A Technologies (NASDAQ: CA) today announced a new release of its CA Cross-Enterprise Application Performance Management (CA CE APM) which extends mainframe monitoring capabilities and provides richer information about the health and performance of key IT services.

CA CE APM exemplifies CA Technologies Business Service Innovation focus, helping organizations move from simply managing and maintaining IT to delivering quality business services in support of organizational goals. CA CE APM monitors and collects information on the mainframe and integrates with CA APM to provide 24x7 monitoring of business transactions in a single pane of glass across mainframe, distributed and the cloud.
 
“Our clients are focusing on how IT can be more strategic to the business by providing decision makers and IT staff with timely information about IT services, and how their predictability and availability impacts business outcomes,” said Dayton Semerjian, general manager, Mainframe, CA Technologies. “This new release of CA CE APM offers IT staff more real-time visibility into the customer experience to help them optimize customer-facing applications and services, no matter where they reside.”

The enhanced capabilities provide deeper insight into customer-facing business transactions across increasingly complex IT environments, modernizing mainframe administration by simplifying and enhancing cross-platform management to help incorporate the mainframe into an organization’s broader enterprise IT strategy.

“Having all the necessary information to pinpoint application performance issues in a single place is key to resolving them before the customer experience is tainted,” states Julie-Ann Williams, senior technical consultant for millennia…, a European System z consulting company.  “With CA CE APM, our entire IT team has access to the information they need to diagnose a problem faster—whether it’s on a distributed system or the mainframe.”

Advancing Service Assurance Across Mainframe, Distributed, Virtual and Cloud

With the rise of virtualization and cloud computing and the complex mix of mainframe and distributed platforms in the evolving data center, IT staff needs to perform real-time “application triage” to quickly diagnose and fix problems that can impact the customer experience.  By providing a 360˚ view of all customer transactions, organizations can better understand the health, availability and business impact of critical business services to prioritize problem resolution and help assure that service performance meets SLAs.

To provide this level of visibility, new capabilities in CA CE APM and its integration with CA APM include:
● Over 90 metrics for DB2 for z/OS, end-to-end IMS for z/OS and the mainframe network to provide richer data faster, and with less work, so IT organizations can more quickly resolve problems with mainframe-based business transactions
● Information about network traffic across mainframe and distributed platforms that helps pinpoint problems affecting the performance or availability of an application or service
● A virtual infrastructure view so staff can more easily diagnose problems in the virtual environment and resolve them faster
● Information on how well SaaS vendor-delivered applications are performing for end-users
● Expanded information used to monitor cloud services efficiently
In addition, CA CE APM integration with CA APM offers a business-level view of service performance across mainframe, distributed and cloud services that can be displayed when executives need it on their mobile devices via CA Executive Insight for Service Assurance.

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CICS TS Developer Trial V4.2 is free of charge and for evaluation (non-production) use only, offering a full set of features but with restricted performance and limited operational lifespan.

• CICS TS Developer Trial V4.2 will be updated, periodically, to include the latest service fixes, and to provide an evaluation period of at least 90 days. There is no limit to the number of copies and subsequent releases of CICS TS Developer Trial V4.2 that can be ordered and used.
• IBM has also launched CICSdev an online community for CICS users to discuss, share and learn. This represents a unique opportunity to gain insight from IBM and other users about CICS. IBM will also be offering guidance through the forums on CICSdev so that Developer trial users get the most from their experience.
• CICS TS Developer Trial V4.2 is available from IBM through ShopzSeries as a standard offering. (To simplify the ordering process, the 'evaluation' order option in ShopzSeries should not be selected.)
• In countries where ShopzSeries is not yet available, contact your IBM representative (or IBM Business Partner) to handle your order using the standard IBM ordering process.

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Rocket Software, Inc. announced today that it has acquired Zephyr Development Corporation, a Houston-based developer of terminal emulation software. The Zephyr team has joined Rocket Software's global organization of more than 900 employees and has become part of Rocket Software’s Application Development, Integration and Modernization business unit.

Andy Youniss, President and Chief Executive Officer of Rocket Software, said, "We have admired Zephyr for years and have a long-standing respect for this great business and the set of terminal emulation products that this team has developed.  The terminal emulation market is a strategic focus area for Rocket Software and we’re excited to continue to sell, develop, and support our new PASSPORT solutions.  We also want to welcome our new customers and look forward to supporting them and helping them achieve ongoing success with PASSPORT. PASSPORT is now another important solution offering within our terminal emulation business here at Rocket Software.“

The PASSPORT solutions provide an essential link between the Microsoft Windows operating systems and critical business applications running on IBM System z, IBM i, UNIX, Linux, and OpenVMS servers. Users include hundreds of global organizations in sectors including banking, insurance, government and healthcare.  To learn more about our PASSPORT solutions, visit our product website or read thePASSPORT FAQ.

