BMC Software last week introduced a software suite the company says will kill two management birds with one stone: The company’s new Java-based System Advisor portfolio will help customers that are short on staff manage Big Iron operating systems.
HOUSTON – BMC Software last week introduced a software suite the company says will kill two management birds with one stone: The company’s new Java-based System Advisor portfolio will help customers that are short on staff manage Big Iron operating systems.
BMC’s System Advisor suite will be an integrated set of about 20 products for configuring and managing IBM’s mainframe z/OS and OS/390 operating systems. The company says the product suite will lessen the learning curve for network staff unfamiliar with managing legacy systems by providing a Web-based, Windows-like user interface alternative to the typical green screen used to manage mainframe components.
The software also can feed mainframe management data into distributed systems management tools such as Computer Associates’ Unicenter and IBM’s Tivoli Enterprise Console. This will help network managers more easily correlate how mainframe systems might affect performance of applications running on the boxes, the company says.
The central software in the suite, System Explorer, provides a Java-based graphical user interface that interacts with zSeries mainframes to perform common management tasks such as viewing partitioned data sets and systems resources in one interface. BMC says the software simplifies the most commonly used functions for managing z/OS, including file management and job management with a point-and-click Web interface.
“The software masks the complexity of the mainframe environment with a simple distributed interface,” says Calvin Guidry, vice president and general manager of enterprise systems management at BMC. “The software is written to include knowledge of how to manage z/OS so network managers can get [it] up and running quickly.”
Mainframe components are typically managed through 3270 screens, which involve writing commands using tools such as Interactive System Productivity Facility (ISPF) and System Display and Search Facility (SDSF) from IBM. ISPF is a software library-management tool for versioning and auditing source code. It includes configuration management to track all application components, and supports management of data sets and simplified data management services. SDSF provides a secure way to monitor, manage and control z/OS Sysplex environments.
“I see the main benefit of [System Explorer] as providing a point-and-click interface to mainframe functions, which allows people new to the mainframe to be more productive. They don’t have to learn ISPF,” says Larry Riggen, principal technology consultant at energy provider Cinergy in Cincinnati.
BMC says part of its motivation to design System Explorer to look more like a distributed management console than traditional mainframe management interfaces is the diminishing pool of IT professionals with mainframe skills (see story).
BMC says future products in the System Advisor family will address areas such as Sysplex operation, workload management, system parameters, system logging, restart management, data integrity and mainframe storage.
System Explorer for z/OS is priced starting at $11,700 and varies depending on configuration.
