really- check out the Technical Brief paper, and find out how you can get this kind of performance improvements using your current apps, you current DBMS and your current hardware:

Technical Brief: THE Fastest Way to Access Your Mainframe Reference Data 

Legacy Systems

October 20, 2011
An interesting take on term "legacy systems" by Mr. Curtis van Coevorden, in the LinkedIn group Insurance - Technology Executives Network: Discussion: What's your take on risks involved in using legacy systems and enhancing / integrating it in a new architecture for an Insurance company?

"I am confused by legacy systems. I've worked with 30 year old legacy systems, 10 year old legacy systems and a 2 year old legacy system. I'm beginning to think that legacy system is just a derogatory term used for any system that an incoming CIO or Architect wants to replace, usually with something they're more familiar with, or perhaps I'm being a little cynical."

This is a great point. "Legacy systems" are often the most important IT assets within a corporation (particularly for financial institutions), and are identified as systems that must be replaced. It turns out that this is often due to personal bias, as opposed to an actual business need.

Controlling System z Mainframe Costs

August 16, 2011
Alan Radding over at DancingDinosaur was nice enough to mention us in one of his recent blog entries: Ways to Lower IBM System z Costs, where he mentions that DataKinetics Solutions can help bring down System z costs. We're always grateful when a respected blogger like Mr. Radding take the time to mention us!  For more information on just how effective DataKinetics' solutions can be, check out the charts in this document: Batch Window Technical Brief, to see how dramatically our solutions can reduce high-expense resources like CPU and I/O. For more info, see our pages on Batch Window Solutions and Java-to-DB2.

The Mainframe is the Cloud

July 29, 2011
As many IT execs at some of the biggest banks and insurance companies in the world know, the ruckus about the cloud as a new concept is not entirely true. Depending upon how it is used, the mainframe has everything needed to become the private corporate cloud- in many cases, it is exactly that right now. Here's an interesting article from ComputerWorld, that discusses the mainframe as the cloud, and what needs to be done by organizations that have mainframes, but aren't using it to its potential (in the cloud sense); see the article: New job for mainframes: Hosting private clouds.

May 2, 2011
DataKinetics is at IDUG in Anaheim this week; come and see us at booth #118. Craig Mullins will be presenting DataKinetics' new DB2 solution on Thursday - more to come about that! See the press release: Game Changing DB2 Solution.

IBM is 100

March 10, 2011
IBM is 100 years old this year. An interesting article on the Mainframe Blog recently with a really cool video. Have a look at the article IBM 100 x 100.

More on the zBX

January 28, 2011
More interesting stuff by Alan Radding over at DancingDinosaur. He did what may be one of the first case studies on the use of the new powerhouse system running in a real production environment. See it here: http://www.technologywriter.com/indassess/iajdwill.pdf.

Mainframe Modernization

November 30, 2010
An interesting article written by Alan Radding over at DancingDinosaur a few months back. He talks in part about how to some, modernizations means trashing the mainframe for low-cost alternatives. See the article here: Mainframe modernization as the latest rage. The article goes on to say that mainframe solutions are actually competitive on price is you want to make things equal. What that means is, if you're okay with lower performance, reliability and functionality, the low-cost alternative might make sense. But it's not ALL about cost. Keep coming back here-- we'll be talking more about modernization solutions that leverage your existing assets, lower your costs, and improve your performance to boot. We'll be talking about all this here very soon!

November 8, 2010
This one's a bit of a re-tread, but an entertaining fictional log of a migration project gone sour (see The unforeseen costs of migrating off the mainframe) by Wayne Kernochan, a while back at TechTarget.com. Just another example of how things can blow up if you're not very careful. What is your plan? Just to get off the mainframe? A lot of companies can help you do that. You might land with a thump, and you might not be happy, but you'll be off. You need to determine very precisely what your business goals are, and be very exacting on what your expectation are. Things like no loss of functionality, no loss of performance; stuff like that. Stay tuned, we'll be talking more about low-risk migration paths here very soon!

