Application Performance Management

• Wayne Kernochan

  Expert -Wayne Kernochan is the President of Infostructure Associates, an affiliate of Valley View Ventures and has been an IT industry analyst for 22 years.

• VDI puts data center networks to the test

  News -Virtual desktop infrastructure pulls endpoint management to the core of the enterprise data center, taxing data center networks.

• Using agile development to boost mainframe performance

  Tip -Cutting the time to fix bugs and release new versions with agile development on mainframes offers a variety of benefits.

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• NHL data centers serve up HD video, data for fans

  News -The National Hockey League's infrastructure must stream 40 games a week online in HD and make mountains of statistics accessible to fans.

• A data center colo expands its CMDB to include facility items

  News -A data center colocation company now includes facility items in its configuration management database to more quickly identify which customers could be affected by an outage.

• Data center operations and maintenance best practices for critical facilities

  News -This tip discusses best practices associated with the operations and maintenance (O&M) processes for data center facilities, including the physical aspects of critical infrastructures, staffing considerations, and appropriate O&M processes, tools, and procedures necessary to support the demands of 7/24/forever expectations.

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• Facebook Open Compute Project a role model for data centers

  News -Data center experts say most enterprises can’t imitate Facebook’s Open Compute Project, but they could reap the benefits over time.

• Optimize data center virtualization with strategic capacity planning

  Tip -Use strategic capacity planning to future-proof your data center's virtualization efficiency and make the most of server hardware.

• 'Big data' shops eye cheaper four-socket Intel Xeon servers

  News -What once required high-end Intel E7 processors and motherboards now fits into a lower-cost E5-4600 four-socket Intel Xeon system, suitable for scale-out workloads in HPC and big data.

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• abend (abnormal end)

  Definition -An abend (a combining of two words, abnormal end, when operator messages were as short as possible) is an abnormal, rather than planned, end or termination of a computer program because of some problem with how it is running.

• COBOL (Common Business Oriented Language)

  Definition -COBOL (Common Business Oriented Language) was the first widely-used high-level programming language for business applications. Many payroll, accounting, and other business application programs written in COBOL over the past 35 years are still in use.

• The mainframe is 45 years old

  News -In the early 1960s, IBM took a risk to develop the System/360, the precursor to the modern mainframe. Over 45 years later, IBM can point to unbroken mainframe compatibility.

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• Wayne Kernochan

  Expert -Wayne Kernochan is the President of Infostructure Associates, an affiliate of Valley View Ventures and has been an IT industry analyst for 22 years.

• IBM's big iron sales down but mainframes not on way out, say experts

  News -Does IBM's recent drop in mainframe sales indicate big iron modernization tools are gaining traction?

• IBM welcomes Windows to zEnterprise mainframe family

  News -As promised, IBM will support Windows Server as part of its zEnterprise BladeCenter Extension, or zBX.

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• The future of systems programming

  Tip -A mainframe expert, who has seen more than 30 years of systems programming and technology changes, offers his opinion on how outsourcing and skill shortage will continue to change the field.

• IBM launches mainframe job board: News in brief

  News -Mainframe pros get a new source for System z jobs, and other data center news.

• Mainframe problem analysis: What's the worst that could happen?

  Feature -In this mainframe humor observation, an overconfident programmer gets more than he bargained for when he takes his shot at analyzing a TSO problem.

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• Wayne Kernochan

  Expert -Wayne Kernochan is the President of Infostructure Associates, an affiliate of Valley View Ventures and has been an IT industry analyst for 22 years.

• IBM's big iron sales down but mainframes not on way out, say experts

  News -Does IBM's recent drop in mainframe sales indicate big iron modernization tools are gaining traction?

• Strategies for mainframe application modernization

  Tip -Mainframe application modernization, re-engineering or distributed integration can maintain support for business-critical applications.

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• Changes to z/OS 1.13 help Java adoption and boost mainframe capacity

  Tip -Updates to zFS, better Java performance and tweaks to z/OSMF make IBM's z/OS 1.13 a solid release for developers.

• Basic Assembler Language (BAL)

  Definition -BAL (Basic Assembler Language) is a version of IBM's assembler language (sometimes called assembly language) for its System/360 and System/370 mainframe operating system.

• data center infrastructure efficiency (DCIE)

  Definition -Data center infrastructure efficiency (DCIE) is a metric used to determine the energy efficiency of a data center. The metric, which is expressed as a percentage, is calculated by dividing IT equipment power by total facility power. (Continued...)

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• Data center management for geographically split data centers

  Tip -Geographically split data centers can reduce disaster recovery time to zero, but splitting data centers requires an intelligent network and savvy data center management.

• Do columnar databases have a future in the mainframe?

  Tip -IBM has included Smart Analystics Optimizer, a columnar appliance, in its latest zEnterprise mainframe. Will columnar technology help keep the mainframe relevant?

• An introduction to mainframe backup utilities

  Tip -In order to meet today's storage needs, a system backup strategy needs to be both comprehensive and fine-grained. A mainframe expert details two IBM mainframe backup utilities -- IEBCOMPR and IEBCOPY -- that make up a comprehensive and fine-grained system backup strategy.

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• Changes to z/OS 1.13 help Java adoption and boost mainframe capacity

  Tip -Updates to zFS, better Java performance and tweaks to z/OSMF make IBM's z/OS 1.13 a solid release for developers.

• IBM's big iron sales down but mainframes not on way out, say experts

  News -Does IBM's recent drop in mainframe sales indicate big iron modernization tools are gaining traction?

• Using agile development to boost mainframe performance

  Tip -Cutting the time to fix bugs and release new versions with agile development on mainframes offers a variety of benefits.

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