NET(net)'s Top 10 Ways to Save on Mainframe: Part 2 of 10 Part Series

Preface:

Thank you for joining us for this 10-part series to discuss the Top 10 Ways You can Save on your Mainframe Costs in 2023.

Nearly all Clients are Clamoring for Savings in 2023. This is largely due to (a) rising input costs, (b) softening business forecasts, and (c) continued economic headwinds. This has caused many clients to re-evaluate spending plans and implement new cost-cutting targets.

IT is the Number One Cost Savings Category of the Modern IT is typically the highest indirect spend area for modern enterprises and is also the cost category with the highest potential yield (we average about 33% savings on addressable IT spend). In addition, since 2020, clients have largely exhausted conventional cost savings countermeasures such as canceled projects, delayed spending plans, and cuts in discretionary spending, and many have even gone through Reductions In Force (RIFs), and/or even facility closures. As a result, clients are at risk of cutting muscle and bone this year as savings demands persist, but desperate measures are not necessary when we can help you harvest considerable value from your mainframe supply chain, do so with minimal risk, and perhaps even get additional value from modernization and other benefits.

NET(net) is the Number One IT Cost and Value Optimization Provider. In the last 20 years, we have shaped over $2 Trillion of investment, captured well over $400 Billion of incremental value for our clients and partners, and have an 85% probability of achieving savings ranging between 13-53%.

Introduction:

When it comes to Mainframes, NET(net) sees incredible savings opportunities in 2023. Not since 2008 has there been as much downward pricing pressure on technology incumbents, and we believe meaningful savings targets can be achieved, but due to the market conditions, technology incumbent suppliers will be highly disruptive to any cost savings agenda, so it will require a commitment to do the hard work.

With that as a backdrop, we give you our Top 10 Ways You can Save on your Mainframe Costs in 2023.

In case you missed our previous installments, take a look back at our previous posts:

Way #2 of 10: Minimizing MIPS (Millions of Instructions Per Second) can result in considerable savings.

Minimizing MIPS (Millions of Instructions Per Second) - requires a multi-faceted approach, and when done well, client organizations can save considerable money on the mainframe. In this month’s installment, we will discuss how you can reduce your MIPS. It involves the following strategies:

Capacity planning: Proper capacity planning can ensure that client organizations are not over-provisioning or under-provisioning mainframe resources, reducing MIPS usage and leading to cost savings.

Pro Tips: proper capacity planning can help organizations optimize resource allocation, avoid overprovisioning, improve performance, identify opportunities for consolidation, and identify opportunities for workload optimization. This can result in significant MIPS savings and improved efficiency on the mainframe:

  • Optimized resource allocation: By performing proper capacity planning, client organizations can ensure that mainframe resources, such as CPU and memory, are allocated in an optimal manner. This means that workloads are assigned to the right resources, ensuring that they run efficiently and with minimum MIPS usage.
  • Avoidance of overprovisioning: Capacity planning can help client organizations avoid overprovisioning, which occurs when too many resources are allocated to a workload. This can result in wasted resources and increased MIPS usage. Proper capacity planning ensures that resources are allocated in a balanced manner, avoiding overprovisioning and reducing MIPS usage.
  • Improved performance: Proper capacity planning can help improve mainframe performance by ensuring that workloads are not starved for resources. This means that they can complete tasks more quickly, using fewer MIPS in the process.
  • Identification of opportunities for consolidation: Capacity planning can help organizations identify opportunities for workload consolidation. By consolidating workloads, client organizations can reduce the number of mainframes required, which can result in significant MIPS savings.
  • Identification of opportunities for workload optimization: Capacity planning can help organizations identify workloads that can be optimized to reduce MIPS usage. This may involve rearchitecting workloads, removing unnecessary processing steps, or optimizing database access. By optimizing workloads, client organizations can reduce MIPS usage and improve performance.

Virtualization: Use virtualization to consolidate multiple workloads onto fewer physical servers, optimizing resource, improving efficiency, increasing flexibility, enhancing security, and reducing the overall MIPS usage and leading to cost savings in the following ways:

Pro Tips: virtualization can lead to cost savings by reducing MIPS usage, optimizing resources, improving efficiency, increasing flexibility, and enhancing security.