October 27, 2010
An interesting discussion in the Mainframes R Us LinkedIn group. Chris H. started a discussion entitled Information on Failed Legacy Mainframe to Windows Migrations. Interesting comments including the typical pitch from small integrators insisting that a bunch of cheap clone PCs can easily beat out any mainframe. More interesting though, was a comment from Phil S., referring to a website that relays a dozen or so accounts of failed migration projects. See the site- Re-Boot Hill. Certainly, migration makes sense for many small and medium sized shops. However, for large shops, there is great risk; hence these stories. Migration may or may not actually be the need for larger shops. The need, more often, might be proper integration between the mainframe and existing distributed systems. More than just available accessibility, but FAST as well. Check this website for more info on that soon!

October 25, 2010
Another interesting article by Larry Dignan at ZDNet. See the article here. According to a recent mainframe user survey, 84 percent of respondents saw growing or steady MIPS usage, and the transaction volumes are driving MIPS growth.

IBM ups 2010 Outlook – Hardware Revenue Up 10%

October 18, 2010
An interesting article over at ZDNet by Larry Dignan about IBM’s new hardware sales. See the full article here. IBM upped its 2010 earnings outlook after delivering a strong third quarter. One of the largest jumps was the hardware revenue – up 10 percent from the third quarter a year ago. Revenue was propelled by IBM’s new System z mainframes, including zEnterprise.

Improved Billing in the Insurance Industry

May 13, 2010
An interesting white paper over at InformationWeek, written by the the folks at Insurance & Technology. See the article here. An interesting read, especially if you have completed your mainframe migration plans. But what if you haven't? What if you still have some of your most important data on your mainframe? If so, you're not alone; many insurers are in the same boat-- part way through a migration process, and unable to implement many of the changes that you need now. If your data is on the mainframe, DataKinetics can help you with your antiquated billing process today. This solution is used by telecom and utilities companies, and is perfect for insurers as well-- see the white paper. More information on specific usage, and per-industry is available in the DataKinetics library.

Using In-Memory Tables to Optimize Your Mainframe Environment

April 21, 2010
An interesting article over at MainframeZone.com written by DataKinetics CTO Bill Olders. See the article at http://www.mainframezone.com/it-management/using-in-memory-tables-to-optimize-your-mainframe-environment. Mr. Olders talks about how this technology can be used to control costs by maximizing mainframe MIPS processed. DataKinetics offers this type of capability, also known as in-memory optimization. More information on specific usage, and per-industry is available in the DataKinetics library.

Hitting the wall: Time to optimize?

February 12, 2010
An interesting article in the Globe talks about how the latest push for more computing power inches us closer to the wall (see the article). We can see it happening now--in the reduction in advertising for "more speed" while "more cores" becomes more of a selling point. The article goes on to predict that within just a few years, further increases in processing power will be cost-prohibitive. The laws of physics are catching up and will limit growth in the traditional areas (Moore’s law -style continued inexpensive circuit density doubling, and proliferation of cores for parallel processing).

The time has come for a change in thinking for continued improvement, and one way is to find out new ways to get more out of existing architectures. From the perspective of the mainframe, why not look at optimization, rather than a continual ramping-up with new hardware? For example, a hardware upgrade might improve overall system throughput by a factor of 2 or 3. On the other hand, in-memory optimization could allow existing applications to run 30x faster, using existing hardware.

Just as nobody ever got fired for buying IBM, nobody ever got sued for buying DataKinetics

February 2, 2010
A lot of buzz about IBM's countersuit against Neon (see article over at eweek.com). As the IBM-Neon saga continues, some mainframe operators might be concerned that saving money on mainframe operations is not possible--not so. DataKinetics technology has been relied upon to reduce processing workloads and improve mission-critical mainframe application performance on mainframe systems for over 30 years. And no mainframe operator has ever been sued for using DataKinetics technology. Further, DataKinetics has saved its customers over $3Billion since the inception of our mainframe optimization solutions.

Read more at our tableBASE product page, or download the white paper at Get More From Your Mainframe.

