Performance Tuning and Automation Form a Potent Pair

Published: May 11, 2009

by Dan Burger

Despite a lot of talk to the contrary, performance puzzles do exist in a large percentage of IBM midrange shops. It makes no difference whether the servers are called AS/400s, iSeries, System i, or Power Systems i. That's not a knock on the hardware or the people who manage it. But to think that all is well because "this box just sits in the corner and runs" is like expecting your car to run its best without any maintenance or tuning whatsoever.

Some would say performance tuning and system automation costs more money than it saves. That's debatable, but most would say it's just the other way around. Companies that understand efficiency are generally successful companies, and not just because they have deep pockets. It has more to do with taking advantage of what they have in their systems, and that's an on-going learning process.

That brings me to a business partnership that was announced last week.

Business partnerships are formed to expand the success of the participating organizations. The best ones work to the advantage of not only the companies involved, but also the customers of each company who are being introduced to products, services, and the shared knowledge that can be useful in the increasingly complex world of information technology. CCSS and Midrange Performance Group last week tied the knot in a marketing alliance that unites the system monitoring capabilities of CCSS with the capacity planning expertise of MPG. Both vendors are focused on Power Systems running OS/400, i5/OS, and i. Their combined efforts will be aimed toward maximizing system resources in demanding 24x7 environments and reducing the workloads on managers and operators.

In the words of Ray Wright, chief executive officer at CCSS, "Cohesive industry alliances such as this will substantially benefit IT managers who face a complex landscape of system issues, many of which include dependencies or interactions with other areas of the system. For them, solutions that can accommodate a 'big picture' vision of their needs are unquestionably more valuable."

CCSS has developed several software products that help users monitor and manage i platforms, including QMessage Monitor, QSystem Monitor, and QRemote Control.

"This alliance will enable us to serve our customers in a more effective and cost efficient way," said Randy Watson, president at MPG. "Between our two companies, we cover the full range of system management requirements for the IBM i customer."

In addition to its primary goal of providing capacity planning, performance management, and problem determination support for the IBM i and AIX/Linux platforms, MPG has also developed Performance Navigator and Power Navigator software.

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