Enhanced processor analytics in IntelliMagic Vision for z/OS version 8.8

Aug 10, 2016

IntelliMagic, the worldwide leader in software to outsmart z/OS mainframe service disruptions and eliminate infrastructure inefficiencies, today announced IntelliMagic Vision for z/OS version 8.8. This major release advances the ability of performance and capacity teams to efficiently maintain continuous availability and reduce costs.

IntelliMagic software has a built-in fundamental understanding of how workloads, logical concepts and physical hardware interact. By embedding human expertise into the software, the full potential of the SMF and RMF data is unlocked to better accomplish critical performance and optimization objectives.

The software detects performance and configuration risks before issues impact production. It also enables users to find true root causes quickly and reliably. Furthermore, it highlights where there is tangible potential for optimization, and ultimately it gives IT staff what they need to deliver a new level of application service reliability at optimal cost.

What’s New

Over the years, IntelliMagic Vision for z/OS has grown to support IBM and Oracle STK Virtual Tape Libraries, Coupling Facility, XCF and many other aspects of the z/OS infrastructure, including the central processors.

With the latest version, IntelliMagic Vision provides major advances in the analysis of the z/OS processor and storage performance and efficiency, including predictive views using the embedded expert knowledge. The new support includes both classic metrics that performance analysists have relied on for decades like the CP Capture Ratio and Real Storage UIC, and new charts showing MIPS usage by processor vertical CP configuration and the use of 1 Mbyte frames in the Large Frame Area.

The enhanced processor analysis is extremely useful to identify additional opportunities to reduce the IBM Monthly License Charges (MLC), not just by capping, but in a much more comprehensive way. “Due to recent architecture changes, processor cache efficiency has a much bigger impact on the peak MSUs used to execute the work, and the resulting IBM MLC bill, than most sites realize.” says Brent Phillips, Managing Director Americas. “IntelliMagic offers a service, led by Todd Havekost, to identify MLC reduction opportunities for clients using IntelliMagic Vision as a Service.”

Furthermore, the virtual and real storage reporting includes dashboards that check for all-time important metrics like free space below the 16 Mbyte line. Lack of space still implies the need to an (unplanned) initial program load (IPL). At the same time, IntelliMagic Vision helps with the exploitation of very large amounts of real storage. It allows to track how many 4K and 1 Mbyte pages are used, allowing to validate your real storage configuration. Like for all functions, dashboards highlight potential issues in the real storage configuration.

Where previous releases of IntelliMagic Vision focused very much on the infrastructure perspective, it now also includes support for application-based visibility. Activity is reported for many system components, including jobs, data sets, coupling facility structures, volumes and XCF members is automatically grouped by application, shows which system tasks and application use the resources, and what service levels they achieve. “It is now immediately visible what infrastructure components are involved in delivering service levels for an application or group of applications, making it much easier to assess the business impact of performance issues and which part of the infrastructure are causing or about to cause delays” says Gilbert Houtekamer, Founder and Managing Director. IntelliMagic Vision comes with a rich default set to recognize major applications and consumers like DB2, IMS, CICS, MQ and VSAM RLS, and also allows to add your own site-specific rules to create reports that match the way customers run their business.

Mainframe sites interested in seeing their environment’s data with the new reporting and availability protection capabilities are invited to participate in a low-cost IntelliMagic Vision as a Service assessment. Dashboards and reports are typically available within 24 hours of when your SMF data is first sent to IntelliMagic servers. For more information, please contact sales@intellimagic.com.

About IntelliMagic

IntelliMagic software outsmarts service disruptions and eliminates infrastructure inefficiencies using the power of embedded expert knowledge. It has a built-in fundamental understanding of how workloads, logical concepts and physical hardware interact. By embedding human expertise about the specific systems into the software, the predictive potential of the data is unlocked. Some of the world’s largest corporations rely daily on IntelliMagic to proactively detect risks before issues impact production, and to find the true root causes that endanger the availability of their enterprise systems and storage. Furthermore, these companies are also able to maintain more efficient configurations with lower cost and better performance. Ultimately, IntelliMagic gives IT staff what they need to deliver a new level of application service reliability at optimal cost.