IBM, CA target mainframe management

By Denise Dubie, Network World, 03/07/05

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IBM and Computer Associates are tailoring wares for mainframe users that the companies promise will make managing the 40-year-old technology easier for novice systems administrators, and cut budget costs associated with maintaining the Big Iron.

Research shows that loyal mainframe customers aren't planning to part with their legacy systems any time soon, a fact that has management software makers clamoring to keep their established customers happy by adding ease-of-use features, such as Web interfaces, and offering more attractive pricing options. In fact, Forrester Research reports IBM's zSeries revenue grew between 22% and 25% in 2004, and the firm expects more modest growth in the coming year.

"There is a lot of data on companies' mainframes and there aren't a lot of reasons to migrate it off those systems," says Jasmine Noel, a principal analyst with Ptak, Noel & Associates. "But making sure mainframes are up and running isn't really a challenge. Management vendors have to monitor and link the mainframe's performance to the Java, .Net and Web services systems that interact with the data stored on mainframes."

For IBM's part, the company last week at its Share user conference in San Diego unveiled the first suite of products developed from the company's June 2004 acquisition of Candle Corp . Big Blue unveiled its IBM Tivoli Omegamon XE suite, which takes two parts Candle and one-part Tivoli technology to let customers detect, isolate and repair application performance problems.

IBM says the IBM Tivoli Omegamon XE bundle includes technology to monitor and manage zSeries operating systems and subsystems such as Linux, CICS, DB2, WebSphere, storage and other systems. The software, which runs on a Windows server and uses agents distributed on mainframes to collect data, will be able to show how mission-critical applications use zSeries systems. The software will let experienced zSeries administrators use the standard "green screen," or IT staff can utilize a Web-based interface to get a view into mainframe performance and how the system affects applications tapping it for data.

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