Mainframe Blog

Quarterly Updates: Building Better Mainframe Products for Security, Systems, Data, and Cost Management – Q4 2018

3 minute read
John McKenny

Every three months, we update you on key product releases, enhancements, expanded capabilities, and the progress we make as we strive to lead the industry with innovative mainframe products. Q4 2018 was an exciting quarter for BMC. New capabilities delivered to you include: new security products to give you a real-time 360-degree perspective on mainframe security events helping you better protect your mainframe data and your systems, more ways to evaluate and model the impact of container pricing models, and advancements in customer experience – helping make your teams more effective and efficient.

Our customers help drive and direct our innovation. Much of what they tell us is echoed in our mainframe study and four strategic themes emerge that drive our product roadmaps.

  1. Security and Compliance
  2. Analytics and Automation
  3. Cost Efficiency
  4. Customer Experience

Paving the Way to a Self-Managing Mainframe

BMC Automated Mainframe Intelligence (AMI) solutions combine built-in domain expertise, machine learning, intelligent automation, and predictive analytics to help enterprises automatically manage, diagnose, heal, secure, and optimize mainframe processes. Enterprise IT teams are experiencing complexity at an accelerating rate, and data and transaction volumes are exploding – all while trying to manage a changing workforce, close the skills gap, and optimize costs. That is why BMC product teams are dedicated to building products that will keep your mainframe environment secure, performing optimally, and in the most cost-effective manner.

Our recent expansion into the Security space with our AMI for Security Solutions is one example of our commitment to building a comprehensive, end-to-end solution platform for mainframe management. IT professionals have turned to solutions that extend real-time visibility into mainframes for up-to-the-second security notifications and faster remediation of a breach event. A study sponsored by IBM Security and conducted by Ponemon Institute supports the idea of a “self-managing mainframe” and found that total costs of a breach can be reduced with widely deployed, automated security technologies using artificial intelligence, machine learning and automation.

Here are the most notable new products and features released in Q4. Click here for more detailed technical bulletins and release notes.

  1. Security and Compliance:
    • Strengthen enterprise-wide security by capturing security related event data in real-time and making that information available to all the industry leading Enterprise SIEMS, AMI for Security helps ensure your mainframe is secure.
    • Use out-of-the-box capabilities and audit scorecards in AMI for Security that help you meet requirements set forth by PCI DSS, HIPAA, GDPR and other standards
    • Improve recovery performance by reducing CPU and elapsed time for rebuilding indexes with Recovery Management for Db2
    • Improve security and provide audit information easily with MainView for IMS
  2. Analytics and Automation:
    • Reduce mean time to problem resolution by correlating threads to transactions across subsystems with MainView for Db2
    • Enhance higher availability and scalability in MainView for CICS 6.9
    • Reduce mean time to problem resolution through automated collection of diagnostic data in MainView AutoOPERATOR
    • Enhance scalability with support for extremely large DSSIZES in our NGT utilities for Db2
    • Improve performance and support for Db2 changes by integrating NGT Load and NGT Unload to Change Manager and the ability to manage NGT Utilities through Catalog Manager for Db2
    • Dynamically control Db2 Buffer Pool Thresholds and monitor performance in real-time with Pool Advisor for Db2
  3. Cost Efficiency
    • Take advantage of IBM’s Container and Mobile Workloads pricing models with Cost Analyzer for zEnterprise
    • Reduce costs and monitor performance at higher levels with SmartTune for AppTune and dive down for information as needed with SQL Performance for Db2
  4. Customer Experience
    • Improve ease of administration and maintenance and enhance reporting with access to detailed data in MainView for CICS 6.9
    • Improve productivity and staff efficiency with MainView AutoOPERATOR 8.2
    • Single-view access in MainView infrastructure with support for EZADMIN
    • Optimized modern user interface in Cost Analyzer to improve user experience and performance
      Improve ease of use with dynamic trace print formats in MainView for Db2

We believe the mainframe has a very important future ahead and will continue to run and operate businesses effectively, and we intend to bring more solutions to help you do that. I want to thank our valued clients for helping us shape our business and giving us the chance to do what we love, building better mainframe solutions for security, systems, data, and cost management.

Access the 2023 Mainframe Report

The results of the 18th annual BMC Mainframe Survey are in, and the state of the mainframe remains strong. Overall perception of the mainframe is positive, as is the outlook for future growth on the platform, with workloads growing and investment in new technologies and processes increasing.


These postings are my own and do not necessarily represent BMC's position, strategies, or opinion.

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About the author

John McKenny

As SVP and General Manager of Intelligent Z Optimization and Transformation at BMC Software, John leads the R&D, Product Management and Solutions Marketing teams to innovate the mainframe to meet the needs of today’s evolving digital economy. John has over 25 years of management experience at BMC alone and, prior to joining, he led various IT management teams and strategies for 15 years in the transportation and insurance industries.