Last January, Compuware CEO Chris O’Malley committed to
delivering significant enhancements to their mainframe software
management portfolio. As part of that commitment, he promised the company would:
1.
Build innovative
products highly valued by their customers;
2.
Build solutions that
enable the next generation of mainframe workers;
3.
Identify and focus on
the most critical needs of their customers;
4.
Assume shared
responsibility to advocate and demonstrate leadership for the mainframe
platform;
5.
Provide thought
leadership for innovative uses for the mainframe platform.
As stated at the
time, we were impressed with both the Compuware strategy and their aggressive timeline
for the design and delivery of products, services and solutions. We also liked
their plans for their Topaz management product, which we characterized as “Mainframe Software for the 21st
Century”[1] in our write-up. We reviewed the motivation and market
forces driving the strategy in the earlier piece. Those forces continue
unabated, and need no repetition here.
We are now two
quarters past that initial announcement of Topaz for Enterprise Data. Chris and Compuware met their commitment
deadline for April with the release of Topaz for Program Analysis. They
continue to do so now with the announcement of Topaz for Java Performance on
July 1st. We’ve seen the product in action; it is clear to us that
the Compuware team is living up to their commitment. Here’s why that is so.
Topaz for
Java Performance overview
Topaz for Java Performance provides detailed, comprehensive
visibility into the performance and behavior of Java Batch programs and
WebSphere transactions running on the mainframe. It focuses on providing a
solution that will enhance the productivity of millennial developers as it
leverages and complements the expertise of experienced staff and QA teams. The
goal is to speed the process of identifying, debugging and resolving mainframe
application performance problems.
IT staff will realize benefits from automation
and application insight that results in a more effective utilization of
resources and speedier execution. This also frees up the time of experienced
staff that can then focus on more complex problems and problem avoidance.
Topaz for Java Performance provides programmers with a one
page view of their JVM performance. Specifically designed to work with Java
Batch and WebSphere, it provides a hierarchical representation of calls showing
the method-to-method progress within the program. It also enables the staff to
visualize the heap memory behavior of their program. In both situations, the
viewer can zoom in and out to display more or less detail to represent specific
portions of the performance data. It allows measurements to be taken across
separate systems, LPARs and JVMs from a single web based measurement page. See
Figure 2 below.
Figure 2 Measurements of CPU Utilization, Heap Memory, Java
Classes and Threads
It provides views and detailed insights into the peak CPU
utilization of specific Java methods and classes. With this ability, new and experienced staff
can spot, investigate and resolve “garbage collection” issues such as memory
leaks, trouble-shoot excessively long collection intervals as well as identify
those threads that are blocked or not actually doing useful work.
This is all just the beginning as Compuware plans for the
evolution of Topaz to become a comprehensive suite of next-generation
development products for the next-generation of mainframe development.
Enhancements
to other Topaz products
In the meantime,
also included in this release are enhancements to the earlier releases. The
enhancements include:
·
Topaz for Program Analysis has been
enhanced to provide intuitive, accurate visibility into the flow of data within
COBOL or PL/I applications. This includes showing how data gets into a field;
how a field is used to set other fields; and how a field is used in
comparisons. Such “data flow” information helps developers to design better,
smarter applications.
·
Topaz for Enterprise Data can perform
high-speed, compression-enabled host-to-host data copying by exploiting IBM z
Systems zIIP processors. The load and burden on the general processors are
reduced which can help delay/avoid an expensive upgrade. Also, developers can complete
their work more quickly at lower costs.
The
Final Word
There is much more that can be said and
shown about this release that can be covered by Compuware. We highly recommend
you see this video[2] and visit
their website[3] for
additional information
Compuware is delivering on its promises.
They not only provide much needed and highly effective solutions, they are
living proof of the high efficiency and agility that can be accomplished in mainframe
computing by delivering high quality solutions at an unheard of pace.
Congratulations to them.
They are also contributing to the general
‘heat-up’ in the mainframe marketplace. We see more interest in the mainframe
among a larger and more varied set of users. We see more aggressive and
innovative activity among the players as a result of increased competition.
And, there is interest resulting from the opening up of the mainframe ecosystem
to a wider audience. We think Compuware’s positioning itself as “The Mainframe
Software Partner for the Next 50 Years” may turn out to be quite prophetic!
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