Published on 18-Aug-2009
" “By using IBM Service Management solutions to increase system utilization, we can avoid investing in and powering unneeded hardware. This contributes to greater energy efficiency and lower energy costs.”" - — Chris Young, Linux on System z Specialist, IT Delivery, IBM
Customer:
IBM Corporation
Industry:
Computer Services
Deployment country:
United States
Solution:
Managing Business Infrastructure, Service Management
Overview
Using IBM Service Management solutions, IBM IT Delivery organization streamlines IT management efforts to reduce costs, minimize service disruptions and lower energy costs.
Business need:
Consolidation of roughly 3,900 servers to approximately 30 IBM® System z® mainframes
Solution:
Using IBM Service Management solutions, IBM IT Delivery organization streamlines IT management efforts to reduce costs, minimize service disruptions and lower energy costs.
Benefits:
Reduced operational costs through improved staff efficiency; Increased system utilization to avoid investing in and powering unneeded hardware; Decreased service disruptions through increased visibility
Case Study
Overview
IBM IT Delivery
Armonk, New York
www.ibm.com
Industry
Computer Services
Products
IBM® Tivoli Enterprise Console®
IBM Tivoli® Monitoring
IBM Tivoli OMEGAMON® XE
on z/VM® and Linux®
IBM System z®
For more information
ibm.com/tivoli
IBM reduces costs of its mainframe environment with service management initiative
IBM invents, develops and manufactures IT products, including computer systems and software, system networks, storage hardware and microelectronic products. With approximately 329,000 employees and thousands of business partners worldwide, IBM operates in more than 150 countries and generates nearly US$96 billion in revenue annually. The IBM IT Delivery organization provides technical services and support for the IBM Global Account.
Challenge
As part of the IBM Project Big Green, IBM is consolidating roughly 3,900 servers to approximately 30 IBM® System z® mainframes. This reduction will not only reduce the management burdens for the associated systems but also yield improved server efficiency, higher utilization levels and reduced energy usage. Charged with overseeing this newly configured mainframe environment, the IBM IT Delivery organization wanted to apply the latest monitoring technology to optimize performance, availability and server utilization.
Solution
The IT Delivery organization deployed IBM Service Management solutions that help IT staff proactively and quickly identify and respond to issues in and utilization of its System z environment and related applications. By doing so, administrators can address problems before they impact users and deliver a higher quality of service while reducing the number of personnel needed to support the environment. This application availability solution supports IBM’s green initiative as well. By helping improve system utilization, the IT Delivery organization helps IBM avoid investing in and powering unneeded hardware.
IBM Tivoli® OMEGAMON® XE on z/VM® and Linux® software (with IBM Tivoli Monitoring 6.1) is used to collect performance and monitoring data on the mainframe hardware, ranging from processor performance to memory availability. And with such a complex mainframe architecture—averaging 60 SUSE Linux instances running under the IBM z/VM operating system on 10 to 15 physical servers—the organization also uses Tivoli OMEGAMON XE on z/VM and Linux software to gain greater visibility into server utilization and the overall health of each logical partition.
Using IBM Tivoli Monitoring agents, IBM IT Delivery extended its monitoring efforts to the application layer. The monitoring agents allow the IT Delivery organization to collect deep performance and usage information regarding a number of hosted applications, including IBM WebSphere® Application Server, IBM HTTP Server, IBM Lotus® Domino®, IBM WebSphere MQ and IBM DB2® software. IBM Tivoli Enterprise Portal 6.1 software provides IT administrators with real-time insight into this information through a centralized monitoring interface. This interface, besides displaying monitoring summaries, offers users the ability to drill down into the performance and statistics regarding specific devices and components. To monitor events or any related issues, the business also uses IBM Tivoli Enterprise Console software.
Benefits
- Reduced operational costs through improved staff efficiency
- Increased system utilization to avoid investing in and powering unneeded hardware
- Decreased service disruptions through increased visibility
Products and services used
IBM products and services that were used in this case study.
Hardware:
System z
Software:
Tivoli OMEGAMON XE on z/VM and Linux, Tivoli Enterprise Console, Tivoli Monitoring
Legal Information
© Copyright IBM Corporation 2009 IBM Corporation Software Group Route 100 Somers, NY 10589 U.S.A. Produced in the United States of America August 2009 All Rights Reserved IBM, the IBM logo, ibm.com, DB2, Domino, Lotus, OMEGAMON, System z, Tivoli, Tivoli Enterprise Console, WebSphere and z/VM are trademarks of International Business Machines Corporation, registered in many jurisdictions worldwide. A current list of IBM trademarks is available on the Web at “Copyright and trademark information” at ibm.com/legal/copytrade.shtml. Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds in the United States, other countries, or both. Other company, product, or service names may be trademarks or service marks of others. The information contained in this documentation is provided for informational purposes only. While efforts were made to verify the completeness and accuracy of the information contained in this documentation, it is provided “as is” without warranty of any kind, express or implied. In addition, this information is based on IBM’s current product plans and strategy, which are subject to change by IBM without notice. IBM shall not be responsible for any damages arising out of the use of, or otherwise related to, this documentation or any other documentation. Nothing contained in this documentation is intended to, nor shall have the effect of, creating any warranties or representations from IBM (or its suppliers or licensors), or altering the terms and conditions of the applicable license agreement governing the use of IBM software. TIC14078-USEN-00
