Mainframe Blog

BMC Transforms Mainframe Management

3 minute read
John McKenny

In the modern digital economy, organizations are under pressure to continually innovate, delivering more features and new applications faster than ever before. As proven by the increased consumer reliance on digital services due to the pandemic, the ability to adapt to changing market needs and provide value which excites customers has never been more critical.

Organizations that rely on the transactional power and database capabilities of the mainframe need innovation on the platform to keep pace with other areas of the IT ecosystem. This requires breaking down siloes and erasing the lines between your mainframe and the rest of your IT ecosystem—in short, treating the mainframe as just another piece of the IT puzzle.

The combined power of the BMC AMI and BMC AMI DevX portfolios offers a holistic approach to mainframe modernization with products that work together to give you full control over development, operations, security, and data, promoting an open-borders mentality of multi-vendor, multi-platform toolchains and a simplified, cross-platform IT environment.

Innovation at the Speed of Now: A Mainframe-Inclusive DevOps Toolchain

Adoption of DevOps and Agile practices improves the quality, velocity, and efficiency of your software development and delivery, giving you the ability to react to changing marketplace dynamics and move your business forward. This requires not only a cultural shift toward a mindset of continuous improvement, but the use of the modern tools that help to increase productivity and provide a greater understanding of how changes affect each piece of the IT ecosystem.

We’ve strengthened BMC’s DevOps solutions with the integration of BMC AMI DevX application development tools, covering software development and delivery at each stage of the process, from code visualization, to testing, to build and deploy. These tools empower organizations to develop an enterprise DevOps toolchain that’s completely inclusive of the mainframe environment, addressing application changes not only from a coding and development perspective, but also taking into consideration how those changes impact data and operational workflows.

With these tools, developers of any skill level can be extremely productive, working with familiar development environments and integrating them seamlessly with the solutions that the mainframe requires. This familiarity will also help attract new talent by shortening the learning curve and offering developers the ability to become productive immediately.

A New Outlook on Resilience

Business resilience is often viewed as a combination of availability and performance, but its scope must be broadened. In the digital age, business resilience includes being prepared for inevitable change with the ability to adapt and respond rapidly to market disruptions while maintaining business continuity. Your business must be able not only to withstand, but to make change, creating new customer experiences while delivering constant uptime and operating at peak efficiency so you can be the disruptor rather than the disrupted.

BMC’s mainframe solutions empower you to achieve this modern definition of resilience while maintaining a competitive level of innovation. BMC Automated Mainframe Intelligence (AMI) solutions employ predictive intelligence, automated probable cause analysis, and prescribed remediation to maximize availability, while our BMC AMI DevX tools support a “shift left” approach in testing.

For example, BMC AMI Recovery solutions help ensure that your business data is always recoverable, so your applications are always running, and your business is always available to serve your customers’ needs. Meanwhile, BMC AMI DevX Data Studio enables easy comparison, masking, and provisioning of this data for testing of new applications.

The integration of automated testing throughout the DevOps lifecycle does more than eliminate bugs. Testing early and often lets developers know immediately where issues may lie, improving code quality and developer efficiency. Reusable test assets and intelligent automated test execution further free up developers’ valuable time and ensure test consistency and relevance. And integrating comprehensive unit, function, integration, regression, and performance testing with tools like Git, SonarQube, and Jenkins enables the creation of fully automated Continuous Integration/Continuous Delivery workflows.

The synergy of BMC’s mainframe portfolios results in lower failure rates, higher-quality software, and faster problem detection and resolution when disruptions do occur.

Better Together

With this combined portfolio, BMC has strengthened its ability to provide value as a strategic partner in your digital transformation. And as you adapt and innovate, we’ll do the same, building upon our legacy of innovation with new features, integrations, and enhancements that not only improve your mainframe environment today, but help you to prepare for and respond to the changing landscape of the future.

Access the 2024 BMC Mainframe Report

The results of the 19th 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.