I introduced IBM Mobile Workload Pricing for z/OS some time ago and I also wrote a follow-up post on how to use the IBM Mobile Workload Tool, but now there's also a nice set of documents on TechDocs that I like to share with you. They're not about pricing, but they're about the real mobile workloads and how you can set them up. The documents are grouped under the common denominator : 'Reference Architectures for Mobile on System z' and you can find them over here.
The first 'System z Mobile Reference Architecture' provides information on standard architectures and configurations that can be used to create the infrastructure for mobile applications on System z. Some topics are Components of a mobile architecture, Mobile topology choices, MobileFirst Platform in production, MobileFirst Platform in dev/test, Scalability and performance considerations ...
The second 'System z Mobile Connectivity Guide' provides an overview and some detail on the ways mobile applications can connect to System z and System z transactions. Some topics are Summary of z mobile connectivity options including MobileFirst Platform Foundation, Details about Push Notification, IBM API Management, CICS, IMS, DB2, WMB ...
The third 'Mobile Security Guide and Security Reference Architecture' provides information on creating secure mobile application infrastructures on System z. It covers the MobileFirst security products and how those can be used to secure mobile applications on System z. This guide is meant to identify the key security components of a mobile solution, where they all run, and how they interact. It also shows examples of some specific mobile environments and how their security requirements can be met.
Showing posts with label Mobile. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mobile. Show all posts
Monday, January 12, 2015
Wednesday, July 16, 2014
Get started with the IBM Mobile Workload Pricing for z/OS
A couple of months ago I wrote about the announcement of the new Mobile Workload Pricing mechnanism for z/OS. I also told you that this was going GA in July but so far I didn't see much of it on the IBM Software Pricing page I usually turn to when I'm looking for information on z/OS pricing.
So I started asking about a bit and David Chase from IBM who gave such a clarifying presentation about the topic during the System z Technical University in Budapest pointed me in the right direction. And yes, the Users Guide and the tool itself are already online. You can find the 'IBM Mobile Workload Tool' (mwrtool.exe) over here. And the 'IBM Mobile Workload Reporting Tool Users Guide' can be found over here. The Users Guide explains step by step how you have to set up the tool (on a Windows 7 64-bit), how you collect the necessary input, how you use the tool and how you submit your report to IBM.
Of course there's a bit more to this. Before you can start submitting the report be sure that you fulfill the requirements. Have a look at my previous post and the announcement to refresh your memory. And then there remains one more question : how do you separate the mobile workload from the rest. This will of course be different per customer. As a matter of fact, you are the only one who knows your shop and can determine this. And this is exactly how it will be done. You will make up a list of your mobile workload and how you can trace it. This will be the basis for an agreement you sign with IBM after a meeting with your IBM representative.
Then one more thing : what will be the benefits ? This is how I understand it for the moment. Suppose you have an LPAR running z/OS and CICS reporting 400 MSU for billing purposes. You will measure the CICS usage and let's say this is 200 MSU. The mobile part of that is e.g. 50% of that 200 MSU. You can subtract 60% from that mobile use. 60% of 100 MSU is 60 MSU so you keep 40 MSU for you mobile workload. 100 MSU plus 40 MSU means you keep 140 MSU of the original 200 MSU. But here comes the beautiful part of the system. You can subtract the 60 MSU from your billing total. So, of the originally reported 400 MSU you only keep 340 MSU for that partition. So where SCRT calculated the Rolling 4-Hour Average, MWRT will make an adjustment to that. As a matter of fact, MWRT will make this adjustment by the hour and then calculate a new Rolling 4-Hour Average. This also implies that it's not only e.g. CICS that benefits from this pricing but z/OS and other softwares as well.
So, as I said in the title of the post : Get Started !
So I started asking about a bit and David Chase from IBM who gave such a clarifying presentation about the topic during the System z Technical University in Budapest pointed me in the right direction. And yes, the Users Guide and the tool itself are already online. You can find the 'IBM Mobile Workload Tool' (mwrtool.exe) over here. And the 'IBM Mobile Workload Reporting Tool Users Guide' can be found over here. The Users Guide explains step by step how you have to set up the tool (on a Windows 7 64-bit), how you collect the necessary input, how you use the tool and how you submit your report to IBM.
Of course there's a bit more to this. Before you can start submitting the report be sure that you fulfill the requirements. Have a look at my previous post and the announcement to refresh your memory. And then there remains one more question : how do you separate the mobile workload from the rest. This will of course be different per customer. As a matter of fact, you are the only one who knows your shop and can determine this. And this is exactly how it will be done. You will make up a list of your mobile workload and how you can trace it. This will be the basis for an agreement you sign with IBM after a meeting with your IBM representative.
