Ptak Associates paints the big picture on Cloud, Mobile, Mainframes, Blockchain, DevOps,Cognitive Computing,Quantum Computing, etc. Partnering with us, IT organizations understand and prioritize their needs within the context of IT trends, and technology vendors refine their strategies. We provide both with market insight, actionable recommendations, and deliverables that communicate the business values of their products and services
Thursday, January 26, 2017
Ptak Associates Tech Blog: Dimension Data: Workspaces of the Future!
Ptak Associates Tech Blog: Dimension Data: Workspaces of the Future!: By Bill Moran and Rich Ptak Dimension Data has been a successful international presence for a number of years - read about their latest acquisition that ups its North American presence.....
Monday, January 16, 2017
Compuware Topaz for Total Test automates Cobol code testing + acquisitions + product enhancements!
By Rich Ptak
In January, 2017 Compuware marked
yet another quarter of delivering on its promises to provide solutions and
services to “Mainstream the Mainframe.” This time it includes automated COBOL
code testing, 4 acquisitions in 12 months plus other product enhancements. Let’s
get started.
Billions of lines of COBOL-based
programs are the operational heart of computer data centers worldwide. For well
over 50 years, COBOL programs continue to be used for a variety of reasons. The
primary reason is simply because they work. The adage “if it ain’t broke, don’t
fix it,” could have been written exclusively about these programs.
Web, mobile and distributed
applications often leverage COBOL programs on the back end. As such, in today’s
rapidly evolving, hi-volume computing environment, companies must be able to
rapidly implement COBOL code updates and changes to stay digitally competitive.
Such changes, however, risk the introduction of serious errors and bugs, which,
even once discovered, (in itself a notoriously difficult task) can be even more
difficult to correct. Testing is required to uncover or avoid introducing such
errors.
Creating mainframe unit
tests has been a labor- and time-intensive task as they are manually designed, developed
and custom tailored to each program. Making things more difficult, is a
frequent lack of program documentation, even as those with expertise and deep program
knowledge leave the work force.
Changing and updating
mainframe COBOL programs remains an intimidating bottleneck; a task to be
avoided, if at all possible. This is untenable in today’s digital enterprise
where speedy adaptation to changing circumstances is an absolutely fundamental
requirement to the survival of computer-driven services, let alone their on-going
success.
Until now, no vendor had
attempted to comprehensively attack the challenge of mainframe unit test creation,
let alone bring automated Java-like unit testing to the world of COBOL
applications. But once again, Compuware steps up to provide an effective and
solid solution in the form of Compuware Topaz for Total Test.
First, a little context
Over the last two years, Compuware has introduced solutions that address
multiple, long-standing mainframe application lifecycle challenges in mainframe
operations. These include:
- Intuitive visual analysis of even extremely complex and poorly documented mainframe programs and data structures (Topaz for Program Analysis and Topaz for Enterprise Data).
- Real-time quality control and error detection of mainframe coding syntax (Topaz integration with SonarSource).
- Agile cross-platform source code management and release automation (ISPW and integration with XebiaLabs).
Compuware’s newest offering will resolve some important issues currently
handicapping unit testing of mainframe code through comprehensive automation of
critical tasks. Let’s review what they just introduced.
Topaz for Total Test = Automated Mainframe Unit Test Creation and Execution
By automating the processes of unit
test creation, Compuware’s Topaz for Total Test transforms mainframe COBOL
application development and testing. It does so without requiring any code
changes to a COBOL program, while automatically creating and running tests on
logical units of code. Developers at all skill levels can now perform unit
testing of COBOL code similar to how it is done for other programming languages
(Java, PHP, etc.).
Compuware goes beyond distributed
tool capabilities by automating the collection of additional data that can be
used in multiple ways. The data is preserved with the unit test and can be used to
validate code changes. This approach allows the test data to travel with the
test case making it easier to execute test cases on different systems. Developers can
collect and save data stubs of existing input data and edit it for testing specific
sections of code.
