How Innovative is your Mainframe Vendor?

Mainframe IT should be asking themselves some very important questions:

1. Do my vendors understand the challenges I am facing?
2. Is my vendor as dedicated to z Systems the way my company is?
3. Is my vendor keeping up with my business?
4. Is my vendor innovating for me or just milking my contract?

The answers to these questions unfortunately are not often positive. Given the current environment this disconnect can be more harmful than ever. Digital business is driving waves of data that are flooding IT and creating new challenges for managing DB2. There are endless studies and reports that all effectively say the same thing – data volumes are exploding and it is only getting worse. At the same time, customers are expecting to be able to access data at all times of the day and night with instantaneous response times. DBAs are facing a new reality in DB2. As Craig Mullins says, “It’s Not Your Daddy’s DB2.”

Faced with the new reality of DB2, it is more important than ever that the applications and the data in DB2 are well managed. Many of the processes that DBAs have put in place were done so many years ago. Making matters worse, the tools being used in these possibly outdated processes to manage the growing volumes and ever more complex data are the same tools architected decades ago when DB2 was much simpler.

The mainframe and DB2 have kept up with the demands of digital business. However, the management tools simply haven’t. IT should be able to look to its solution vendors as partners enabling them to overcome their data management challenges to create an actionable competitive advantage. Unfortunately, very few mainframe vendors are innovating. Many see the mainframe simply as a “cash cow in the basement.”

BMC Software firmly believes in our partnership with our customers and we are committed to the future of the mainframe. This commitment is fully evidenced by our continued innovation. We are not standing still. Over the past 3 years we have released new products, created a whole new segment of MLC Cost Optimization products, partnered with Compuware to integrate monitoring products and acquired innovative new data management products in Next Generation Technology.

Craig Mullins recently published a review of BMC Software’s DB2 products titled “Inside BMC’s Database Performance Tools for DB2 for z/OS.” If you are facing the challenges of digital business, take the time to read Craig’s review and ask yourself if your vendor is as dedicated to being your partner as BMC is.

Inside BMC’s database performance tools for DB2 for z/OS

BMC offers several tools to help DBAs manage and prevent critical performance issues in DB2 for z/OS, as well as monitoring options for other vital mainframe subsystems.

Read the review ›