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Monday, October 15, 2018

zAdviser: A New Chapter in Compuware’s Mainstreaming the Mainframe Story

By Rich Ptak

Compuware zAdviser Process 

              Compuware zAdviser Process     (Courtesy of Compuware, Inc.)
Sixteen quarters ago, following a fast-tracked Waterfall-to-Agile transformation, Compuware committed to an aggressive quarterly delivery schedule to provide customers with net new capabilities and enhancements to classic offerings that would enable IT teams to “mainstream the mainframe.” That is, make the platform an integrated, integral part of today’s enterprise computing environment. Since then Compuware has doggedly adhered to that schedule, releasing new innovations each quarter like clockwork. 

In addition to maintaining this impressive quarterly cadence, Compuware has consistently been integrating its tools with solutions from several leading DevOps tools providers such as XebiaLabs, SonarSource and Electric Cloud. Thus, making it easier for enterprises to include the mainframe in their DevOps toolchains. They’ve made five product acquisitions, all of which have been thoroughly integrated into their portfolio. And, through a steady stream of pro-mainframe thought leadership—including publication of several Agile and DevOps transformation best practices guides—Compuware has become the industry’s most outspoken proponent for modernizing mainframe software development and delivery processes. 

Based on their own experiences in transformation, Compuware recognized that enterprises must be diligent in continuously measuring and improving mainframe DevOps processes and development outcomes. To that end, they recently introduced zAdviser, a new service, free to maintenance-current customers, that leverages emergent machine learning capabilities to improve and speed mainframe development and operations management. (zAdviser is the latest evolution in the company’s Value Improvement Program (VIP), which enables customers to qualify, quantify and increase the value derived from Compuware products.)

Before we get into the specifics of zAdviser, let’s touch on the some of the dynamics that make this service invaluable today and show how it nicely fits into Compuware’s strategy to mainstream the mainframe.

The Mainframe is Thriving
The rumored demise of the mainframe is just that—a rumor. Market changes are driving an increasing demand for the mainframe’s unique capabilities. BMC’s 2018 Mainframe Survey[1] documents this change as the mainframe is increasingly integrated into overall enterprise IT infrastructure operations. The study reveals executives, development, and operations staffs’ interest in the mainframe continues to grow. Some 93% of executives with a mainframe believe in its long-term viability. Key workload measurements of transaction volume, data volume, workload volatility/unpredictability and number of databases supported show significant year-over-year increases. Some 60% of respondents have a positive expectation of MIPS growth. IBM’s introduction of pervasive encryption, dramatic capacity increases, and footprint reduction is attracting even more users to the platform as hardware and software innovations continue to roll out.

All this bodes well for the mainframe; however, issues remain.

Challenges, old and new
Enterprise IT has never been, and never will be, free of challenges. Many enterprises are plagued with a myriad of cultural, procedural, operational and organizational issues stemming from traditional siloed mainframe operations. This severely hampers cross-enterprise cooperation and coordination that is further complicated by a retiring mainframe workforce and minimal efforts to fill vacant positions, non-agile tools that don’t support innovation, and more. 

Launching enterprise modernization brings its own problems. Agile and DevOps practices, typically well-developed for distributed IT, are totally foreign to mainframe staff.  Efficiency, productivity, and morale suffer as mainframe staff play catch-up slowing efforts both in development and at modernization. Problems can also arise with new-to-the-mainframe staff with different operational expectations. They must learn new skills using familiar, as well as not-so-familiar tools on the new platform. 

Additionally, introducing a new tool can lead to an often over looked problem of “implement and forget.” For example, a common scenario can occur when a new tool to improve code quality is introduced. As staff learn the tool, code quality improves. However, productivity slows prompting a management reaction. In the typical overloaded shop, the temptation (for some) will be to forget the new, and default to old habits. Thusly, the tool was “implemented and forgotten” thereby losing its benefits. Absent a formal way to track tool usage, there is no easy way to be alerted to the problem, and, ultimately quality suffers.

Mainstream the mainframe
Mainstreaming the mainframe aims to fully integrate mainframes into the enterprise as just another platform by ensuring the mainframe is included in cross-platform DevOps work processes. As the responsibility for the mainframe must ultimately be transferred to mainframe-inexperienced developers (as well as other staff), enterprises must equip these new professionals with modernized tools and solutions that enable them to confidently work on any application, even those that are old, complex and inadequately documented. 