  • Server Consolidation: Virtualization allows multiple virtual servers to run on a single physical server. By consolidating multiple physical servers onto fewer physical machines, overall MIPS usage can be reduced, resulting in lower hardware, power, and cooling costs.
  • Resource Optimization: Virtualization enables the efficient allocation and management of computing resources such as CPU, memory, and storage. This leads to optimal resource utilization and reduces the need for additional hardware, which can result in lower capital expenses.
  • Improved Efficiency: Virtualization technology enables better utilization of computing resources, which can lead to increased efficiency in application processing. This increased efficiency can result in lower MIPS usage and provide cost savings.
  • Increased Flexibility: Virtualization enables the creation and management of virtual machines (VMs) on-demand, allowing businesses to easily adjust resources as needed. This flexibility enables businesses to scale their IT infrastructure as their needs change, resulting in cost savings.
  • Enhanced Security: Virtualization can enhance and improve security by isolating applications and workloads within their own virtual environments. This reduces the risk of security breaches and helps ensure compliance with regulatory requirements, potentially saving costs related to security breaches and non-compliance penalties.

Consolidate Workloads: Mainframes typically run at low utilization rates and as applications have been modernized and workloads have been migrated, these lower utilization rates often open opportunity for consolidation. By consolidating workloads onto fewer machines, client organizations can reduce overall MIPS usage and save money on software licenses and hardware costs. In one case, we were working with a client who had 17 mainframes where the workloads only justified 9 machines, so consolidation analysis can sometimes be a very worthwhile endeavor.

Pro Tips: Measuring mainframe utilization is an important step in determining if there is a consolidation opportunity. By following these steps, client organizations can measure mainframe utilization and identify consolidation opportunities that can result in significant cost savings and improved efficiency:

  • Collect data on mainframe usage: Start by collecting data on mainframe usage, including CPU utilization, memory usage, and I/O operations. This data can be collected using tools such as system monitors, performance management tools, and log files.
  • Analyze the data: Once you have collected the data, analyze it to determine patterns and trends in mainframe usage. Look for periods of high and low utilization.
  • Identify underutilized mainframes: Use the data to identify mainframes that are consistently underutilized. These may be good candidates for consolidation.
  • Determine the potential benefits of consolidation: Estimate the potential benefits of consolidating underutilized mainframes, including cost savings, improved efficiency, and reduced complexity.
  • Consider the impact on critical workloads: Before consolidating mainframes, consider the impact on critical workloads. Ensure that consolidation does not compromise performance, availability, or security.
  • Develop a consolidation plan: Once you have identified potential consolidation opportunities, develop a consolidation plan that outlines the steps needed to migrate workloads and retire underutilized mainframes.
  • Monitor results: After consolidating mainframes, monitor the results to ensure that the consolidation has achieved the desired results in terms of improved efficiency and cost savings.

Optimize Batch Processing: Optimizing batch processing can reduce the amount of MIPS required to complete batch jobs on a mainframe leading to cost savings.
Pro Tips: Optimizing batch processing can help to reduce MIPS usage on a mainframe by reducing CPU consumption, improving I/O performance, minimizing job wait time, reducing contention, and simplifying batch processing infrastructure:

  • Reducing CPU consumption: By optimizing batch jobs, the amount of CPU consumed by the batch processing can be reduced. This can be achieved by removing unnecessary processing steps, simplifying processing logic, and improving data management techniques. By reducing the amount of CPU consumed, the overall MIPS usage is also reduced.
  • Improving I/O performance: I/O operations are a significant contributor to mainframe MIPS usage, and optimizing batch processing can help to reduce I/O operations. This can be achieved by tuning database access, reducing disk access, and improving buffering and caching techniques. By reducing I/O operations, the overall MIPS usage is reduced.
  • Minimizing job wait time: When batch jobs are waiting for resources, such as files or other system resources, they consume CPU cycles while waiting. By optimizing batch processing, the amount of wait time can be minimized, which reduces the amount of CPU consumed and the overall MIPS usage.
  • Reducing contention: Contention occurs when multiple batch jobs are competing for the same resources, such as database access or shared memory. Optimizing batch processing can help to reduce contention by minimizing the number of jobs that require the same resources at the same time. This reduces the amount of CPU consumed and the overall MIPS usage.
  • Simplifying batch processing infrastructure: By simplifying the batch processing infrastructure, the amount of CPU and other resources consumed by the infrastructure can be reduced. This can be achieved by reducing the number of batch processing subsystems or consolidating them onto a smaller number of mainframes. By reducing the amount of infrastructure overhead, the overall MIPS usage is reduced.

