CA Technologies unites System z and Cloud

“Businesses today are operating at a velocity that has introduced incredible and sometimes unexpected demand on the data center. The emergence of shadow IT and the explosion of mobile applications are forcing data center operations to dynamically expand and contract at the will of the user,” said Michael Madden, general manager, Mainframe, CA Technologies. “By providing the tools that marry the capabilities of System z and the cloud we are helping customers efficiently and cost-effectively deliver an expanded portfolio of IT services designed for business responsiveness.”

Blending System z with cloud infrastructures offers greater flexibility to manage the dynamic data center and balance workloads across platforms. A commissioned study* conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of IBM, says organizations that include mainframe in cloud infrastructures can enable a broad mix of infrastructure service options. “You could offer Linux virtual machines from both the mainframe (when high SLAs are sought) and from commodity infrastructure (when SLAs are lower). Mainframes also can better accommodate high densities of very small workloads with resource guarantees — something very difficult to achieve on commodity resources,” the study further stated.

CA Technologies is supporting System z and the cloud with several new releases that power the dynamic data center with improved efficiencies and cost savings. Today’s announcement includes:
· CA Cloud Storage for System z: When used with Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud storage and the Riverbed Whitewater™ cloud storage appliance, CA Cloud Storage for System z helps customers lower storage costs to pennies per gigabyte and improve storage management operations. Please see related press release for additional information.
· CA AppLogic® for System z: provides the optimal platform for a company’s private cloud initiatives. It helps customers deliver business services and address the technology mandates for increased scale requirements and server consolidation by providing a turnkey solution for Linux deployments on System z. The solution accelerates and simplifies the design and deployment of Linux systems on the mainframe by providing architects with drag and drop functionality to build entire applications and deploy them in minutes.
· CA VM:Manager™ Suite for Linux on System z: New releases of CA z/VM solutions optimize the mainframe virtual environment to better support cloud computing and server consolidation initiatives. Enhanced support for IBM z/VM 6.3, which enables Linux guests to be easily moved across a single system image cluster, helps customers control costs, improve performance and increase user productivity to maximize the z/VM systems that support Linux.

“The growth of System z and the increased adoption of Linux on the mainframe make it an optimal platform for reliably and cost effectively delivering IT services that support opportunities around cloud, big data and mobile,” said Joe Clabby, president, Clabby Analytics. “The innovations from CA Technologies empower next-generation IT workers to bridge the hybrid IT gap and manage the cross-enterprise and cross-platform operations in today’s dynamic data center with the speed and efficiency that businesses demand.”

Customers can further enhance their application delivery for System z by incorporating the CA LISA® Service Virtualization solution into their development operations. The solution allows customers to create simulations of their mainframe environments freeing development and test teams from common constraints such as system unavailability and conflicting development schedules. The latest version CA LISA 7.1 offers new and enhanced mainframe features including support for more mainframe protocols and the ability to virtualize more types of mainframe implementations. Enhanced mainframe support includes the IMS Connect protocol for IMS gateway transactions and full support for standard system IRM headers (LLLL/LL ZZ) and COBOL copybook or XML parsers used with IMS Connect.

Additional solutions and capabilities supporting System z were announced today to help customers optimize performance and more easily manage mainframe applications within the dynamic data center. For more information on the solutions, which include CA File Master Plus, CA Endevor® Software Change Manager and CA Sysview Performance Management, please visit CA Mainframe Voice.

Together these solutions reflect the commitment CA Technologies has to help companies harness the full capabilities of System z and the cloud, so they can improve business services for employees and customers at high speed, low cost and minimal risk.