Topaz for Total Test, as part of the
Topaz suite, can be used with other elements to provide a comprehensive
solution for dev/test operations. Here is closer look at how Topaz for Total
Test automates many of the steps in unit test creation and execution:
- Use Xpediter to gather test data call parameters and program results,
- Topaz for Total Test creates complete test case (fully automated),
- Topaz for Total Test generates data stubs and program stubs (fully automated),
- Unit test uses data stub created by Topaz for Total Test (fully automated),
- Topaz for Total Test allows easy on/off use of stubs – no re-compilation required (fully automated),
- Topaz for Total Test automatically cleans up after tests,
- Topaz for Total Test adds unit tests into test scenario (fully automated),
- Continuous build process uses CLI to run test suite,
- Topaz for Total Test executes test suite (automatically).
Among Topaz for Total Test’s unique
features and capabilities are Program Stubs that allow the main program to be isolated from
the sub-program calls. And, sub-programs may be tested independently of the
main program. Together these capabilities enable developers to split the
testing of a large program into testing a set of smaller programs.
In effect, Topaz for Total Test reduces the complexity
of doing good testing by focusing on small parts of the program. The solution
is useful to developers at all levels of skill. Its ease of use and
significant automations improve efficiency (faster test failure identification
and resolution), speeds execution and development times and provides
centralized control of testing.
There is much more to the product
than we cover here. Compuware has plans for further enhancements, extensions
and integrations to be delivered on a quarterly basis. Given their track record
of performance, we expect they will delight their customers. If you have a
significant amount of mainframe code in your shop, it makes good sense to check
out Topaz for Total Test.
Other items in the announcement
For their 4th
acquisition in the last 12 months, Compuware acquired MVS Solutions with its
popular ThruPut Manager, which automatically and intelligently optimizes the
processing of batch jobs. ThruPut Manager:
- Provides immediate, intuitive insight into batch processing that even inexperienced operators can readily understand,
- Makes it easy to prioritize batch processing based on business-based policies and goals,
- Ensures proper batch execution by verifying that jobs have all the resources they need and proactively managing resource contention between jobs,
- Dramatically reduces customers’ IBM Monthly Licensing Charges (MLC) by minimizing the rolling four-hour average (R4HA) processing peaks without counter-productive “soft-capping.”
As part of their third acquisition in 2016, Compuware added
Standardware’s COPE IMS virtualization technology to its portfolio. With COPE, enterprises
can rapidly deploy multiple virtual IMS environments to as many different
active projects as they require without having to create costly new IMS
instances or engage professionals with specialized technical skill-sets. As a result, even less
experienced mainframe staff can perform IMS-related Dev/Ops tasks faster and at
a lower cost. In addition, integration with Compuware Xpediter permits
debugging within COPE environments.
Finally, Compuware announced
updates such as graphical visualization of IMS DBDs in Topaz Workbench. The
tool presents the structure of IMS databases at a glance and eliminates the
need to pore over IMS configuration files to find this information. In
addition, a new Strobe Insight Report compares the last execution statistics
with the average execution statistics. The data is visualized in an interactive
scatter chart based on collected SMF 30 data. With such visualization, analysts
are able to quickly identify jobs that have exceeded their norms by a user
specified percentage and, then, take the appropriate action. The tabular portion
of the report compares and contrasts the average CPU, Elapsed Time and EXCP
count with the last values collected.
The Final Word
With the announcement of Compuware Topaz for Total Test,
the company has provided a significant advance in mainstreaming the mainframe. The
digital agility of any enterprise is constrained by its least agile code base.
By eliminating a long-standing constraint to COBOL agility, Compuware provides
enterprise IT the ability to deliver more digital capabilities to the business
at greater speed and with less risk.
The January announcement marks Compuware’s 9th
consecutive quarter of delivering significant solutions that solidify
mainstream positioning, while benefiting mainframe development and operations.
We’ve commented on and have to admit that we have been impressed at virtually
every announcement.
The steady stream of substantive improvements and
additions has allowed Compuware to establish a strong market position for
themselves. Their delivery of effective, innovative solutions provides solid enhancement
to their reputation for successfully resolving significant problems that have
hampered mainframe operations.
Congratulations to them. Check them out and see if you
don’t agree with us.
Wednesday, January 11, 2017
Dimension Data: Workspaces of the Future!
By Bill Moran and Rich Ptak
The
Dimension Data Advantage
That is precisely the entry-point identified by Dimension Data that
provides as the opportunity for them to stand-out and outshine the competition.
Dimension Data steps in with the ability to deliver a consultative workshop
engagement specifically designed to help clients to develop a plan to smoothly move
their workspaces to the next level.
