BMC beefs up mainframe management tool

Big Iron users who want real-time reporting as well as analysis and capacity planning may be interested in a new software suite from BMC Software.

The firm announced at the SHARE technical user conference this week that it is rolling out Mainview Prediction Version 1. The product will let users get up-to-date statistics on mainframe application performance, as well as manipulate the statistics for capacity planning or analyse performance flaws. Formerly, these were separate functions and couldn't be consolidated in one console.

Mainview Prediction sits on a mainframe and reads event logs on the performance of Web servers, network communications or other applications. Mainview creates a snapshot of factors such as response times and transactions rates, and puts the snapshot in an XML wrapper for presentation on any Windows NT server or workstation for viewing via a graphical user interface (GUI). Formerly, Mainview users had to rely on 3270-based green screens. The new Windows console will be able to retrieve data 30 percent to 50 percent faster than before, the company claims.

Big Iron-based IS staff can take event statistics and publish them in a Web format to share with company executives. Additionally, using the Windows GUI, the data can be easily manipulated to perform performance analysis and capacity planning. Easy-to-use drag-and-drop tools on the Windows GUI will enable mainframe personnel to conduct such tasks as predicting how a certain application will affect the performance of any given CPU, and based on that, shift workloads, BMC says.

Mainview Prediction is in beta-testing now and will be available in October. Its price starts at $US10,900.