Rocket Software will be hosting a webinar on February 15th for customers and partners to introduce our company, discuss the acquisition, and answer any questions. To register for the webinar please click below:

    Wednesday, Feb 15, 2012 11:00 AM to 12:00 PM EST

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BMC Software (NASDAQ: BMC), the recognized leader in Business Service Management (BSM), today announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Numara Software, a leading global provider of integrated  IT management solutions for the mid-market. This strategic acquisition will further accelerate the growth of BMC’s Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) business, as well as giving customers – from the largest enterprises to smallest businesses – access to IT management capabilities geared to their unique requirements, all from a single industry leader.  The combined BMC and Numara product portfolio represents the industry’s most comprehensive set of SaaS and on-premise IT management solutions across all business segments.

Based in Tampa, Fla., Numara currently has more than 13,000 customers worldwide for its service and asset management solutions that enable IT organizations to improve service to their end users.  Numara’s technology, employees, sales force and channel of more than 70 partners, bring with them proven capabilities and success in addressing the ease-of-use and rapid time-to-value requirements that are critical for small to mid-sized businesses. Numara’s popular and award-winning FootPrints and Track-It! products will be offered by BMC.  These products complement BMC’s existing portfolio. 

“In IT management, one size does not fit all,” said Paul Avenant, president of Enterprise Service Management (ESM), BMC.  “Now BMC can effectively serve the entire spectrum of organizations hungry for IT management with products that truly meet the specific needs of their businesses. Numara’s solutions, customer base and sales and channel partners will round out BMC’s market leadership in Business Service Management and focus on customer care and support.”

This acquisition will create a broad portfolio of IT management solutions and services with unparalleled flexibility and choice for mid-sized organizations that typically have 500 to 5,000 employees. BMC’s expanded offering will include the Numara FootPrints product for integrated service and asset management delivered on-premise; the BMC Remedyforce Service Desk solution, the fastest growing IT Service Management SaaS solution; as well as BMC Network Automation as part of the BMC Bladelogic Automation Suite; BMC Atrium Discovery and Dependency Mapping; and BMC End User Experience Management as part of the BMC Application Management Suite. These solutions will provide customers with increased efficiencies, cost savings and broad capabilities.  They also provide the essential capabilities of BSM, previously unavailable to organizations of this size.

“The combined strengths of BMC and Numara will dramatically reshape the IT management market,” said Dave Hansen, president and CEO, Numara Software. “Mid-sized and small business organizations will benefit from new choices and more importantly, will have more capabilities to manage IT in support of the changing needs of their business.”

BMC will now offer Numara’s widely installed Track-It! help desk and asset management solution for smaller organizations. These products complement BMC’s market-proven solutions for large enterprises.  BMC will also continue to advance its unified BSM platform, including the BMC Remedy OnDemand solution and the BMC Remedy IT Service Management Suite, the world’s number one service desk solution.  

The transaction, which is expected to close during BMC’s fiscal fourth quarter, is subject to customary closing conditions, including regulatory approvals.   Additional details of this transaction will be provided during BMC’s upcoming earnings call on Feb. 1, 2012.

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 Compuware Corporation, the technology performance company, today announced several product enhancements that will help its customers overcome the business risks of the "New Normal of Mainframe" by increasing developer productivity and improving application performance management.
A Multimedia version of this release that includes photos and video clips is available at http://www.globenewswire.com/mpr/cpwr/013012.html?d=243714

The New Normal of Mainframe

Under the New Normal, the surge in mobile banking and other types of e-commerce has made mainframe applications key to connecting businesses with customers. This means IT organizations must integrate new cloud and mobile applications with legacy mainframe applications at a record pace — often in a specialized development environment — while ensuring those applications deliver superior quality and performance.

At the same time, as mainframe applications become more customer-facing, complex and thus difficult to maintain, the mainframe technology industry faces a critical skills shortage. This puts businesses at risk for costly and reputation-damaging application failures. According to a recent independent research study into mainframe use conducted by Vanson Bourne*, 71 percent of CIOs are concerned that the looming mainframe skills shortage will hurt their business. Specifically, CIOs are concerned this will result in increased application risk (58 percent), reduced productivity (58 percent) and more project overruns (53 percent).