Then one more thing : what will be the benefits ? This is how I understand it for the moment. Suppose you have an LPAR running z/OS and CICS reporting 400 MSU for billing purposes. You will measure the CICS usage and let's say this is 200 MSU. The mobile part of that is e.g. 50% of that 200 MSU. You can subtract 60% from that mobile use. 60% of 100 MSU is 60 MSU so you keep 40 MSU for you mobile workload. 100 MSU plus 40 MSU means you keep 140 MSU of the original 200 MSU. But here comes the beautiful part of the system. You can subtract the 60 MSU from your billing total. So, of the originally reported 400 MSU you only keep 340 MSU for that partition. So where SCRT calculated the Rolling 4-Hour Average, MWRT will make an adjustment to that. As a matter of fact, MWRT will make this adjustment by the hour and then calculate a new Rolling 4-Hour Average. This also implies that it's not only e.g. CICS that benefits from this pricing but z/OS and other softwares as well.
So, as I said in the title of the post : Get Started !
Tuesday, May 6, 2014
IBM Mobile Workload Pricing for z/OS
Today IBM officially announced the pricing mechanism it already revealed during the April 8 z Anniversary event : 'IBM Mobile Workload Pricing for z/OS can reduce the cost of growth for mobile transactions (ZP14-0280)'. Before giving you the details I'd like to share this video about the First National Bank of South Africa because it illustrates so clearly what mobile is all about.
Combining mobile and mainframe is answering some real concerns or requirements of companies and people using the applications. Mobile is a rapidly growing market generating lots of transactions on lots of data. And as you could see in the video the data must always be up to date. We can no longer afford to offer copies of data, so what's better than to incorporate mobile with the company's primary data. Data that's residing on the mainframe . . . where it always has been.
Now, this new pricing mechanism makes sure you're not penalized for following just that strategy. "This enhancement to sub-capacity reporting can mitigate the impact of mobile workloads on sub-capacity license charges, specifically in the cases where higher mobile transaction volumes may cause a spike in machine utilization. This can normalize the rate of transaction growth and reduce the reported peak capacity values used for sub-capacity charges".
There are some prerequisites of course : it's limited to AWLC and AEWLC pricing which means to zEC12 and zBC12 or environments that have at least one zEC12 or zBC12. You also need to install a new reporting tool that will, in this case, replace SCRT : Mobile Workload Reporting Tool (MWRT). It's use, data collection and timing of reporting is very similar to SCRT. What's the difference ?
Combining mobile and mainframe is answering some real concerns or requirements of companies and people using the applications. Mobile is a rapidly growing market generating lots of transactions on lots of data. And as you could see in the video the data must always be up to date. We can no longer afford to offer copies of data, so what's better than to incorporate mobile with the company's primary data. Data that's residing on the mainframe . . . where it always has been.
Now, this new pricing mechanism makes sure you're not penalized for following just that strategy. "This enhancement to sub-capacity reporting can mitigate the impact of mobile workloads on sub-capacity license charges, specifically in the cases where higher mobile transaction volumes may cause a spike in machine utilization. This can normalize the rate of transaction growth and reduce the reported peak capacity values used for sub-capacity charges".
There are some prerequisites of course : it's limited to AWLC and AEWLC pricing which means to zEC12 and zBC12 or environments that have at least one zEC12 or zBC12. You also need to install a new reporting tool that will, in this case, replace SCRT : Mobile Workload Reporting Tool (MWRT). It's use, data collection and timing of reporting is very similar to SCRT. What's the difference ?
"MWRT will calculate the 4-hour rolling average of the reported mobile transaction general purpose processor time consumed by the Mobile Workload Pricing Defining Programs and subtract 60% of those values from the traditional sub-capacity MSUs for all sub-capacity eligible programs running in the same LPAR(s) as the mobile workloads, on an hour-by-hour basis, per LPAR. The program values for the same hour are summed across all of the LPARs (and any z/OS guest systems running under z/VM®) in which the program runs to create an adjusted sub-capacity value for the program, for the given machine, for each hour. MWRT will determine the billable MSU peak for a given program on a machine using the adjusted MSU values".You can find all additional details in the announcement itself. And . . . you have some time to figure out how things work as MWRT becomes available on June 30, 2014 and the first report can be submitted as of July 2, 2014.
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