The Mainframe is Roaring Back

December 14, 2009
Arthur Cole over at ITBusinessEdge.com posted an interesting article last week about the resurgence of the mainframe in general, and specifically in cutting edge areas like Cloud Computing (see the article: The Return of the Mainframe?). Well, it’s not just IBM and Fujitsu riding the resurgent Big Iron tide, a lot of others are too, including us over here at DataKinetics.

In the New Year, we’ll be making some exciting NPI announcements along the lines of seamless mainframe integration with the corporate network and mainframe-web integration. It’s going to be an exciting year!

DataKinetics Offers $75,000 To New Customers

December 7, 2009
DataKinetics, a mainframe optimization and modernization company, has launched a US$75,000 incentive program for new customers of its flagship product tableBASE, a real-time, in-memory optimization product.

Prospective customers who sign on before July 1, 2010 will be entitled to US$50,000 for telling their story of how DataKinetics solutions have solved problems within their datacenters. They will also qualify for up to three days of free consulting to help determine other areas for potential performance improvement, reduced maintenance costs and market adaptive solutions. New customers are also entitled to up to US$25,000 in additional savings on any other DataKinetics product purchases completed before July 1, 2011. To participate in the incentive program, prospective companies must
successfully complete a trial of tableBASE.

"Experience has shown us that once we can complete a trial with a prospective customer, the benefits brought by DataKinetics' solutions are extremely evident," says DataKinetics CEO Allan Zander. "No customer has removed tableBASE from their mainframe application which speaks to the competitive advantage tableBASE provides. This incentive program is to encourage customers to speak about their experience with tableBASE since the best advertising comes from satisfied customers."

Current DataKinetics customers interested in acquiring new supplemental licenses also qualify for the free consulting and US$25,000 savings portion of the offer.

See www.dkl.com/Special_Offer_1/ for detailed information.

MIPS Optimization a major concern for IT Managers

October 7, 2009
In a recent article on Network World, Linda Muthsaler tells us about a survey of 1500 IT managers and executives worldwide with mainframe operations responsibilities. In her article, Mainframe managers discuss their priorities, she relates that 62% of respondents believed that they would be investing in new mainframe projects, while only a small percentage believed that they would throttle back on mainframe operations.

The survey further indicated that of their top six concerns, two were MIPS Optimization and Application Modernization. This is not surprising, as these are perhaps the two most effective ways to reduce mainframe TCO, while still increasing mainframe usage. Ms. Muthsaler also says that "Ever-expanding peak windows make MIPS optimization one of the highest-value practices you can implement."

DataKinetics products provide many of the Fortune 1000 with the tools they need to reduce their mainframe TCO-- particularly MIPS Optimization and Application Modernization.

September 27, 2009
Maria Bruno-Britz wrote a telling article over at Bank Systems and Technology. In her article, Bank CIOs Must Continue to Innovate While Cutting Costs, she writes that "banks continue to face pressure to adapt to a changing business climate in which cost cutting and doing more with less are the norms."

DataKinetics lets bank CIOs do just that: tableBASE lets them do more with their mainframes without upgrading, and without migrating-- essentially getting more from what they have now. netTABLES lets them seamlessly leverage their mainframe data across their distributed networks without being limited by network latency-- all while retaining their existing mainframe and distributed applications.

Read more about what DataKinetics can do to help bank CIOs do more with less. See DataKinetics white papers: tableBASE: Make The Most Of Your Mainframe MIPS, and netTABLES: A Homogeneous Data Grid Solution For The Corporate Network .

September 26, 2009
An interesting article appeared recently on the COMPUTERWORLD website, written by Patrick Thibodeau. In the article, Bank of America touts mainframe work as a safe career, Mr. Thibedeau reports opinions of Kimberley Grim, senior vice president of mainframe engineering at Bank of America. She states that they "have been operating this platform for 40 years," and that "the mainframe platform can still handle high-volume work better than non-mainframe systems."

This is supported by the fact that 70% of corporate data in America remains on the mainframe to this day. Very few large organizations plan to migrate to smaller, less reliable and less secure distributed systems. With mainframe expertise dwindling through retirement, personnel remaining in the mainframe business will be working for years to come. Similarly, new graduates with mainframe expertise will be in high demand.

