The increased complexity of the mainframe stems from the Linux operating system

Do you know about Linux? Maybe you are a user of the Linux operating system, but do you know how the Linux operating system is managed on the mainframe? This article describes the complexity of Linux management on the mainframe.

What is mainframe performance management? In the past, there was no difficulty in answering questions from mainframe manufacturers and non-IBM users: mainframe performance management is part of application and system management, focuses on device performance management rather than RAS reliability, availability, and durability ). However, it will be hard for them to explain to CEOs or CFO why they are worried about performance management. Generally speaking, performance management, especially mainframe performance management, is always an afterthought action and lags behind in ensuring system startup and operation.
Note: The concept of performance management is vague for some users. Especially in the virtualization era, performance management is not about the performance optimization of each application, but to ensure that even the worst performance of all applications can meet the server-level requirements, that is, you can provide any end user with a response time of about 2/5 at the maximum load.

What are the changes in performance management today?

First, there is a new concept in performance management. In the business intelligence field, performance management allows CEOs to monitor and improve business processes, which is completely different from the old one. Therefore, when talking to CFO today, he may be totally confused about the performance management type you are talking about, even if he is very familiar with the importance of performance management.

In the past four years, mainframe costs have increased again due to the impact of mainframe Unix/Linux consolidation recommendations, resulting in lower TCO for each application. However, with too much focus on TCO, mainframe server consolidation has changed its inherent performance. That is to say, the better the performance of your application, the more virtual machines run on the mainframe, and the lower the TCO of each application. Conversely, although user requirements or the number of applications are growing, the demand for adding capacity or new systems is decreasing. For many users, the stability of the mainframe is established. Only effective performance management can bring some benefits to the enterprise.
　
Therefore, the performance management of the mainframe becomes very important. At the same time, the influx of Linux applications followed by the increase in Web access for end users) has fundamentally changed the performance management tasks of the mainframe. In the past, mainframe performance management focused on the internal performance of machines and seldom considered communications between virtual machines. Now, through Enterprise Application Integration EAI) or Web and enterprise network communication outside the Organization, Unix/Linux applications can often access each other, and performance management must be "end-to-end. Network Communication and customer processes outside the mainframe and data center must be optimized, instead of focusing only on the communication status between virtual machines.

There is another area of change: software development. In the past, the pressure and data testing in the R & D process always appeared to be somewhat lagging behind, usually compressed, or simply not performed. In the same logic, few organizations automatically report problems detected during software operation to software testers or R & D engineers. However, the newly integrated Linux applications on the mainframe run very stably, and the independence between virtual machines is also good. This allows some organizations to apply the testing environment on virtual machines to actual machines, use it as the core application. This allows relevant personnel to easily report problems during software operation to testers. The improvement of software performance can save a lot of cost. In addition, the software can be returned to users for further operation through adjustment by testers, which speeds up the software performance adjustment and bottleneck problem solving.

In the lower half of this article, we will continue to reflect on the impact of these changes on mainframe performance management and how enterprise managers should respond to these changes. In the first half of this article, we introduced the concept of mainframe performance management and its recent changes. Next we will introduce the impact of these changes on mainframe performance management behavior.

What does these changes mean for today's mainframes?

The new task and environment mean that the mainframe Performance Management Mode needs to be changed. First, more virtual machines need to be considered. Therefore, monitoring and measurement of virtual machines on a daily basis is more important than using the entire mainframe as a black box. Similarly, management across operating environments becomes more useful. In this process, the same performance management software can handle both local and non-local problems, it can work in Linux or z/OS.

To cope with these changes, you need to take advantage of the following new features of the mainframe performance management tool:

◆ End-to-end management: in this management mode, all the scattered components of each application are monitored and a clear performance monitoring diagram is provided.
◆ Management of both the mainframe and Linux systems takes into account the user experience and actual needs-providing them with a common user interface.
◆ "Deep" performance management. With this feature, this tool can perform multi-level monitoring on the application software and ultimately determine the source of the problem. For example, some users find that data access on the server slows down device performance, while others find that the separation between the client and the server can lead to extremely slow communication speeds, this reduces the server response speed when the server load is full.
◆ High degree of automation. In particular, this tool should be able to automatically handle some performance problems, such as low load balancing, poor queries, or improper online backup. In addition, the tool should provide Linux and mainframe administrators with an interface that can be used without too much training.

There are initial indications that users can take "best practices" to expand the effectiveness of mainframe performance management software:

◆ Using zIIP processor can improve common data access performance bottlenecks.
◆ Pay more attention to the reason why database performance management is ignored because of fear of high human resource costs.) For database restructuring tasks that focus less on at ordinary times, you need to invest more energy if possible, to automatically update it ).
◆ Establish a more effective communication mode between the Running Performance Management Software and Its Testing and R & D organizations.
◆ Adjust the relationship between the two by designing the conversion code, such as the display logic, between the remote/network client and the server.
Mainframe Performance management: important both now and in the future

If you think that mainframe performance management is very important, you will find out how important it is in two years. One of the main reasons is the "Aging" and "greening" of core applications ". These problems have plagued most IT organizations on the mainframe. As more and more "aging" host management programs reach retirement, management tools like mainframe performance management software will have to be supplemented, otherwise business risks due to software problems will rise. At the same time, the energy consumption saved by the improved hardware and data center design modes has reached the limit, green software that can more efficiently utilize large hosts will become increasingly important-this is also a place where mainframe Performance Management flashes.

There is another reason for the increasing importance of mainframe performance management. As I mentioned in a recent article, in the new "center" architecture, the mainframe is likely to play a key role, among which, all platforms may play a "point-to-point" role, but the mainframe will attract the attention of most applications with special needs, such as security, enhancement, and performance flexibility. In this architecture, mainframe performance management will be crucial, not only to achieve load balancing between different environments, but also to rationally allocate application software and programs, make it belong to a suitable platform. So. As the demand of end users expands and changes, how should they change to the "Network-to-network" mode? The workload of the new Linux mainframe has changed the requirements for Unix/Linux and mainframe performance management software. As a result, mainframe performance management is important to the IT department and enterprises, and will grow in importance in the next two years. What users need to do is to choose the best software and the best solution from IBM's Tivoli and CA's Wily to implement efficient mainframe performance management measures.

Through this article, you will know that the Linux operating system has increased the complexity of mainframe performance management.

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