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Maintaining the Mainframe Performance Advantage in a Mobile Intensive World

Spencer Hallman

By now, we all know the importance of superior application performance. Applications that are fast, reliable and easy to use delight end-users and lead to greater adoption. But for mainframe applications, performance takes on a whole new level of importance. For these applications, even a few added milliseconds in application load or transaction time can lead to application abandonment and lost revenues.

Why? Surely, mainframes process so many transactions for so many people that even a slight improvement in processing time can have an impact on millions of end users. For example, a leading bank recently saw that a mainframe application was taking too long to make a database call, increasing from three milliseconds on average to five milliseconds. While this may seem like a trivial time increase, it caused more than three million transactions during a critical period to slow way down, or even time out. After identifying and fixing the problem, the bank was able to bring response time levels back to normal. Given the sheer number of transactions affected, the impact on customer satisfaction and the overall business was enormous.

But beyond the end-user experience, it is equally important to manage mainframe application performance from a resource efficiency perspective, since problems here can also result in huge costs to the business downstream. This is especially true as trends like cloud, mobile and analytics, and the availability of the new IBM z13, push increased workloads to the mainframe.

Mainframe transaction processing is very cost-effective – even more than commodity servers in many instances. This is because as many businesses experience massive increases in computational loads, the mainframe has decreased in unit cost enough to offset changes in volume – more so than commodity servers.

The mainframe is inherently more scalable than most commodity servers – a reason it has long been a platform of choice for critical transaction processing, along with superior reliability and security. But one potential danger of mainframes is how monthly license charges (MLC) for mainframe software often consume more than 30 percent of mainframe budgets. This can lead to costs spiraling out of control, especially as mobile apps become even more ubiquitous. Consider that a single mobile transaction often triggers a cascade of related events across systems, including such things as comparison to past purchases, business to business reconciliation (like those between banks), customer loyalty and rewards program updates, and many other examples – a phenomenon known as the “starburst effect.” Businesses using mainframes need to keep an eye on MLC costs – otherwise, the promise of low TCO may be endangered.

The global thirst for more computing capacity continues to grow. The mainframe has a very real place in this new paradigm. But the key to maximizing the significant cost-savings and overall business performance advantages the mainframe offers lies not just in managing application performance from an end-user experience perspective – but also from the critical perspective of resource utilization and consumption.

Spencer Hallman is Subject Matter Expert for Compuware.

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Maintaining the Mainframe Performance Advantage in a Mobile Intensive World

Spencer Hallman

By now, we all know the importance of superior application performance. Applications that are fast, reliable and easy to use delight end-users and lead to greater adoption. But for mainframe applications, performance takes on a whole new level of importance. For these applications, even a few added milliseconds in application load or transaction time can lead to application abandonment and lost revenues.

Why? Surely, mainframes process so many transactions for so many people that even a slight improvement in processing time can have an impact on millions of end users. For example, a leading bank recently saw that a mainframe application was taking too long to make a database call, increasing from three milliseconds on average to five milliseconds. While this may seem like a trivial time increase, it caused more than three million transactions during a critical period to slow way down, or even time out. After identifying and fixing the problem, the bank was able to bring response time levels back to normal. Given the sheer number of transactions affected, the impact on customer satisfaction and the overall business was enormous.

But beyond the end-user experience, it is equally important to manage mainframe application performance from a resource efficiency perspective, since problems here can also result in huge costs to the business downstream. This is especially true as trends like cloud, mobile and analytics, and the availability of the new IBM z13, push increased workloads to the mainframe.

Mainframe transaction processing is very cost-effective – even more than commodity servers in many instances. This is because as many businesses experience massive increases in computational loads, the mainframe has decreased in unit cost enough to offset changes in volume – more so than commodity servers.