The IBM Mainframe celebrates 45th birthday

September 22, 2009

Another milestone, as discussed by Michael Neubarth over at CiOZone, in his article, The Mainframe: The Dinosaur That Wouldn’t Die. April 7, 1964 was the date of introduction of the IBM System/360. In his article, Mr. Neubarth talks about how the mainframe revolutionized computer technology. The new technology brought with it standards, interoperability and a machine that was truly general purpose. Exactly what business needed, and that explains its success.

Today, mainframes still offer those attributes, and also superior scalability, reliability and capacity, while showing a lower TCO than other computing platforms. But beyond that, they're still integral parts of the newest IT solutions available to large organizations. Read more about the mainframe's role in the modern corporate IT infrastructure, and about the enabling new product: netTABLES.

THE Solution for Large Insurance Companies

August 5, 2009
Any time you read articles on Insurancetech.com, you'll see one or more of our clients mentioned. The reason is that DataKinetics in-memory mainframe products are the best-in-class solutions for large insurance companies running their businesses using applications that run on their mainframe systems.

Most of them are maintaining large distributed systems as well, but their most valuable assests are their DataKinetics-powered mainframe-based applications. Read more about this on our insurance company use case page. You can also read about our products in our Mainframe Performance Solutions Product Portfolio and download our white paper: Get more from your MIPS.

Online Bill Payment to Increase Despite Economic Slowdown

June 19, 2009
Recently on BankTech.com, Maria Bruno-Bzitz wrote about the expected increase in online bill paying in America (see article). She cites a Forrester report which predicts an increase from 48 million subscribers now, to 63 million in 2014.

What does that mean to the banking industry? Undoubtedly, an opportunity for those ready to handle the increased demand. However, if banking transaction processing systems are already pushed to the limit, what are the options—serious spending for mainframe upgrades, serious spending for migration, or just leaving money on the table?

There is a better option—get more from the mainframe systems that you're running now. DataKinetics mainframe optimization solutions can provide significant performance increase for your current systems, using your current applications, resulting in improved ability to manage growth, combined with a short-term ROI. The top two commercial banks in America use DataKinetics tableBASE solutions—contact us to see how we can help you too.

COBOL celebrates its 50th birthday

June 11, 2009
A couple of weeks ago on Dr. Dobbs CodeTalk, Jon Erickson posted an article (Happy Birthday COBOL! 50 Years Old and Still Kicking Butt) that mentioned that COBOL is used 13 times a day by Americans, for such things as credit card and bank card transactions—and that 30 billion transactions a day are processed by applications written in COBOL. Congratulations COBOL, and here's to continued outstanding performance!

It may interest you to know, that many of these COBOL applications are also optimized for performance using DataKinetics tableBASE. In fact, two of the three largest credit card companies and the biggest bank card issuer use tableBASE at the heart of their mission-critical (and COBOL-based) systems. How does tabeBASE do this? Have a look at the tableBASE product description, or download the Mainframe Performance Solutions brochure.

Also, take the time to download our white paper, Get More From Your Mainframe to find out how tableBASE can help you run your mainframe systems faster, and save you money in the process.

As you know, the mainframe will never die

May 8, 2009
Recently, on eweek.com, Darryl Taft wrote an article entitled IBM: Why the Mainframe Will Never Die, Part I. While this may not be news to most companies running mainframes in their data centers, he does have some interesting things to say. "Nothing beats the mainframe for heavy-duty transaction processing in financial services, retail, airline reservations, anything that requires the ability to securely manage hundreds of millions of concurrent transactions." This is supported by the fact that virtually all of these industries rely on mainframes at the core of their mission-critical systems.

Further, he writes, "In the future, the competitive edge will be given to businesses that implement an infrastructure that is both highly cost-efficient as well as dynamic. This infrastructure must be able to grow and respond to changing requirements quickly while providing the best business resilience." Mr. Taft hits the nail on the head- and constant System-z improvements ensure that this remains to be true. What is also true is that your z/OS applications will run even faster, run higher transaction rates, and provide even more competitive edge when bolstered by DataKinetics tableBASE. See our white paper to learn how tableBASE can help you increase your competitive advantage.