Optimize Workloads: Optimize applications and workloads to reduce the number of instructions required to complete a task, leading to a reduction in MIPS.
Pro Tips: Workload optimization can help reduce MIPS by identifying and removing unnecessary processing, improving data access, simplifying processing logic, reducing I/O operations, avoiding contention, and consolidating workloads. By optimizing workloads, client organizations can reduce the overall MIPS required to complete the workloads, resulting in improved efficiency and cost savings on the mainframe:

  • Reducing unnecessary processing: Workload optimization can help identify and remove unnecessary processing steps in a workload, which can help reduce the amount of MIPS required to complete the workload.
  • Improving data access: By optimizing the way data is accessed, such as through indexing or partitioning, workloads can run more efficiently and use fewer MIPS.
  • Simplifying processing logic: Simplifying processing logic, such as by reducing the number of conditional statements or using more efficient algorithms, can reduce the amount of MIPS required to complete a workload.
  • Reducing I/O operations: Workload optimization can help reduce the number of I/O operations required to complete a workload. This can be achieved by improving buffering and caching techniques or tuning database access.
  • Avoiding contention: Workload optimization can help avoid contention for shared resources, such as databases or memory, which can reduce the amount of MIPS required to complete a workload.
  • Consolidating workloads: Workload optimization can help identify opportunities to consolidate workloads, which can reduce the overall MIPS required to complete the workloads.

Utilizing Specialty Processors: such as zIIP (System z Integrated Information Processor) and zAAP (System z Application Assist Processor) can help save money on the mainframe.
zIIP is designed to offload certain types of work from the general-purpose central processors (CPs), allowing client organizations to run more applications on their existing hardware, reducing the need for additional resources.
zAAP is specifically designed to run Java workloads, which can help client organizations reduce software license costs.

Pro Tips: using specialty processors such as zIIP and zAAP can reduce MIPS and lead to cost savings by reducing CPU usage, lowering software costs, improving performance, better resource utilization, and potentially reducing hardware costs.

  • Reduced CPU Usage: zIIP and zAAP processors are optimized for specific types of workloads, such as database and Java processing. By offloading these workloads to specialized processors, general-purpose processors are freed up to perform other tasks, resulting in reduced CPU usage and lower MIPS consumption.
  • Lower Software Costs: Many ISVs (Independent Software Vendors) charge licensing fees based on the number of MIPS consumed by the software. By offloading specific workloads to zIIP and zAAP processors, general-purpose processors consume fewer MIPS, resulting in lower software licensing costs.
  • Increased Performance: zIIP and zAAP processors are designed to handle specific types of workloads more efficiently than general-purpose processors. Offloading these workloads to specialized processors can result in improved performance and faster processing times, leading to increased productivity and cost savings.
  • Better Resource Utilization: By using specialized processors to offload specific workloads, overall system resources are better utilized. This can lead to better performance and improved response times for critical applications.
  • Reduced Hardware Costs: Because zIIP and zAAP processors are designed to offload specific workloads, less general-purpose processor capacity is needed to handle those workloads. This can result in lower hardware costs because fewer processors are required to meet the system's processing needs.

Improved Code Efficiency: can consume fewer MIPS (Millions of Instructions Per Second) and lead to cost savings.
Pro Tips: improved code efficiency can consume fewer MIPS and lead to cost savings by reducing execution time, better utilizing resources, potentially reducing hardware requirements, lowering energy consumption, and potentially reducing licensing costs.

  • Faster Execution Time: More efficient code typically requires fewer CPU cycles to execute, resulting in faster processing times and lower MIPS consumption. This can lead to cost savings by reducing the amount of processing time needed to complete tasks.
  • Better Resource Utilization: Efficient code is typically designed to better utilize system resources such as CPU, memory, and storage. This can lead to more efficient resource utilization, resulting in lower MIPS consumption and potential cost savings.
  • Reduced Hardware Requirements: Improved code efficiency can reduce the processing power required to execute a given workload, potentially reducing the need for additional hardware components. This can result in cost savings by reducing hardware acquisition and maintenance costs.
  • Lower Energy Consumption: More efficient code can consume less power during execution, resulting in lower energy consumption and potentially lower cooling costs. This can lead to cost savings by reducing energy bills and operational expenses.
  • Reduced Licensing Costs: Many ISVs (Independent Software Vendors) charge licensing fees based on the number of MIPS consumed by the software. More efficient code can result in lower MIPS consumption, potentially reducing licensing costs.

