The first and only out-of-the-box tool helping IBM clients to benefit from the new z/OS Mobile Workload Pricing model.
Find out more »In May 2014 IBM announced Mobile Workload Pricing for z/OS (MWP). This new pricing model is designed “to mitigate the impact of mobile workloads on sub-capacity license charges and provide a more cost-competitive software”. IBM wants customers to put mobile applications on z/OS and will offer customers a discount on the z/OS software costs if this additional workload will increase them. The Mobile Workload Pricing is part of the IBM CAMS strategy. CAMS = Cloud, Analytics, Mobile, Social which are expected to be the drivers of IT growth in the next years.
The Mobile Workload Pricing (MWP) for z/OS can minimize the impact of mobile workloads on Sub-Capacity license charges, delivering optimized pricing for System z environments when extending their workloads to incorporate mobile devices.
The primary challenge for an IBM Mainframe Customer to benefit from the new Mobile Workload Pricing (MWP) is to identify, track and report to IBM their actual mobile workloads. As part of MWP IBM requests its customers to provide a monthly reporting based on the following process in which the customers are obliged to:
MWRT utilizes reported mobile transaction data to adjust the Rolling 4 Hour Average (R4HA) Sub-Capacity software eligible MSUs, with LPAR granularity. Optimizing mobile transactions impact for peak LPAR MSU values delivers benefit when higher mobile transaction volumes generate MSU resource usage peaks (Workload Spikes). MWRT calculates the R4HA for mobile transaction GP MSU resource usage, subtracting 60% of those values from the traditional Sub-Capacity software eligible MSU metric, with LPAR granularity, for each and every reporting hour.
While IBM provides the MWRT to run calculations of the actual workload the customer has to generate the “input file” for MWRT which is a comma-separated value (CSV) file showing mobile CPU consumption each month for each program.
Based on the content contained in specific SMF records of a client’s Mainframe System the SMF4U Browser provides a Mobile Workload Report that precisely identifies the actual mobile workload of a customer. From that report SMF4U generates the “input file” to run the Mobile Workload Pricing calculation as specified by IBM.
The SMF4U Mobile Workload Report categorizes Mainframe Transactions as: 100% mobile, definitely not mobile and probably mobile. For the “probably mobile” transactions SMF4U provides a description of these transaction and therefore allows the customer to decide which of them to classify as “mobile”.
The Mobile Workload Pricing as a brand new initiative of IBM and went productive as of August 2014. According to our knowledge the SMF4U Mobile Workload Report is the first and only out-of-the-box tool to help IBM clients to benefit from the new mobile pricing model. Clients can start using the SMF4U Mobile Workload Report instantly without the need of developing their own report as specified by IBM.
z/OS System Management Facility (SMF): The powerful source of system information
Common and frequent questions:
Information contained in SMF data is the purest, most realistic and most reliable information output retrievable from a z/OS operated machine
z/OS System Management Facility (SMF): A difficult source of truth
SMF Records never lie… but… they require expert-level know-how and tools like SMF4U to be efficiently utilized
Systemwork developed SMF4U to enable IT organizations to fully utilize the information provided in SMF Records for an improved management of their z/OS systems
Analyze system events ad-hoc: SMF4U Browser
Optimize the volume of SMF Data: SMF4U Compressor
Build your own reports
See the big picture: SMF4U Visual Reporting
Use our reports READY TO USE
Monitor your Mainframe instantly: SMF4U Live Reporting for MS Excel
Gain Insights to your Mainframe. It’s easy as never before. Introducing SMF4U Cloud Reporting. The first Mainframe Intelligence solution available from the Cloud.
What’s the difference between SMF4U and other reports based on SMF records?
SYSTEM OPERATORThere is a fundamental difference. SMF4U doesn’t require any database to generate reports. In other words: SMF4U generates reports by pulling and processing source data in-memory in one flawless process. The in-memory processing method significantly reduces processing time and saves resources. Additionally SMF4U works in any environment supporting the JAVA Virtual Machine: z/OS, Windows, Linux, etc.
Can I use SMF4U to solve ad-hoc issues?
IT CONSULTANT
Yes. The SMF4U Browser enables you to search and display any information contained in SMF records. The SMF4U Engine decodes > 45.000 SMF Data Fields.
How do I know which records to collect for SMF4U reporting?
SYSTEM OPERATORFirst you need to decide which information are relevant for your organization. Then choose which report you want to generate using SMF4U. Each report contains a list of SMF Records providing relevant input parameters. Based on this list you can collect the appropriate SMF Records.
I use SAS for reporting. How does SMF4U integrate with SAS?
IT MANAGERSMF4U will provide you with all reports that are relevant for your z/OS System. Most information you need to manage your z/OS System is contained in the standard reports delivered with SMF4U Visual Reporting. Additional reports that might be specific for your system or organization can be delivered either by Systemwork or you can create them yourself using the SMF4U Browser.
With SMF4U you’re able to diagnose who used which SAS reports in the past how often! This information enables us to tailor reports to particular roles and individuals.
I work with my in-house written reporting system. How can I benefit from SMF4U?
IT CONSULTANTThe SMF4U Browser will provide you access to all available SMF Data with their correlations and will format it as csv. These data you can use to write your very own reports by using any available method including REXX on mainframe.
