We were only just beginning to get our heads around Hadoop and Big Data in general when we find everyone is starting to talk about Big Data 2.0 – and it’s bigger, faster, and cleverer!
Hadoop, as I’m sure you know, is an open source project, and it’s available from companies like IBM, Hortonworks, Cloudera, and MapR. It provides a storage and retrieval method (HDFS – Hadoop Distributed File System) that can knock the socks off older, more expensive storage options on databases using SAN or NAS. It also means that more data can be stored. And that means not just human-keyed data, but data from the information of things (point of sales machines, sensors, cameras, etc) as well as social media. It’s an OCD sufferer’s dream come true. No need to delete (throw away) anything. But with all the data, it becomes important to find some way to ‘mine’ it – to derive information from the data that can be commercially useful. And that’s what’s happening, deeper and richer sets of results are being derived from the data that are beneficial to organizations.
With Version 2 of Hadoop, everything is faster. Data is processed at amazing speeds in-memory. The analysis is taking place at speed on terabytes of data. It also allows decisions to be made at speeds unavailable to humans. Research shows that algorithms with as many six variables out-perform human experts in most situations. This was tested on experts predicting the price of wine in future years and stock marketeers. So now, Big Data 2.0 means better decisions can be made at incredible speed.
It’s also possible for machines to learn using these techniques – such as the Google classic of having software that can identify the presence of a cat in video footage and no-one being quite sure how it is doing it.
For mainframe sites, Hadoop isn’t just some distant dream. You don’t need a room full of Linux servers to make it work – in fact that’s the clue to the solution. Much of this works very nicely on Linux on System z (or zLinux as many people still think of it). And once the data is on a mainframe, it becomes very easy to copy parts of it to a z/OS partition for more work to be done on the data. Cognos BI runs on the zLinux partition, so the first level of information extraction can be performed using that Business Intelligence tool. Software vendors are coming to market with products that run on the mainframe. BMC has extended its Control-M automated mainframe job scheduler with Control-M for Hadoop. Syncsort has Hadoop Connectivity. Compuware has extended its Application Performance Management (APM) software with Compuware APM for Big Data. And Informatica PowerExchange for Hadoop provides connectivity to the Hadoop Distributed File System (HDFS).
So what’s it like on the ground and away from the PowerPoint slides? At the moment, my experience is that really big companies – Google, Amazon, Facebook, and similar are pushing the envelope with Big Data. But it seems that many large organizations aren’t strongly embracing the new technology. Do banks, insurance companies, and airlines – the main users of mainframes – see a need for Big Data? Seemingly not – or not yet. Perhaps they are waiting for money to be spent and mistakes to be made before they adopt best practice and reap the benefits. Perhaps they are waiting for Big Data V3?
Big Data is definitely here to stay and those companies that could benefit from its adoption will gain a huge commercial advantage when they do.
Showing posts with label Compuware. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Compuware. Show all posts
Saturday, 1 March 2014
Sunday, 16 February 2014
IBM resizing and other news
IBMers across the globe must be wondering what’s going on as IBM starts to axe job and downsize its workforce. Particularly badly hit seems to be the Indian subcontinent and Europe. It looks like IBM is reducing commodity equipment staff in favour of software staff.
In Europe, figures being quoted are up to 500 people in France, 430 in Italy, 240 in the Netherlands, 105 in Belgium, and 35 in Norway. It looks like worldwide job cuts could reach 15,000.
IBM recently sold its System X server to Lenovo and, so, many of the job cuts have come from its Systems and Technology Group (STG).
There’s also some talk about IBM asking Goldman Sachs to value its chip division. The implication is that IBM will then sell that off – leading to a further drop in its head count.
Irrespective of that suggestion, we find that Samsung Electronics has joined IBM’s OpenPOWER Consortium. OpenPOWER (announced last August) is a way for companies to licence the architecture and customize it for their specific needs – in the same way that ARM does with its chips. Other group members include Google, Nvidia, Mellanox, and Tyan. IBM has also announced it’s putting up over $1bn to encourage Linux development on the chips – hopefully increasing their usage.
Meanwhile, IBM’s Chief Executive Officer, Ginni Rometty has been to Beijing for three days of meetings with government leaders.
It’s not all bad news from mainframe companies in India, CA Technologies has announced a strategic partnership with IDG Ventures India, a technology venture capital fund investing in India, to help drive innovation in the enterprise software market.
However, it’s not all good news for CA. It recently reported 8 percent lower earnings for its third quarter compared to the previous year. Net income in the three months fell to $232 million. So per-share net income fell 7 percent to 51 cents. Revenues in the quarter of $1.163 billion were down 3 percent from last year.
It seems that layoffs are expected at Compuware, but this is the final phase of its planned cost-cutting, and brings its headcount down to mid-1990s levels.
Over at BMC, things seem more upbeat. They have announced BMC Engage 2014, an IT management conference that will offer new ideas and insights to help people use technology platforms – from mainframe to cloud to mobile – to achieve organizational and market objectives, and drive major business transformations – they claim. It runs from 13 to 16 October at the Walt Disney World Swan and Dolphin in Orlando, Florida.
Over at Microsoft, new CEO, Satya Nadella, has e-mailed staff saying: “We must zero in on what Microsoft can uniquely contribute to the world”. That is, perhaps, harder than you might think in a world full of Apple and Samsung devices, and with Google pretty much ‘owning’ the Web.
An interesting week!
In Europe, figures being quoted are up to 500 people in France, 430 in Italy, 240 in the Netherlands, 105 in Belgium, and 35 in Norway. It looks like worldwide job cuts could reach 15,000.
IBM recently sold its System X server to Lenovo and, so, many of the job cuts have come from its Systems and Technology Group (STG).
There’s also some talk about IBM asking Goldman Sachs to value its chip division. The implication is that IBM will then sell that off – leading to a further drop in its head count.
Irrespective of that suggestion, we find that Samsung Electronics has joined IBM’s OpenPOWER Consortium. OpenPOWER (announced last August) is a way for companies to licence the architecture and customize it for their specific needs – in the same way that ARM does with its chips. Other group members include Google, Nvidia, Mellanox, and Tyan. IBM has also announced it’s putting up over $1bn to encourage Linux development on the chips – hopefully increasing their usage.
Meanwhile, IBM’s Chief Executive Officer, Ginni Rometty has been to Beijing for three days of meetings with government leaders.
It’s not all bad news from mainframe companies in India, CA Technologies has announced a strategic partnership with IDG Ventures India, a technology venture capital fund investing in India, to help drive innovation in the enterprise software market.
However, it’s not all good news for CA. It recently reported 8 percent lower earnings for its third quarter compared to the previous year. Net income in the three months fell to $232 million. So per-share net income fell 7 percent to 51 cents. Revenues in the quarter of $1.163 billion were down 3 percent from last year.
It seems that layoffs are expected at Compuware, but this is the final phase of its planned cost-cutting, and brings its headcount down to mid-1990s levels.
Over at BMC, things seem more upbeat. They have announced BMC Engage 2014, an IT management conference that will offer new ideas and insights to help people use technology platforms – from mainframe to cloud to mobile – to achieve organizational and market objectives, and drive major business transformations – they claim. It runs from 13 to 16 October at the Walt Disney World Swan and Dolphin in Orlando, Florida.
Over at Microsoft, new CEO, Satya Nadella, has e-mailed staff saying: “We must zero in on what Microsoft can uniquely contribute to the world”. That is, perhaps, harder than you might think in a world full of Apple and Samsung devices, and with Google pretty much ‘owning’ the Web.
An interesting week!
Sunday, 3 November 2013
When worlds collide
We know that mainframes are rock solid workhorses that ensure the banks and insurance companies and airlines and pretty much every other large organization get their work done correctly and swiftly. And we know that access to mainframes has been extended outside the world of green screens to anyone on a browser with proper authorization. And we also know that there’s little distinction between the world of cloud computing and distributed mainframe computing. But the latest big thing is Big Data – and that seems like a different world.
Big Data is used to refer to huge amounts (exabytes) of data, often unstructured, that can originate from a variety of sources – such as cameras, weather satellites, credit card machines, barcode readers, the Internet of Things, anything! This Big Data usually sits on Linux or Windows boxes and some of the early developers were Google, Amazon, and Facebook. The data is stored in HBase, a non-relational, distributed database, written in Java. And the file system is what’s called a Hadoop Distributed File System (HDFS). At runtime, a process maps the data and reduces it – that’s called MapReduce.
So how do these two worlds come together? For a start a lot of the things you need for Big Data are Open Source and come from the Apache Foundation. IBM is a member of the foundation and has a number of products that extend Big Data’s functionality. IBM provides InfoSphere BigInsights, Data Stage, Streams, and Guardium. There’s Big SQL with Big Insights V2.1, and the spreadsheet-like Big Sheets.
If you want to run Big Data – Hadoop – on your mainframe, you’ll need to do it in a Linux partition (Linux on System z). But IBM isn’t the only mainframe software vendor that’s getting in on the act. We’ve recently heard from BMC, Syncsort, Compuware, and Informatica about their products.
BMC has extended its Control-M automated mainframe job scheduler with Control-M for Hadoop. The product enables the creation and management of Hadoop workflows in an automated environment and is aimed at Hadoop application developers and enterprise IT administrators who are using Hadoop as part of their production workload.
Syncsort has Hadoop Connectivity, which prevents Hadoop becoming another silo within an enterprise. The product makes it easy to get data in and out of Hadoop. The product provides: native connectivity to all major data sources and targets; native mainframe connectivity and support for EBCDIC/ASCII, VSAM, Packed decimal, Comp-3, and more; heterogeneous database access on Hadoop; direct I/O access for faster data transfers; and high-performance compression.
Compuware has extended its Application Performance Management (APM) software with Compuware APM for Big Data. This, they claim, allows organizations to tame Big Data applications to eliminate inefficiencies and rapidly identify and resolve problems. Using PurePath Technology, it provides visibility into Hadoop and NoSQL applications. Organizations, they say, use Compuware APM for Big Data to reduce costs, analyse issues, and ensure optimal efficiency from their Big Data investments.
Informatica PowerExchange for Hadoop provides native high-performance connectivity to the Hadoop Distributed File System (HDFS). It enables organizations to take advantage of Hadoop’s storage and processing power using their existing IT infrastructure and resources. PowerExchange for Hadoop can bring any and all enterprise data into Hadoop for data integration and processing. Fully integrated with Informatica PowerCenter, it moves data into and out of Hadoop in batch or real time using universal connectivity to all data, including mainframe, databases, and applications, both on-premises and in the cloud. Informatica PowerCenter Big Data Edition is, they claim, highly scalable, high-performance enterprise data integration software that works with both Hadoop and traditional data management infrastructures.
Clearly, these two different worlds have more than collided – we are beginning to see the integration of these previously quite separate worlds with software from a number of vendors helping users with the integration process. And as users, we get the best of both worlds!
Big Data is used to refer to huge amounts (exabytes) of data, often unstructured, that can originate from a variety of sources – such as cameras, weather satellites, credit card machines, barcode readers, the Internet of Things, anything! This Big Data usually sits on Linux or Windows boxes and some of the early developers were Google, Amazon, and Facebook. The data is stored in HBase, a non-relational, distributed database, written in Java. And the file system is what’s called a Hadoop Distributed File System (HDFS). At runtime, a process maps the data and reduces it – that’s called MapReduce.
So how do these two worlds come together? For a start a lot of the things you need for Big Data are Open Source and come from the Apache Foundation. IBM is a member of the foundation and has a number of products that extend Big Data’s functionality. IBM provides InfoSphere BigInsights, Data Stage, Streams, and Guardium. There’s Big SQL with Big Insights V2.1, and the spreadsheet-like Big Sheets.
If you want to run Big Data – Hadoop – on your mainframe, you’ll need to do it in a Linux partition (Linux on System z). But IBM isn’t the only mainframe software vendor that’s getting in on the act. We’ve recently heard from BMC, Syncsort, Compuware, and Informatica about their products.
BMC has extended its Control-M automated mainframe job scheduler with Control-M for Hadoop. The product enables the creation and management of Hadoop workflows in an automated environment and is aimed at Hadoop application developers and enterprise IT administrators who are using Hadoop as part of their production workload.
Syncsort has Hadoop Connectivity, which prevents Hadoop becoming another silo within an enterprise. The product makes it easy to get data in and out of Hadoop. The product provides: native connectivity to all major data sources and targets; native mainframe connectivity and support for EBCDIC/ASCII, VSAM, Packed decimal, Comp-3, and more; heterogeneous database access on Hadoop; direct I/O access for faster data transfers; and high-performance compression.
Compuware has extended its Application Performance Management (APM) software with Compuware APM for Big Data. This, they claim, allows organizations to tame Big Data applications to eliminate inefficiencies and rapidly identify and resolve problems. Using PurePath Technology, it provides visibility into Hadoop and NoSQL applications. Organizations, they say, use Compuware APM for Big Data to reduce costs, analyse issues, and ensure optimal efficiency from their Big Data investments.
Informatica PowerExchange for Hadoop provides native high-performance connectivity to the Hadoop Distributed File System (HDFS). It enables organizations to take advantage of Hadoop’s storage and processing power using their existing IT infrastructure and resources. PowerExchange for Hadoop can bring any and all enterprise data into Hadoop for data integration and processing. Fully integrated with Informatica PowerCenter, it moves data into and out of Hadoop in batch or real time using universal connectivity to all data, including mainframe, databases, and applications, both on-premises and in the cloud. Informatica PowerCenter Big Data Edition is, they claim, highly scalable, high-performance enterprise data integration software that works with both Hadoop and traditional data management infrastructures.
Clearly, these two different worlds have more than collided – we are beginning to see the integration of these previously quite separate worlds with software from a number of vendors helping users with the integration process. And as users, we get the best of both worlds!
Saturday, 13 April 2013
A bad time for mainframes?
It seems that nowadays is not a good time to be in the world of mainframes, with BMC Software likely to be taken over, Compuware recording a loss, and to add insult to injury, Oracle is talking about releasing a mainframe!
So let’s start with BMC Software, which got its name from its founders back in the early 1980s – Scott Boulette, John Moores, and Dan Cloer. BMC, notably, bought Boole & Babbage at the end of the 1990s and shortly after acquired CONTROL-M and its company, New Dimension Software. But those heady days must seem a long time ago because on 22 April it’s expected to receive final takeover bids.
Elliott Management owns a 9.6 percent stake in BMC, and signed a standstill agreement with BMC last summer, but that ended on 6 April. So they could bid for BMC or nominate directors to its board. People who know about these things are saying that buyout firm Thoma Bravo has joined a bidding group led by KKR & Co LP and TPG Capital LP in order to bid. Their likely rivals are a team comprising Bain Capital LLC and Golden Gate Capital. You can assume people are arranging to have access to large pots of money on the day. Bids are likely to be between $40 and $50 a share. We’ll be watching to see what happens, and, more importantly, what the impact is on users of their mainframe software.
Compuware is probably most famous for its Abend-AID product, which first saw the light of day in the 1970s. In the 1980s, they launched File-AID. Compuware recently reported disappointing fourth-quarter results and said its total year-on-year revenue is expected to drop from $1 billion to between $942 million and $946 million for the fiscal year ending 31 March.
CEO Robert Paul has increased his planned cost-cutting to between $80 million and $100 million over the next two years. (It was $60 million over three years.) A natural consequence of this could be layoffs – and that could impact on the quality of the software mainframe users can get hold of, or may mean longer delays between upgrades.
Interestingly, Elliott Management (see above) is Compuware’s second-largest shareholder, owning 8.7% of the stock. In January, their takeover bid of $2.3 billion ($11-per-share) was rejected by the board. Meanwhile, Sandell Asset Management, which holds 2.8% of Compuware stock, is urging the board to sell the company to the highest bidder as quickly as possible.
And while these mainframe companies are facing financial difficulties, Larry Ellison has launched, what he’s calling, a mainframe-class machine – arguing that any mission-critical app that runs on any Unix system will run better on the new Sparc T5 and M5 servers. In addition, Oracle is claiming that it has passed IBM on integer throughput performance – but that’s compared against IBM Power series.
The big news over at CA Technologies is that CA has filed a patent infringement suit against AppDynamics, which was started by one of its ex-employees. CA got hold of the patents when it bought Wily Technology in 2006. The ex-employee led the design and architecture for several Wily products. You may also remember that last November CA sued New Relic Inc for patent infringements. Again, the founder of New Relic had been a senior executive at Wily.
At least IBM seems to be doing OK. It's just released a $1 billion plan to construct and check Flash technology for enterprise solutions. The technology should assist firms coping with Big Data challenges. The people at UBS have upgraded IBM from ‘neutral’ to ‘buy’, saying IBM has the best strategy of its peers in what it terms the “IT as a service” industry. Plus a new Synergy Research Group study shows that IBM’s share of the cloud infrastructure equipment market has hit a two-year high in the fourth quarter of 2012, reaching just over 19 percent.
So let’s start with BMC Software, which got its name from its founders back in the early 1980s – Scott Boulette, John Moores, and Dan Cloer. BMC, notably, bought Boole & Babbage at the end of the 1990s and shortly after acquired CONTROL-M and its company, New Dimension Software. But those heady days must seem a long time ago because on 22 April it’s expected to receive final takeover bids.
Elliott Management owns a 9.6 percent stake in BMC, and signed a standstill agreement with BMC last summer, but that ended on 6 April. So they could bid for BMC or nominate directors to its board. People who know about these things are saying that buyout firm Thoma Bravo has joined a bidding group led by KKR & Co LP and TPG Capital LP in order to bid. Their likely rivals are a team comprising Bain Capital LLC and Golden Gate Capital. You can assume people are arranging to have access to large pots of money on the day. Bids are likely to be between $40 and $50 a share. We’ll be watching to see what happens, and, more importantly, what the impact is on users of their mainframe software.
Compuware is probably most famous for its Abend-AID product, which first saw the light of day in the 1970s. In the 1980s, they launched File-AID. Compuware recently reported disappointing fourth-quarter results and said its total year-on-year revenue is expected to drop from $1 billion to between $942 million and $946 million for the fiscal year ending 31 March.
CEO Robert Paul has increased his planned cost-cutting to between $80 million and $100 million over the next two years. (It was $60 million over three years.) A natural consequence of this could be layoffs – and that could impact on the quality of the software mainframe users can get hold of, or may mean longer delays between upgrades.
Interestingly, Elliott Management (see above) is Compuware’s second-largest shareholder, owning 8.7% of the stock. In January, their takeover bid of $2.3 billion ($11-per-share) was rejected by the board. Meanwhile, Sandell Asset Management, which holds 2.8% of Compuware stock, is urging the board to sell the company to the highest bidder as quickly as possible.
And while these mainframe companies are facing financial difficulties, Larry Ellison has launched, what he’s calling, a mainframe-class machine – arguing that any mission-critical app that runs on any Unix system will run better on the new Sparc T5 and M5 servers. In addition, Oracle is claiming that it has passed IBM on integer throughput performance – but that’s compared against IBM Power series.
The big news over at CA Technologies is that CA has filed a patent infringement suit against AppDynamics, which was started by one of its ex-employees. CA got hold of the patents when it bought Wily Technology in 2006. The ex-employee led the design and architecture for several Wily products. You may also remember that last November CA sued New Relic Inc for patent infringements. Again, the founder of New Relic had been a senior executive at Wily.
At least IBM seems to be doing OK. It's just released a $1 billion plan to construct and check Flash technology for enterprise solutions. The technology should assist firms coping with Big Data challenges. The people at UBS have upgraded IBM from ‘neutral’ to ‘buy’, saying IBM has the best strategy of its peers in what it terms the “IT as a service” industry. Plus a new Synergy Research Group study shows that IBM’s share of the cloud infrastructure equipment market has hit a two-year high in the fourth quarter of 2012, reaching just over 19 percent.
Sunday, 21 October 2012
Guide Share Europe annual conference
The Guide Share Europe (GSE) UK Annual Conference is taking place on 13-14 November at Whittlebury Hall, Whittlebury, Near Towcester, Northamptonshire NN12 8QH, UK.
Sponsors this year include IBM, Computacenter, PKWARE, CA Technologies, Attachmate Suse, Vanguard, Compuware, GT Software, RSM Partners, Blenheim Software, Sett, and Red Hat. And there will be over 30 vendors in the associated exhibition.
There’s the usual amazing range of streams – and, to be honest, there are a number of occasions when I would like to be in two or more places at once over the two days. The streams are: CICS, IMS, DB2, Enterprise Security, Large Systems Working Group, Network Management Working Group, zLinux, Storage Management, TWS (Tivoli Workload Schedular), Automation, New Technologies, Software Asset Management, MQ, Application Development, and Assembler Training.
There are also keynotes from Mark Anzani, VP and CTO for System z at IBM. And there’s the not-to-be-missed “Dealing with difficult people” session from Resli Costabell.
That means that at this year’s conference there will be well over 140 hours of education covering most aspects of mainframe technology – more than last year. This year, there will be 14 streams of ten sessions over the two days, plus Assembler Training, plus four keynotes.
There is still time to register, and the organizers are expecting the daily total of delegates to exceed 300 – as it did last year.
A number of the streams have 101 sessions at different times during the two days to give newcomers and those unfamiliar with parts of the mainframe infrastructure a basic understanding of the that mainframe technology and how it works.
You can find out more details about the conference at www.gse.org.uk/tyc/.
If you’re still debating whether to go, let me recommend it to you. The quality of presentations is always excellent. And the networking opportunities are brilliant. If you are going, I look forward to seeing you there.
Sponsors this year include IBM, Computacenter, PKWARE, CA Technologies, Attachmate Suse, Vanguard, Compuware, GT Software, RSM Partners, Blenheim Software, Sett, and Red Hat. And there will be over 30 vendors in the associated exhibition.
There’s the usual amazing range of streams – and, to be honest, there are a number of occasions when I would like to be in two or more places at once over the two days. The streams are: CICS, IMS, DB2, Enterprise Security, Large Systems Working Group, Network Management Working Group, zLinux, Storage Management, TWS (Tivoli Workload Schedular), Automation, New Technologies, Software Asset Management, MQ, Application Development, and Assembler Training.
There are also keynotes from Mark Anzani, VP and CTO for System z at IBM. And there’s the not-to-be-missed “Dealing with difficult people” session from Resli Costabell.
That means that at this year’s conference there will be well over 140 hours of education covering most aspects of mainframe technology – more than last year. This year, there will be 14 streams of ten sessions over the two days, plus Assembler Training, plus four keynotes.
There is still time to register, and the organizers are expecting the daily total of delegates to exceed 300 – as it did last year.
A number of the streams have 101 sessions at different times during the two days to give newcomers and those unfamiliar with parts of the mainframe infrastructure a basic understanding of the that mainframe technology and how it works.
You can find out more details about the conference at www.gse.org.uk/tyc/.
If you’re still debating whether to go, let me recommend it to you. The quality of presentations is always excellent. And the networking opportunities are brilliant. If you are going, I look forward to seeing you there.
Sunday, 18 July 2010
Mainframe Workbench from Compuware
Compuware are excited about their "ALL NEW Compuware Mainframe Workbench". They tell me the product is a modernized open development environment that introduces a new graphical user interface for managing mainframe application development activities currently performed in the character-based TSO/ISPF environment. It provides a common framework and single launch-point from which to initiate Compuware's mainframe products. And if your site has other products installed then don't worry, because it's extensible to support other development tooling as well.
Compuware assure me that the look-and-feel of the Workbench is familiar to users accustomed to developing in a GUI, and enables users to interact with mainframes in an intuitive, standardized, and familiar environment. Workbench makes use of Eclipse.
It seems that this initial release consists of a framework (Compuware Workbench 3.0) and modernized user interfaces for Compuware's Abend-AID, Xpediter, and File-AID. It provides:
Compuware assure me that the look-and-feel of the Workbench is familiar to users accustomed to developing in a GUI, and enables users to interact with mainframes in an intuitive, standardized, and familiar environment. Workbench makes use of Eclipse.
It seems that this initial release consists of a framework (Compuware Workbench 3.0) and modernized user interfaces for Compuware's Abend-AID, Xpediter, and File-AID. It provides:
- Mainframe fault diagnosis.
- Application data browse and edit: sequential, indexed, VSAM, DB2, and IMS (to be phased in during this year).
- Mainframe-hosted COBOL, PL/I, C Language, and HLASM debugging.
The Mainframe Workbench provides a framework that delivers additional ISPF-like functionality, including:
- Source code edit (powered by SlickEdit).
- Invocation of mainframe compiler
- JES functions: job submission, review, print, purge.
- Dataset management, ie allocation, compression, deletion.
Full details are here: www.compuware.com/solutions/mainframe-workbench.asp.
I guess the big focus of attention this coming week is the new zWow (or is that z11, zNext, etc) mainframe announcement from IBM. More on that next week!
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