Tuning Database Applications: can reduce MIPS (Millions of Instructions Per Second) and lead to lower costs.
Pro Tips: Tuning database applications can reduce MIPS and lead to lower costs by improving query performance, optimizing indexing, efficient resource utilization, reducing storage requirements, better scalability, and potentially reducing licensing costs.

  • Improved Query Performance: Tuning database applications can improve the performance of SQL queries, resulting in faster execution times and lower MIPS consumption. This can lead to cost savings by reducing the amount of processing time needed to complete database-related tasks.
  • Optimized Indexing: Proper indexing of database tables can improve query performance and reduce the amount of processing time needed to retrieve data. This can lead to lower MIPS consumption and cost savings by reducing the amount of processing time needed to access and retrieve data from the database.
  • Efficient Resource Utilization: Tuning database applications can lead to more efficient utilization of system resources such as CPU, memory, and storage. This can lead to lower MIPS consumption and cost savings by reducing the amount of processing power needed to complete database-related tasks.
  • Reduced Storage Requirements: Tuning database applications can lead to a reduction in the amount of storage required to store data, potentially resulting in cost savings by reducing the amount of storage hardware needed.
  • Better Scalability: Tuning database applications can improve the scalability of the database, allowing it to handle larger volumes of data and more concurrent users. This can lead to cost savings by delaying the need for hardware upgrades or additional software licenses.
  • Lower Licensing Costs: Many database software vendors charge licensing fees based on the number of MIPS consumed by the software. Tuning database applications can reduce MIPS consumption, potentially resulting in lower licensing costs.

Data Compression: Utilizing data compression techniques can reduce the amount of data storage you need and thereby reduce the amount of processing power required to manage and process large volumes of data, reducing the MIPS required to process data and reducing costs.


Pro Tips: the use of data compression techniques can reduce MIPS and lower costs by reducing data transfer requirements, lowering storage requirements, improving data access times, reducing backup and recovery time, improving resource utilization, and potentially delaying the need for hardware upgrades.

  • Reduced Data Transfer: Data compression techniques can reduce the amount of data that needs to be transferred between systems, resulting in lower network bandwidth requirements, and potentially reducing the amount of processing power required to transmit and receive data. This can lead to cost savings by reducing network infrastructure costs and potentially reducing hardware requirements.
  • Lower Storage Requirements: Data compression techniques can reduce the amount of storage required to store data, potentially resulting in cost savings by reducing the amount of storage hardware needed.
  • Faster Data Access: Compressed data can be decompressed and accessed faster than uncompressed data, resulting in faster query response times and potentially reducing the amount of processing power required to access and retrieve data. This can lead to cost savings by reducing the amount of processing time needed to complete database-related tasks.
  • Reduced Backup and Recovery Time: Compressed data can be backed up and recovered faster than uncompressed data, resulting in lower MIPS consumption and potentially reducing the amount of processing power required to complete backup and recovery tasks. This can lead to cost savings by reducing the amount of processing time needed to complete backup and recovery-related tasks.

Improved Resource Utilization: Compressed data requires fewer system resources such as CPU, memory, and storage, resulting in more efficient resource utilization and potentially reducing the amount of processing power required to complete tasks. This can lead to cost savings by reducing the amount of processing time needed to complete tasks and potentially delaying the need for hardware upgrades.

Data Archiving: Archiving infrequently used data can reduce the amount of data that needs to be processed and stored, leading to lower MIPS and reduced cost.
Pro Tips: the use of data archiving can reduce MIPS and lower costs by reducing storage requirements, improving query performance, more efficient resource utilization, reducing backup and recovery time, and helping to meet compliance requirements.

  • Reduced Storage Requirements: Data archiving can reduce the amount of data that needs to be stored in the production database, potentially resulting in cost savings by reducing the amount of storage hardware needed. This can lead to lower MIPS consumption by reducing the amount of processing power required to access and retrieve data.
  • Improved Query Performance: With less data to process, the production database can execute SQL queries faster, resulting in lower MIPS consumption and potentially reducing the amount of processing time needed to complete database-related tasks.
  • More Efficient Resource Utilization: By moving historical or less frequently accessed data to an archive, the production database can focus on processing current and frequently accessed data. This can result in more efficient resource utilization, potentially reducing the amount of processing power required to complete database-related tasks and delaying the need for hardware upgrades.
  • Reduced Backup and Recovery Time: Data archiving can reduce the amount of data that needs to be backed up and recovered, resulting in lower MIPS consumption and potentially reducing the amount of processing time needed to complete backup and recovery-related tasks. This can lead to cost savings by reducing the amount of processing time needed to complete backup and recovery-related tasks.
  • Compliance Requirements: Data archiving can help organizations meet compliance requirements by ensuring that historical data is retained for a specified period. This can help to avoid legal penalties and potential litigation costs.

Hardware Upgrades: Upgrading to more efficient hardware can improve processing performance and reduce the overall MIPS usage, leading to cost savings.
Pro Tips: hardware upgrades can reduce MIPS consumption and save money by increasing processing power, better utilizing resources, improving efficiency, improving availability and reliability, and potentially extending the lifespan of the system.

  • Increased Processing Power: Upgrading hardware components such as the CPU, memory, or storage can increase the overall processing power of the system. This increased processing power can reduce the time required to complete tasks, resulting in lower MIPS consumption and potentially lower costs.
  • Better Resource Utilization: Newer hardware components are often designed to better utilize resources such as CPU cycles, memory bandwidth, and storage I/O. This can lead to more efficient resource utilization and lower MIPS consumption, resulting in potential cost savings.
  • Improved Efficiency: Newer hardware components are often more efficient and consume less power than older components. This improved efficiency can lead to lower power consumption and reduced cooling requirements, resulting in potential cost savings.
  • Improved Availability and Reliability: Upgrading hardware components can improve system availability and reliability, reducing the likelihood of downtime and resulting in potential cost savings.
  • Extended Lifespan: Upgrading hardware components can extend the lifespan of the system, delaying the need for a full system replacement. This can result in cost savings by avoiding the need for a major capital expenditure.

Migrate (appropriate) Workloads to the cloud: We recently wrote about The Top 5 workloads NOT well suited for cloud migration, so, we always advise client organizations to be aware of the considerations and to plan accordingly, but in general, cloud migrations of workloads can result in considerable savings.


Pro Tips: Mainframe costs are exorbitant compared to cloud, costing as much as 4500% more to operate than equivalent cloud solutions. Cloud platforms are optimized for efficiency and scalable as needed, which can help client organizations avoid over-provisioning and reduce resource consumption. Much of this management is automated, and the pricing is consumption based, so when done right, this can dramatically reduce the costs associated with workload processing. Cloud migrations of mainframe workloads are easier than ever, often requiring no refactoring and simple ‘lift and shift’ automated toolsets. In summary, migrating workloads to the cloud can reduce MIPS and lower costs by leveraging a pay-as-you-go pricing model, scalability, resource consolidation, reduced infrastructure maintenance, and improved resource utilization.

  • Pay-As-You-Go Pricing Model: Cloud providers offer a pay-as-you-go pricing model, where client organizations only pay for the resources they use. This can result in cost savings by reducing the need to invest in expensive hardware and software infrastructure.
  • Scalability: Cloud providers offer the ability to scale resources up and down based on workload demands. This can lead to lower MIPS consumption by ensuring that the right amount of resources are used to handle the workload. This can result in cost savings by reducing the need to purchase additional hardware to handle peak workload demands.
  • Resource Consolidation: By consolidating workloads onto fewer physical servers in the cloud, organizations can reduce the amount of processing power required to handle workloads. This can result in cost savings by reducing the number of physical servers needed to handle workloads.
  • Reduced Infrastructure Maintenance: Cloud providers take care of hardware and software maintenance, which can lead to lower maintenance costs for client organizations. This can result in cost savings by reducing the need for IT staff to manage infrastructure.
  • Improved Resource Utilization: Cloud providers optimize resource utilization by dynamically allocating resources based on workload demands. This can result in lower MIPS consumption by ensuring that resources are efficiently utilized. This can result in cost savings by reducing the amount of processing power required to complete tasks and potentially delaying the need for hardware upgrades.