I run a datacenter on behalf of other independent companies. How can I benefit from using SMF4U?
IT MANAGERCan I prove delivering SLA to my customers?
You can use SMF4U as a vendor-independent auditing tool. You can generate specific reports showing SLA compliance for you customers and share them on-line using SMF4U Cloud Reporting. Your clients can instantly view these reports online and allow them to transparently track your performance.
Using the insights provided by SMF4U you can optimize the utilization of your computing resources to increase the efficiency of your datacenter.
How can SM4U help me charge my customers for their workload?
This is a very important aspect. You can use SMF4U Reports for the classical approach and precisely calculate the consumption of datacenter resources per client.
With SMF4U you can provide an even more transparent and modern workload charging technique that will tag and count “business transactions”. This will provide a completely new level of information that links resource usage to concrete business transactions. This ability will give you the potential for new commercial models including transaction based charging.
My datacenter is operated by an outsourcing partner. How can I benefit from using SMF4U?
DATA CENTER CLIENTAsk your datacenter provide for access to the pure SMF Records (source data). Use SMF4U to control cost, to check SLA delivery and learn about transaction-specific workloads. Point out optimization potentials to your datacenter provider by for example flattening performance peaks. In case you datacenter provider will not share with you the SMF Records ask him to create specific reports for you. Use SMF4U Cloud Reporting to access these reports online.
Do you do simulations or just reporting?
IT MANAGERAs of now the core functionality is reporting. However jointly with you we’re happy to perform what-if investigations.
Is your data pure?
IT CONSULTANTAbsolutely! The SMF4U Browser is the only tool on the market that gives you access to all information stored in any SMF Record Field. These information is absolutely pure source data written by the z/OS system.
TCO reduction is the key mantra of my management. Is there any way SMF4U can contribute?
IT MANAGERSMF4U will help you to utilize your computing resources more efficiently. Some of the SMF4U Reports directly address cost reduction potentials. The SMF4U Peak Cutter Report is an example for that. Other reports will help you to assess the need of purchasing new or additional hardware. Other reports will help you to diagnose the usage intensity of certain software products and might unveil potential to sunset costly operations of unnecessary applications.
Can I benefit from Mobile Workload Pricing (MWP)?
IT MANAGERIf you have mobile transactions: yes! SMF4U will help you to classify transactions my “mobile” and “non-mobile” and will create the MWRT input file as required by IBM.
The data volume of my SMF Records is huge. Is there any way SMF4U can help?
SYSTEM OPERATORThe SMF4U Compressor provides a 1:10 compression of your SMF Records. Compress your SMF Records to save disc space while still maintaining access to the data - even if it is stored outside of your z/OS system.
What’s the system requirements to run SMF4U?
SYSTEM OPERATORYou’ll need a JAVA Virtual Machine in any environment incl. z/OS, Windows, Linux, etc. The more RAM, the better! Ideally 64 bits. On the mainframe SMF4U uses the “cheap” zIIP processors.
How can I try your software?
SYSTEM OPERATORDrop us a note! We will provide you with a test version of the SMF4U Browser that you can use for up to three months on five LPARs. If you’re interested in SMF4U Visual Reports send us a sample of your SMF Records. We will generate a set of reports out of it to demonstrate the capabilities of the product.
How can I use SMF4U for a Security Audit?
IT CONSULTANTSMF Records are log-files of the z/OS system. Any event that happens under z/OS can be logged in SMF Records. Your system operator simply has to turn on the logging of particular SMF Record Types. SMF4U will read, decode and correlate these SMF Records. This will give you the possibility to review particular system events from different perspectives. You will be able to trace down users, transactions, IP addresses, etc. that caused any event in the system.
Why the structure of SMF Records is so complicated?
IT MANAGERIBM only defined two types of record headers. The rest is completely „free” which gives unlimited flexibility to the creators of particular SMF Records. SMF4U works with a proprietary algorithm that allows us to read and decode all content from all SMF Data Fields.
Is there any risk in processing SMF Records?
IT MANAGERNo! SMF Records do not contain business data like revenue numbers, names, addresses, etc. However using the SMF4U Browser you can track down any user and any transaction. Example: For a credit card transaction SMF Records do not contain the credit card details or the paid amount. But they contain the record of the transaction itself incl. its timestamp, user, etc.
SMF4U works with in-memory technology. How many records can it process at once?
IT CONSULTANTIt depends. It can be hundreds of thousands to multi-million records. It depends on the machine size that processes the data (heap). However, SMF4U will allow you to select SMF Records of particular interest or even specific data fields needed to a certain analysis.
What is the difference of the three SMF4U reporting types: “ad-hoc”, “Processing in MS Excel” and “ready-to-use pdf”?
IT MANAGERAd-hoc reports will enable you to perform any kind of analysis of your SMF Records. The tool for that is the SMF4U Browser.
Reports for processing in MS Excel are created from pre-processed SMF Data and can be individually viewed, filtered, visualized, printed, etc. using MS Excel.
Ready-to-use reports are provided out-of-the-box in PDF format. These reports can be viewed mobile and online using the SMF4U Cloud Reporting.
Gundolfstraße 1
69120 Heidelberg
Germany
Marta Lee, General Manager
Registered under file HRB 711151,
Legal Court Mannheim,
Germany