Getting more from what you have

April 27, 2009
Last month on ESJ.com, Jim Fowler wrote about the misconception about how modernization is about spending money as opposed to improving processes. In his article, Modernization: It’s All about the Business, he goes on to say that modernization is sometimes about saving money rather than spending it. This is the corner-stone of DataKinetics' value proposition— get more from your MIPS. Do more with your current systems, and save money to boot.

Mr. Fowler's closing points are ringing endorsements of DataKinetics' tableBASE solutions: They allow businesses to focus on improving business processes rather than replacing IT systems. Similarly, small changes, like implementing a tableBASE solution, can result in significant business process improvement. Finally, modernization is about discovering: As many of our customers have learned, tableBASE can bring more than planned benefits. After implementing tableBASE solutions to obtain more performance for their mainframe applications, they learned that they could also use tableBASE to dramatically improve their business processes. See our white paper to learn how tableBASE can help you get more from your MIPS.

The mainframe is alive and well in 2009—and looking to pick up demand. Here are the facts:

• There are more than 200 billion lines of mainframe code running today’s businesses worldwide, according to estimates from Gartner.
• Fortune 500s maintain 35 million lines of code and add 10% more new lines of code annually to mainframe applications just to keep up with business needs, changing conditions, and regulations. And that’s just COBOL code.
• Many of these mainframe applications have been maintained over a period of decades. Some are approaching 50 years of age.
• These applications still manage and process most customer, product, supply-chain, and critical business data. (An industrial-strength, multi-tasking, high availability server is tough to displace.)
• Some of these applications contain thousands, if not millions, of lines of code. Most of them are a mix of 3270 screen processing, data I/O, and the core of the application—the enterprise’s business rules.
• The number of developers who truly know the applications and business is decreasing. These developers are spread across multiple locations, multiple cities, and multiple countries.

Get the rest of the facts. Read Recovering from the Enterprise’s Mainframe Malaise, by Don Fowler, Mainframe Executive, October 16, 2008.

Recently, on itbusinessedge.com, Arthur Cole blogged about how crucial to the bottom line application performance is in the IT world (see Cranking Up Application Performance). He cites an article by the Aberdeen Group, about how the top performing companies spend more on IT application development than do other, lesser-performing companies (see Application Performance Challenges Said to Lead to Millions of Dollars Lost).

This is equally true in the mainframe business. If you're running business-critical mainframe applications, it behooves you to ensure that these applications are running as efficiently as possible. Data Kinetics' tableBASE can be an instrumental money-saving component of your faster, more efficient, and future-proof mainframe architecture. Find out how tableBASE can improve your mainframe application performance.

Few can argue the superiority of the mainframe in terms of reliability, security, power and capacity. The big question seems to be cost; particularly the Total Cost of Ownership. Recently, on itbusinessedge.com, Jim Porell, a System z expert explained that contrary to popular belief, mainframes are actually performing very well in terms of TCO (see Mainframes Win on TCO).

Also, some time ago, Phillip Courtney explained how tableBASE improved mainframe performance, and extends the life of mainframes (see his product profile- also available in PDF format).

With mainframe superiority in performance as well as TCO, and with tableBASE promising to provide even more performance and cost savings, maybe now is the time to look at bolstering your mission critical systems in the same way that three of the five largest credit card companies are doing now. For more information on how tableBASE can help you increase mainframe performance while helping you to control costs, see our family of tableBASE products.

Recently, on itbusinessedge.com, Loraine Lawson blogged about how Service Oriented Architecture is here, is evolving, and has been doing so since the 1960's (see Yes, Virginia, There Is a SOA). She cites an article in PC World, (see Best Reuse Plays in SOA) that describes SOA as an extension of best practices, and that ”SOA is the latest phase of a constant evolutionary march toward greater functional decomposition and distribution on the network. Modularity and reuse offer greater flexibility, agility and return on investment.“