The mainframe is inherently more scalable than most commodity servers – a reason it has long been a platform of choice for critical transaction processing, along with superior reliability and security. But one potential danger of mainframes is how monthly license charges (MLC) for mainframe software often consume more than 30 percent of mainframe budgets. This can lead to costs spiraling out of control, especially as mobile apps become even more ubiquitous. Consider that a single mobile transaction often triggers a cascade of related events across systems, including such things as comparison to past purchases, business to business reconciliation (like those between banks), customer loyalty and rewards program updates, and many other examples – a phenomenon known as the “starburst effect.” Businesses using mainframes need to keep an eye on MLC costs – otherwise, the promise of low TCO may be endangered.

The global thirst for more computing capacity continues to grow. The mainframe has a very real place in this new paradigm. But the key to maximizing the significant cost-savings and overall business performance advantages the mainframe offers lies not just in managing application performance from an end-user experience perspective – but also from the critical perspective of resource utilization and consumption.

Spencer Hallman is Subject Matter Expert for Compuware.

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According to Auvik's 2025 IT Trends Report, 60% of IT professionals feel at least moderately burned out on the job, with 43% stating that their workload is contributing to work stress. At the same time, many IT professionals are naming AI and machine learning as key areas they'd most like to upskill ...

Businesses that face downtime or outages risk financial and reputational damage, as well as reducing partner, shareholder, and customer trust. One of the major challenges that enterprises face is implementing a robust business continuity plan. What's the solution? The answer may lie in disaster recovery tactics such as truly immutable storage and regular disaster recovery testing ...

IT spending is expected to jump nearly 10% in 2025, and organizations are now facing pressure to manage costs without slowing down critical functions like observability. To meet the challenge, leaders are turning to smarter, more cost effective business strategies. Enter stage right: OpenTelemetry, the missing piece of the puzzle that is no longer just an option but rather a strategic advantage ...

Amidst the threat of cyberhacks and data breaches, companies install several security measures to keep their business safely afloat. These measures aim to protect businesses, employees, and crucial data. Yet, employees perceive them as burdensome. Frustrated with complex logins, slow access, and constant security checks, workers decide to completely bypass all security set-ups ...

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Cloudbrink's Personal SASE services provide last-mile acceleration and reduction in latency

In MEAN TIME TO INSIGHT Episode 13, Shamus McGillicuddy, VP of Research, Network Infrastructure and Operations, at EMA discusses hybrid multi-cloud networking strategy ... 

In high-traffic environments, the sheer volume and unpredictable nature of network incidents can quickly overwhelm even the most skilled teams, hindering their ability to react swiftly and effectively, potentially impacting service availability and overall business performance. This is where closed-loop remediation comes into the picture: an IT management concept designed to address the escalating complexity of modern networks ...

In 2025, enterprise workflows are undergoing a seismic shift. Propelled by breakthroughs in generative AI (GenAI), large language models (LLMs), and natural language processing (NLP), a new paradigm is emerging — agentic AI. This technology is not just automating tasks; it's reimagining how organizations make decisions, engage customers, and operate at scale ...

In the early days of the cloud revolution, business leaders perceived cloud services as a means of sidelining IT organizations. IT was too slow, too expensive, or incapable of supporting new technologies. With a team of developers, line of business managers could deploy new applications and services in the cloud. IT has been fighting to retake control ever since. Today, IT is back in the driver's seat, according to new research by Enterprise Management Associates (EMA) ...

In today's fast-paced and increasingly complex network environments, Network Operations Centers (NOCs) are the backbone of ensuring continuous uptime, smooth service delivery, and rapid issue resolution. However, the challenges faced by NOC teams are only growing. In a recent study, 78% state network complexity has grown significantly over the last few years while 84% regularly learn about network issues from users. It is imperative we adopt a new approach to managing today's network experiences ...

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From growing reliance on FinOps teams to the increasing attention on artificial intelligence (AI), and software licensing, the Flexera 2025 State of the Cloud Report digs into how organizations are improving cloud spend efficiency, while tackling the complexities of emerging technologies ...