"Mainframe usage continues to increase with the addition of new customer-facing applications — often connected to the Web and mobile devices — plus growth in existing workloads. This growth is producing sizable increases in MIPS consumption and in deployed application complexity," said Tim Grieser, Program Vice President, Enterprise System Management Software, IDC. "Compuware's modernized mainframe tools can help enterprises address their mainframe skills requirements needed to develop, maintain, extend and manage the performance of these increasingly business-critical applications."

Addressing the Business Risks of the New Normal

For 35 years, Compuware Mainframe Solutions have enabled developers to efficiently support critical applications -- from analyzing code, optimizing test data and testing and debugging, to pinpointing problems, validating quality, and tuning applications and performance.

The Compuware Workbench, a modernized, open framework development environment, provides new, less-experienced developers with the leading-edge products they need to work productively and with fewer errors, mitigating the risks created by the New Normal.

Now, Compuware's Mainframe Solutions have been enhanced to include the following:

Increasing Developer Productivity

Workbench 3.1.6 now includes fast, easy access to MVS data. The Workbench now features File-AID for MVS browse and edit capabilities. This enables quick and convenient access to data and file types that are critical for large enterprise application development and testing, boosting the productivity of mainframe application developers. Key business risks addressed: low developer productivity; and controlling test data management and execution costs.

"MVS File-AID Data Editor closes the last gap in our IDE. Because it's conveniently available on the Workbench, all tasks are performed in an Eclipse environment, eliminating the need for a TSO-session for the developers. The addition of MVS File-AID on the Workbench is one of many solutions that make the Workbench such a useful tool in managing mainframe application development activities," said Frank Rautenberg, Enterprise Application Support, Generali Information Services.

Quick, effective debugging capabilities. The new Workbench also includes an enhanced Xpediter debugging capability enabling IT staffers without advanced application knowledge to get into an interactive test session with minimal effort to quickly and confidently move applications into production. Key business risks addressed: lost application knowledge; low developer productivity; and reduced efficiency moving from the problem identification phase to the solution phase.
 
Enabling enterprises to quickly resolve application faults with Abend-AID 12.2.The industry's leading mainframe application fault resolution tool further extends its diagnostic capabilities, enabling users to deliver outstanding service. New features include a COBOL PERFORM trace, consolidated displays of IMS and DB2 data to speed access to crucial information, and easier access to Abend-AID reports. Key business risks addressed: reduced time-to-market delivery; poor application quality; and missed service levels.

Enhancing Application Performance Management

Automating the ability to eliminate costly performance creep with Strobe 4.3. Strobe, the industry's premier mainframe application performance management solution, now includes the ability to automatically measure batch jobs that exceed dynamically calculated thresholds. Other new capabilities include: integration with existing monitoring tools, improved CICS transaction reporting, and new views of DB2 accounting statistics.

With iStrobe 4.3 customers can now view historical performance data from a variety of perspectives, including the ability to establish baseline performance benchmarks.In addition, Strobe can now easily initiate measurements from within Compuware's Workbench as part of the development process. Key business risks addressed: not meeting user expectations; reduced competitive advantages; and excessive CPU consumption resulting in reduced revenue.

"Mainframe applications power the top retailers, banks, insurance companies, telecommunications and manufacturing companies worldwide. At the same time, as experienced developers retire, fewer developers are acquiring the mainframe skills needed to maintain these complex applications. This puts enterprises at significant risk for financial losses," said Kris Manery, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Mainframe Solutions Business Unit, Compuware. "It's never been more important to have the tools and people in place to ensure mainframe applications deliver superior quality and performance."

"Navigating the New Normal of Mainframe" Webcast

Compuware will host a Navigating the New Normal of Mainframe webcast Feb. 15 at 11 a.m. ET. During the session, Compuware experts will demonstrate how new interfaces can help both experienced and new-to-the-mainframe developers be more efficient when writing and maintaining code, optimizing test data, testing and debugging, pinpointing problems, validating quality, and tuning applications and performance. To register, visit http://tinyurl.com/7z5nprb.

*Commissioned by Compuware and conducted by independent research company Vanson Bourne, the survey consisted of 520 CIOs in large enterprise organizations with over 1,000 employees. Specifically, the study included 100 CIOs each in the UK, France, Germany and the U.S. along with 30 CIOs each in Italy, Benelux, Japan and Australia.

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