Maximize Your Data Infrastructure ROI with these Mainframe Cost Reduction Tips
Large commitment comes with a need for cost optimization. In
order to increase your mainframe ROI, follow these strategies:
1. Virtualize Your Mainframe
Workloads
Even though commodity servers support virtualization, mainframe offers an unparallel support for
virtualized workloads. A single mainframe is capable of supporting as many as
8,000 virtual machines.
When planning your mainframe architecture, try to take full
advantage of virtualization. Virtualization makes workloads more portable and
scalable and helps ensure that your mainframe’s capacity is not under-utilized.
2. Consider Linux for Mainframe
The
best feature of mainframes is that they can run Linux-based software
environments as well as native mainframe environments.
Taking
advantage of Linux as a host environment for some of your applications on your
mainframe can significantly reduce your overall operating costs — especially
because Linux on the mainframe makes it possible to move some of your
applications from commodity servers onto your mainframe.
3. zIIP and zAAP Your Mainframe
Workloads
One of the most
significant recent advances in mainframe hardware is IBM’s release of zIIP and
zAAP processors for z Systems. These are special processors that are optimized
for certain kinds of workloads, such as databases and encrypting network
traffic.
Because zIIP and
zAAP processors are less expensive, they can help to lower your mainframe
hardware acquisition costs without compromising performance. By sending
appropriate workloads to zIIP and zAAP processors, and saving your more
expensive mainframe processors for other types of tasks, you get more bang for
your mainframe buck.
4. Modernize Your Mainframe
Applications
You may be running
mainframe applications that were written decades ago. Their code can be
modernized to run more efficiently by taking advantage of modern mainframe
hardware, running more tasks in parallel and so on.
If you’re thinking
that modernizing your mainframe applications requires an expensive and
time-consuming overhaul of their codebases, think again. It’s possible to
refactor your mainframe software without rewriting it. In fact, some vendors
even offer automated refactoring solutions targeted at
mainframes.
Investing in a
little application
modernization can do much to make
your applications run more efficiently.
5. Automate, Automate, Automate!
Any task – whether
it involves a mainframe or a different part of your infrastructure – that is
performed manually is bound to be time-consuming and costly. That’s why automation
is king when it comes to optimizing costs.
On your mainframe,
opportunities to automate center on areas like data offloading and
transformation, or integrating data and applications with the rest of your
infrastructure.
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