LAS VEGAS – Back in the summer of 1990, IBM introduced its latest mainframe computer the System/390. The suped-up model would set an organization back more than $30 million. Last year, IBM released its latest mainframe the Z13 at an entry-level price of just $75,000. Talk about price reduction over time!
But as IBM stopped making PCs and then servers because the economics weren’t working out for Big Blue the one machine it’s really known for is still around.
And, CA Technologies, at its CA World conference, explored the value of making a mainframe investment by introducing new solutions intended to create apps and business agility.
CA’s expanded its mainframe portfolio to include predictive analytics mainframe data.
Called CA Mainframe Operations Intelligence, the solution has an algorithm-based technology that identifies and predicts system issues before they impact performance. Machine-learning is applied to make sure there is no downtime and provides the intelligence that reduces the effort and skill to run data centres.
Use cases for these new CA mainframe solutions is advanced analytics, increased automation, DevOps for mainframe, and security for mission essential data.
Ashok Reddy, GM of CA’s mainframe business unit, said mainframes provide insights for business growth and this new portfolio has the breadth and scale to maximize mainframe value, reinforcing the role that it plays as the platform for business-critical operations. It can also be a launch pad for innovation with DevOps and increased automation.
According to IDC, mainframes still represent 10 per cent of annual spending on server technology.
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Supporting the CA Mainframe Operations Intelligence solutions is a new version of CA Workload Automation for running emerging workloads such as Big Data, Cloud and mobile applications. It securely schedules, manages and monitors cross-enterprise workloads through a Web interface.
Also new automation capabilities help customers manage the entire project lifecycle of their mainframe software migration efforts. CA’s Conversion Service is the vendor’s first cloud-based service to manage conversion efforts from data preparation to design and rollout.
The company also released an end-to-end DevOps to the mainframe solution called CA Release Automation Connector for z/OS.
CA also addressed data security issues with CA Data Content Discovery and CA Compliance Event Manager. These two products find, classify and protect sensitive and regulated data at rest and in motion in an attempt to prevent data breaches and other threats.