Mainframe Blog

Moving the Needle on Mainframe Innovation

3 minute read
John McKenny


BMC’s mainframe teams are continuously innovating, and we have again delivered more in the last 90 days to help clients address the changing dynamics of modern digital business. Through our many conversations with clients we learn more every day about your business needs, what the technical requirements are, and what capabilities will help you the most. Our mainframe team’s mission is to help you be successful and to be your most trusted mainframe advisor.

In a previous post, I mentioned that I would keep you updated on our product releases on a quarterly basis. Before I dive into it, let’s talk about four strategic areas that are top of mind for our clients:

  1. Customer Experience: Customers and other business partners judge companies on their experience of doing business with them. Customers and business users demand, expect and need fast and efficient access to their applications and data always. And IT teams want great products that are easy to use.
  2. Security and Compliance: Maintaining a stable and resilient operating environment is critical for every organization. You need to ensure everything is secure and can satisfy compliance mandates.
  3. Analytics and Automation: Analytics can provide insightful information that can be used to make fast, effective decisions. Coupled with intelligent automation, together they can begin to identify, manage, diagnose, heal and optimize environments with minimal manual intervention.
  4. Cost Efficiency: With unpredictable workloads hitting the mainframe and a good chunk of your budget going toward MLC software, you need to take advantage of modern technology that ensures proper capacity for critical work at the lowest possible cost.

Our goal is to deliver enhancements and capabilities that help you with these highest priority items each and every quarter. I am excited to share that we have several new security enhancements, including pervasive encryption support in our data management for IMS products and support for multi-factor authentication for the MainView suite as well. We have also added new automation functionality to MainView solutions that take advantage of new IBM features to ensure that resources are used efficiently. Our MainView and our data management solutions for IMS have new security and compliance features that simplify mainframe management and detect operational challenges before any customer experience issues arise. Coming up with these new solution enhancements is a team effort, and we are always working to ensure our solutions give you the most cost-effective way to unleash the power and value of your mainframe.

Here’s a quick snapshot of what you can do with our second quarter releases available to you now:

  1. Customer Experience
    • Simplify the management of complex IMS environments with the Backup and Recovery Solution for IMS, DELTA PLUS, and Energizer for IMS Connect
    • Take advantage of WebSphere Application Server (WAS) support in MainView for Java Environments
    • MainView for MQ adds more integration to TrueSight Middleware Administration
    • Easily set up options and see alarms in the MainView infrastructure
    • Find and apply related maintenance faster with FIXCAT support
  2. Security and Compliance:
    • Rollout IBM’s Pervasive Encryption (PE) capabilities with confidence with PE support now available across BMC’s database utilities for DB2 and IMS
  3. Analytics and Automation:
    • Modernize your mainframe management with more automation and the ability to IPL a z/VM guest in MainView Console Management
    • Intelligent LPAR awareness during IPLs in BMC Intelligent Capping for zEnterprise helps automatically maximize throughput and savings before and after IPLs
  4. Cost Efficiency
    • MainView for MQ can lower your operating expenses by taking greater advantage of zIIP engines

Now is the time to learn how you can modernize your infrastructure and identify what’s right for your operations. To learn more, visit our Mainframe Solutions pages and make sure to register for Proactive Notifications to ensure that you get the most up-to-date release information as soon as it is available.

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.