CA Updates Network, Systems Management for Mainframe SOA 
CA aims to help IT managers and architects implement mainframe-to-SOA projects with upgrades to its hallmark network and systems management offerings. Updates will boost visibility, performance, availability and compliance with SLAs for business-critical applications, a top CA exec tells IDN.
CA aims to help IT managers and architects implement mainframe-to-SOA projects with upgrades to its hallmark network and systems management offerings.
CA's updates will boost visibility, performance, availability and compliance with SLAs for business-critical applications, a top CA execs tells IDN.
The new releases are CA SYSVIEW Performance Management r12 and CA NetMaster Network Management for TCP/IP r11.6.
Together, these upgrades aim to greatly reduce the complexity of managing mainframe-based services, to better enable IT managers and architects to share mainframe-based assets throughout the enterprise. Vince Re, CA senior vice president told Integration Developer News.
CA Addresses IT's Needs for Mainframe-SOA Reliability
"For our customers, SOA is driving a lot of what they do and think about these days, so we think about SOA as interchangeable building blocks, that's the promise," Re told IDN.
"But, even in an SOA context, network and performance problems and ensuring reliability, is the elephant in the room. All the end-to-end [interactions between mainframe and middle-tier resources] tends to be incredibly complex," he added.
"So," in Re's words, "the challenge is how do you understand your infrastructure when it includes SOA, mainframe, and the glue that brings it together?" Quite simply, CA's latest updates to its network, systems and performance management portfolio seek to answer that question.
CA SYSVIEW Performance Management r12 provides proactive management and real-time monitoring of z/OS environments across multiple systems. It also supports third-party data sources, such as IBM's RMF, and is also tightly integrated with CA's OPS/MVS Event Management and Automation and CA Insight Performance Monitor for DB2 for z/OS.
CA NetMaster Network Management for TCP/IP r 11.6, which supports IPv6, offloads a large part of its processing to zIIP engines, so sites can reduce consumption of expensive general processor CPU cycles.
As Re sees, it, successful mainframe-SOA support technologies also need to address anxiety and uncertainty that many mainframe professionals have toward SOA. "There is also an emotional component to all of this," Re told IDN. "Without a way to make all managers involved comfortable about tying together mainframe [assets] with new applications, a lot of these projects simply won't be done."
Key CA Upgrades Also Boost IT Confidence and Empowerment
So, this confidence-building philosophy infuses the latest CA upgrades.
"These upgrades are a lot about letting people feel confident as they deploy new-generations apps, including tying mainframe with SOA, that they aren't going to be dangling there to resolve issues that might pop up all on their own."
To that important goal of instilling confidence for mainframe-SOA projects, here are some CA upgrades worth highlighting:
These CA upgrades also integrate with CA Service Desk, CA NSM and CA OPS/MVS Event Management and Automation, CA said.