Dimension Data is able to provide both an overall architecture, and a
framework adaptable to fit the specific needs of any organization. Dimension Data
is focused on enabling “Workspaces for Tomorrow” (Figure 1 – at right). This
provides the basis for implementation and delivery of a comprehensive suite of
workspace services to design, implement, maintain and even manage workspaces.
The
Final Word
Dimension Data has been a successful international presence
for a number of years. They have less visibility in the US and North American markets.
Founded in South Africa in 1983, NTT acquired them in 2010. Their current
revenue exceeds $7.5 billion, demonstrating strong, consistent growth that
continues after joining NTT.
We focus on their end user solutions covered in our briefing
with them. We do encourage you to visit their website[1] to view
their full range of offerings. This Wikipedia article details their history[2].
First, we must compliment the
quality of Dimension Data’s marketing and advertising. Normally, we don’t
comment on this aspect of operations. However, we found their recent
advertisements in The Economist
magazine to be noteworthy, and so include one here. Such creativity will help
them capture the attention of the US and North American markets.
For several years’ post-
acquisition, NTT wisely kept the management team in place. This, combined with
the financial strength and presence resulting from the association with NTT, facilitated
expanding their marketplace positioning. As part of a larger entity, Dimension Data
got more exposure, as well as added to existing proven customer confidence in
their ability to deliver.
The
Dimension Data Advantage
Dimension Data recently briefed us on their End–user
Computing (EUC) strategy and offerings. To fully understand their offerings requires
knowledge of their vision of how Digital transformation is changing companies, and
its effect on various company stakeholders. So, we will first examine some of
the relevant trends and resulting pressures.
Organizations are under significant pressure to cut costs. In
response, some are reducing office space use by individual employees. In many
US companies, this trend is implemented by encouraging employee home offices. This
significantly affects the infrastructure and technology needed by the company.
In other cases, companies are implementing changes to the working environment
to attract and retain the best talent and remain competitive. Again, these
changes will impact workspace design, communications, digital infrastructure,
cloud (especially hybrid), data and information storage, (cyber)security and
accessibility.
Accompanying these macro trends
are others specifically related to transformations that accompany the move to an
increasingly Digital world. Some well-known, some not. Dimension Data has
identified a number of these, which include:
- Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning
- Internet of things
- Virtual and Augmented Reality
- Robotics
- Digital Technology Platforms
- Cloud, specifically hybrid Cloud
- Big Data & the tools to analyze it
For many customers simply
identifying and installing the correct technology is insufficient. Some are
ill-equipped to cope with the new trends. Many risk being overwhelmed by the
challenges facing them in the new digital environment. Others are incapable or
uninterested in managing the operating technology.
|
Dimension Data has a unique
offering which consists of a complete set of managed services to help customers
designing “digital workspaces to embrace the way employees live, work, and
collaborate.” Further, they “help organisations seamlessly unify the physical
and virtual world into a digital experience.”
Let’s look specifically at
Microsoft technology services. Dimension Data builds its expertise in this area
on recently acquired Canada-based Ceryx. Ceryx specialized in assisting
customers install and manage email services. Under Dimension Data’s auspices,
they are broadening their offerings to provide ‘Managed Cloud Services for
Microsoft’, which include all of Office 365, Skype for Business and Microsoft
Cloud, as well as other Microsoft products. As a North American company, Ceryx
additionally benefits Dimension Data with increased visibility in Canadian and
US markets. The End-user Computing suite of Workspace services includes
Workspace Mobility, Workspace Productivity Consulting Services and Software
Services.
The
Final Word
End-user Computing spearheads
the “Workspaces for Tomorrow” effort within Dimension Data. Existing business
units in networking, security, datacenter, collaboration, customer experience
and service support cross-selling. With strategic partnerships with both
Microsoft and VMware and the support of the NTT Group, Dimension Data is the
engagement leader for outcome based services to enable “Workspaces for
Tomorrow”. All this combines to provide an impressive array of experience,
expertise and product.
Dimension Data has an
impressive reference list of worldwide customers for end user computing,
including well known banks, oil & gas companies, automotive manufacturers, etc.
We believe that a significant opportunity for growth exists for them in the US
and North American markets. We highly recommend investigating what they have to
offer. We think that there is a very good chance that they just might turn out
to be your best partner for your modernization efforts.
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