One such solution is Compuware Topaz, a suite of integrated products all leveraging a modern Eclipse-based IDE, designed to enable developers with a variety of technical backgrounds to be productive in a mainframe environment. The user-friendly interface allows developers to move easily between development and testing as they work on both mainframe and non-mainframe applications.

Mainstreaming the mainframe also requires an integration-friendly solution set. Compuware tools integrate with an expanding array of leading DevOps tools and APIs. As a result, it empowers developers of every stripe to perform and improve the processes necessary to fulfill each phase of the DevOps lifecycle. 

Managing for continuous improvement
CIOs have awakened to the fact that mainframe agility is a fundamental requirement for business agility. It’s no longer enough to embrace new processes and tools that speed mainframe development and enable new developers to innovate on the mainframe. To be successful, enterprises must continuously measure and improve mainframe DevOps processes and development outcomes. To accomplish this, they require a robust set of key performance indicators (KPIs) that measure mainframe DevOps quality, velocity and efficiency. Newly available Compuware zAdviser uses machine learning to find correlations between developer behaviors and DevOps metrics, giving teams both the intelligence and the KPIs needed to understand what they’re doing well in addition to identifying what they could do better.

zAdviser for evidence-based decision making
It’s practically a cliché to observe that you can’t manage what you can’t measure. In our case, it can be updated to say you can’t compete in today’s digital economy if you aren’t continuously measuring and continuously improving development processes and behaviors. Today, IT development and operations have available to them more and different types of data than ever before with more being added almost continuously.

zAdviser presents results via data-rich dashboards…(and) customers work with Compuware staff to explore data to understand correlation between developer behaviors and KPIs.

This is the realm of Compuware zAdviser, which applies advanced machine learning algorithms to metrics captured on the usage of Compuware mainframe tools and popular third-party solutions such as Atlassian Jira and ServiceNow, as well as many source code management (SCM) systems. zAdviser continuously measures and analyzes data and presents the results via data-rich dashboards, built on Elastic’s Elastic Cloud service and its Kibana data visualization technology. Customers then work with Compuware to explore their data to understand the correlation between developer behaviors and KPIs. DevOps leaders can use the actionable insights zAdviser uncovers to make informed decisions about what they need to improve. 

The KPIs


zAdviser calculates and reports on specific KPIs that have been proven to relate to and impact mainframe DevOps and development processes. (Compuware has some 15 years of experience in analyzing data provided by their customers to optimize ROI of their tools.) Compuware identified velocity, quality, efficiency and (employee) engagement as the significant KPIs to track. These are defined as:
  1. Velocity – volume of work completed in a fixed amount of time (lead time, cycle time);
  2. Quality – measure of good vs. bad results (e.g. ratio of number of escaped vs. abends trapped and percent programmers using code coverage);
  3. Efficiency - ability to execute without waste (MTTR, # features developed, MTTD);
  4.  Engagement – interest and involvement of employees in organizational success (anonymized answers to questions to employees).
Secure Streaming of Data
Data can be streamed into zAdviser via Amazon Web Services (AWS). Data is securely delivered via HTTPS, with encryption in transit and at rest, for processing and analysis. Alternatively, enterprises can periodically extract the usage data and use either FTP or the zAdviser File Transfer app for delivery to zAdviser.

zAdviser has been third-party (VeraSafe) certified as GDPR compliant in three critical areas: data storage (encryption), data removal (right to be forgotten), and data masking (of user IDs).

The Final Word
We’ve elected to focus on zAdviser as an unparalleled tool for providing insight to track performance and plan effective action that improves the critical metrics. Demos of the latest version of zAdviser were very impressive. This was especially so in terms of the depth and richness of the feedback on the currently implemented analysis and dashboard. The existing options available to the client are impressive. We expect that future abilities will also excite and delight customers. If you are either just embarking on a transformation project, or have already launched, or even completed a transformation, we think there is significant value to be gained in examining what zAdviser can do for you.

Finally, we are looking forward to next quarter’s release from Compuware. In the meantime, congratulations to the Compuware team. We think current customers will be pleased. Another important item to keep in mind—zAdviser and all its functionality is available at no additional cost to maintenance-current customers!

You’ll find more what we’ve written about zAdviser and Compuware’s Topaz family of products here[2] and on the Ptak Associates Tech Blog[3].

 

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