Summary:

Overall, reducing MIPS on an IBM mainframe can lead to significant cost savings, especially for large client organizations that operate multiple mainframes with high MIPS capacity. By implementing these and other advanced strategies, client organizations can effectively reduce MIPS usage on the mainframe and optimize mainframe costs. The results of minimizing MIPS (Million Instructions Per Second) on an IBM mainframe can lead to lower costs in several ways:

  1. Reduced software licensing costs: Many IBM mainframe ISVs (Independent Software Vendors) charge their customers based on the MIPS capacity of the mainframe. By reducing the MIPS, the software licensing costs associated with these third-party ISVs can be reduced accordingly.
  2. Lower hardware costs: The purchase cost of a mainframe is typically based on the maximum MIPS capacity of the system. By reducing the MIPS, a smaller or less powerful mainframe can be purchased, leading to lower hardware costs.
  3. Lower maintenance costs: Mainframes require regular maintenance and upgrades to keep them running smoothly. By reducing the MIPS, the maintenance costs can be lowered as fewer resources are required to maintain the system.
  4. Reduced energy costs: Mainframes consume a lot of energy, and reducing the MIPS can lead to a lower power consumption, resulting in lower energy costs.

How Much Can You Save?

By working closely with NET(net) to implement these and other savings strategies as part of our Top 10 Ways to Save on Mainframes, client organizations can reduce their mainframe costs significantly and better align their spending with their actual usage, resulting in a more cost-effective mainframe environment.

  • Clients fully committed to mainframe modernization efforts can save 80-90%.
  • Clients who are committed to a Mainframe Cost Optimization (MCO) initiative (including workload migrations), but who have limited ability to move applications off the mainframe can still see savings between 32%-60% with full scoped work efforts.
  • Clients who are unwilling or unable to consider disruptive strategies, but those that still want to work with us strategically to optimize mainframe consumption and maintenance costs can see savings that range anywhere from 13%-33%.
  • Clients who believe they can do this all on their own and those who believe they have all the skills, toolsets, and market & supply side knowledge to get the best outcomes likely have a savings opportunity of 5-15%, but most get only minor or no savings and unfortunately erode the opportunity to get future savings by unknowingly making subtle yet critical mistakes which is why we always strongly recommend working with us as your trusted advisor.

Stay Tuned

Our next installment (3 of 10) in this 10-part series of the Top 10 Ways You can Save on your Mainframe Costs in 2023 is a detailed look at how client organizations can reduce their MLCs (Monthly Licensing Charges). Once you have optimized your licensing types, vehicles, and structures, and minimized your MIPS, you can then take the next steps, utilizing a variety of advanced methods and strategies to further save money on the mainframe, minimizing the costs of your MLCs.

Summary

In all respects, extracting value from the mainframe supply chain in 2023 is not going to be easy as the big iron cartel will not only be wildly disruptive to any cost savings effort, but they will also be implementing their own cost increase agendas. If you're ready to take on the challenge and are dedicated to putting in the hard work with us, Contact Us today to learn more about how we can help you save on your mainframe as well as all your other technology investments or Sign up now for a Savings Cloud subscription, and we will get started on helping you save money right away.

About NET(net)

Founded in 2002, NET(net) is the world’s leading IT Investment Optimization firm, helping clients find, get, and keep more economic and strategic value in their technology supply chains. Over the last 20 years, NET(net) has influenced trillions of investment, captured hundreds of billions of value, and has helped clients cost and value optimize all major areas of IT Spend, including XaaS, Cloud, Hardware, Software, Services, Healthcare, Outsourcing, Infrastructure, and Telecommunications, among others. NET(net) has the experience you want, demonstrates the expertise that you need, and delivers the performance you demand and deserve. Contact us at info@netnetweb.com, visit us online at www.netnetweb.com, or call us at +1 (616) 546-3100 to see if we can help you capture more value in your IT investments, agreements, deployments, and relationships.

NET(net)’s Website/Blogs/Articles and other content is subject to NET(net)’s legal terms, offered for general information purposes only, and while NET(net) may offer views and opinions regarding the subject matter, such views and opinions are not intended to malign or disparage any other company or other individual or group.

Read similar posts below