Mainframes play a major role in hybrid applications that run many of the world’s most critical business processes. However, for various reasons, IT staff responsible for these hybrid applications don’t always have visibility into the flow and health of the portions of those applications running on the mainframe. End-to-end application performance tuning becomes an impossible task without access to mainframe metrics and data.
Mainframe application profiling can bridge this gap, and with the new application profiling capability debuting in the latest release of Broadcom’s WatchTower Platform™, mainframe application profiling is now a reality.
Addressing Development Challenges with the WatchTower Application Profiler
WatchTower includes several capabilities that improve the visibility of mainframes to IT operations staff and optimization specialists. But lack of visibility also affects other IT staff, such as mainframe application developers, many of whom do not have deep mainframe experience. Since the tools that developers traditionally use do not typically provide mainframe data, developers struggle with some real pain points when trying to manage their applications end-to-end.
Assessing Risk of Change. The complex nature of mainframes requires institutional knowledge that even the most seasoned professionals may lack. When an application has dependencies on mainframe resources, change management–updating, deploying, and configuring applications–becomes a time-consuming endeavor, ultimately slowing down deployments. And potentially very costly if things go wrong.
Optimizing Cost and ROI. Lack of visibility can also impact operational efficiencies, as it becomes difficult to identify which apps can be optimized to improve their performance and reduce their resource usage. Even having access to data is not sufficient–optimization also requires an understanding of the relationships between modules and programs.
Performing Root Cause Analysis. It’s not uncommon for mainframe applications that were written decades ago to still be in active service–but any deep understanding of those applications to be long gone due to developer retirements and attrition. The added time it takes to research and analyze application issues directly impacts operational resiliency and adds to the overall cost of operations.
The Value of WatchTower’s Application Profiler
WatchTower’s application profiler was specifically designed to alleviate these and other pain points, and delivers functionality that can be employed for a variety of use cases.
Enhancing Application Visibility. The WatchTower profiler provides an array of performance, compiler, and application metrics, enabling customers to pinpoint issues impacting their applications. It visualizes relationships between batch jobs, online transactions, and modules, offering a clear view of dependencies. And by providing differentiated application metric insights–a feature that is unique in the industry–it enables organizations to uncover hidden dependencies.
Facilitating Modernization Efforts. The profiler smooths out modernization efforts by highlighting applications that could benefit from recompilation on newer compilers. This not only boosts efficiency and reduces security risks but also identifies poorly performing applications in terms of resource consumption.
Reducing Costs and Increasing Operational Efficiencies. By collecting and delivering relevant metrics, the profiler ultimately enables organizations to reduce costs and enhance operational efficiencies.
A Profiler Use Case–Performance Analysis
A high-priority objective for nearly all mainframe operations teams is to increase ROI by improving application performance and reducing the amount of resources that the application consumes. The WatchTower profiler is designed to help application performance analysts identify top opportunities for application optimization so that they can then focus their attention on what opportunities are worth pursuing. A few of the capabilities that the profiler offers includes:
This use case is just one example of how the application profiler delivers value. The profile can minimize the risk of modernization, accelerate root cause analysis in the midst of a problem, and provide visualization of the work running on the mainframe.
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The WatchTower Application Profiler is not just a tool; it's a comprehensive solution to the challenges of application optimization, particularly for mainframe environments. By providing deep insights, facilitating modernization, and enhancing operational efficiencies, it empowers our customers to achieve their goals more effectively and efficiently.
For more information on the profiler, and WatchTower in general, please visit our websites: