[January 13, 2009]

MACRO 4: Users 'slam' vendors for not helping to control mainframe processor consumption

Crawley, UK, Jan 13, 2009 (M2 PRESSWIRE via COMTEX) --
89 per cent of UK mainframe users want mainframe vendors to do more to help customers control the growth in the rate at which their systems consume processing power, measured in MIPS(Million Instructions Per Second), according to new research from performance management expert Macro 4.

Users are forced to 'shell out' millions of pounds a year to vendors for CPU upgrades in a bid to keep pace with rising MIPS consumption. This may explain why a significant number - 39 per cent of those polled by Macro 4 - feel it actually may not be in vendors' best interests to help reduce MIPS usage at all.

"Without these upgrades, users risk not having the processing capacity to allow their mainframe business operations to run efficiently. So many customers feel they have no choice but to spend the money. And they are a big part of the vendors' revenue stream," said Chris Limberger, Product Manager - Application Performance for Macro 4, which interviewed 97 UK mainframe users.

73 per cent of those polled said annual CPU upgrades are a significant cost to their business and the drive to identify IT budget savings in the tougher economic climate means that 84 per cent want to find ways to use less mainframe processing power.

The bad news for users is that IT industry analysts estimate that most large mainframe users can expect their systems' consumption of processing power to increase by 15-20 per cent annually', measured in MIPS.

"Each additional MIPStypically costs around GBP2,500 in hardware and software charges. So if a company running a 10,000 MIPSsystem increases capacity by as little as ten per cent per annum, the incremental cost will be in the region of GBP2.5 million. That's pretty typical but if your business is growing and if you're upping the level of activity on your mainframe, you can expect much more," said Limberger.

"We come across many large organisations that are paying millions of pounds extra every year due to increasing MIPSconsumption," he added.

Even in the most stable IT environments MIPSconsumption gradually increases over time due to small changes to applications, environments and databases. And the negative effects of these essentially minor alterations in programming code can be multiplied as database size and transaction volumes grow.

One of the answers to controlling MIPSgrowth is to use application tuning and performance management techniques to correct these inefficiencies. This can speed up transactional throughput and reduce application response times. The same workload can be handled using less processing power, so companies need fewer MIPS.

"Application tuning and performance management is a bit like regularly fine tuning your car engine to ensure it runs as smoothly and effectively as possible. In our experience even the most well-run IT operations can make CPU savings of around 10 per cent per annum. It can enable you to defer that planned capacity upgrade whilst simultaneously improving service levels. That's why so many mainframe users are turning to it as they try to cut costs in the current climate," said Limberger.

'IBM's Mainframe Endurance Will Pose New Challenges for Users, Rakesh Kumar, Gartner Research, May 19, 2006.

About the Research
Macro 4's research consisted of an online survey of 97 IT executives working in UKorganisations that use mainframe computers.

About Macro 4 MIPS Reduction
For more about Macro 4's MIPSreduction programme, download a MIPSreduction data sheet from www.macro4.com.

About Macro 4
Macro 4 is a global software company that helps organisations to improve the performance of their critical business applications by making the complex simple. Macro 4's solutions for application performance, document management and application availability are easy to use, fast to implement and deliver value quickly in even the most complex IT environments.

US and European subsidiaries and a network of international business partners represent the company in every major market worldwide.

Application Performance Solutions help companies to increase employee productiv-ity, postpone hardware upgrades and improve customer service by quickly detecting, diagnosing and resolving application performance problems such as slow response times and inefficient use of processing capacity.

CONTACT: Uday Radia, CloudNine PR
Tel: +44 (0)208 938 3887
Tel: +44 (0)1923 221 305
Tel: +44 (0)7940 584 161
e-mail: uradia@cloudninepr.com
WWW: http://www.cloudninepr.com
Macro 4
WWW: http://www.macro4.com
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