Velocity Software, Inc. is recognized as
a leader in the performance measurement of z/VM and Linux on z.
The Velocity Performance Suite consist of a set of tools that
enable installations running z/VM to manage Linux and z/VM
performance.
In addition, many components of server farms can be
measured and analyzed. Performance data can be viewed real-time
through the use of either 3270
or a browser.
The CLOUD Implementation (zPRO) component is designed
for full cloud PaaS implementation as well as
to extend the capabilities of the z/VM sysprog (system programmer)
to the browser world. This feature moves system management to
the point-and-click crowd. Archived data and reports can be
kept available of long term review and reporting usine zMAP.
The zVPS, formally ESALPS, components consist of:
zMON (formally ESAMON - real-time display of performance data),
zTCP (formally ESATCP - SNMP data collection),
zMAP (formally ESAMAP - historical reporting and archiving),
zVWS (formally ESAWEB - z/VM based web server),
zTUNE (a subscription service),
zVIEW (formally SHOWCASE - web based viewing of performance data),
zPRO (new to the quality line of Velocity Software Products).
Velocity continues to work with other software vendors to ensure
smooth interface with or from other products such as
VM:Webgateway, CA-Webgateway, EnterpriseWeb, MXG, MICS.
Velocity software remains the leader and inovator in the
z/VM performance, Linux performance, Managing cloud computing
arenas.
Velocity Software was founded in 1988
to create premier performance management
products for the z/VM platform. For over 30 years, Velocity Software
has been innovative in accomplishing this objective worldwide,
working
with a customer set that includes many international banks and
government installations.
Corporate Objectives
Our singular objective is to reduce our customers' cost of ownership
for the z/VM platform. This objective is accomplished in different
ways:
Improving
platform efficiency to reduce hardware and software costs,
Reducing skill requirements via simplification and modernization,
Moving performance of
many tasks previously
requiring skilled system programmers to the end user
that actually require the task completion.
zVPS for Performance Management
The objective of performance management is to utilize system
resources
efficiently. If we save our customers 10% of their hardware/software
costs, that would provide them
considerable savings. Performance management has
four components:
Performance Analysis support reduces the time to analyze
platform performance problems and resolve them quickly. This can
positively impact end users both inside and outside the organization.
Capacity Planning allows for planned growth to meet
business requirements, by understanding existing requirements and
projecting requirements to support future growth and applications.
Operational Support provides alert mechanisms for any
detected problems. With potentially thousands of servers, any one of
which could impact different applications and users, it is critical
to programmatically detect problems and alert operations or application
owners of situations that may degrade their user functions.
Chargeback Support is used by many IT organizations to
understand the costs associated to support each application or set of
users. Many installations act as a profit center with each organization
paying for their consumption which more closely aligns IT to business
objectives.
Managing your system with zVPS will allow better performance from
your existing system
resources at a higher utilization. When resources are
utilized at higher utilization, less hardware is needed, and
the associated software licenses decrease.
zVPS is our "Velocity Performance Suite" and is easily recognized
as the industry leader by your systems programming staff.
zPRO for z/VM Modernization
The objective of zPRO is platform modernization and
transformation. Traditional
vendors of z/VM products have not moved to a web based modern
front-end interface,
but rather have maintained their outdated 3270 terminal
based functions.
As the ONLY z/VM based web server is provided by Velocity Software,
that significantly advances
our ability to modernize the platform. For 20 years, Velocity
Software has been building modern front-end interfaces
for z/VM based on
our modern z/VM based webserver, where as other
vendor products have attempted to use their only option of a
Linux based apache interface
with tremendously complicated and cumbersome
programming interfaces
to z/VM.
zPRO has the singular goal of simplifying the z/VM platform. This
is performed by:
Web/browser based functions to replace traditional 3270
terminal based system functions
Replacing other vendor products
with modern functions that take
advantage of the many improvements over the last 20 years
in both z/VM and the hardware, all
of which are included at no additional cost in zPRO.
Private Cloud architecture to allow end users to utilize
a controlled environment to manage their own server farm and the
associated resources. This greatly
reduces the traditional end user dependency on systems
programmers for managing end user applications.
Many installations are having difficulty maintaining a skilled
staff. With zPRO, the productivity improves such that
staff requirements often drop to one (or less)
full time skilled systems programmer. Additionally, Velocity Software
also provides short term services for our customers for upgrades and
other larger systems tasks when/if/as needed.
Performance Matters
Velocity Software also provides two add-on features to assist
installations in maintaining optimal performance.
zTUNE has two components. One component is a set of rules
that is applied against your performance data each minute to look for
performance problems that have been identified over the last 30 years.
The second component is for when installations have a performance
problem, they work directly with the experts at Velocity Software to
analyze and determine how to solve problems. As z/VM has many
components that are part of the platform, performance problems may not
be easily identified without experienced performance skills. Think
about this offering as insurance for that next time there is a problem
that impacts your production and is not quickly resolved.
zVRM dynamically adjusts your Linux servers to ensure the
servers are configured to meet system objectives. Defining large
servers is often a perceived requirement. However, in a shared
resource environment, what one server wastes could be used by a server
performing productive work. zVRM will dynamically
reduce server storage using CMM (Colaborative Memory Management)
when servers are oversized, as well as return the storage as workloads
ramp up and more storage required. zVRM will also reduce the virtual
CPU counts to minimize the overhead of Linux managing many virtual
CPUs. When servers are created to support workloads much larger than
actually implemented, there is system overhead associated that then
consumes CPU resources that otherwise would be used for productive work.
By dynamically tuning your system as a process, we optimize
your system
in a manner that no other vendors can
provide.
Education:
Velocity Software strives to educate our customers on the latest
performance analysis techniques as well as in what we have learned
over the last decades.
VM Workshop is always preceeded by a Velocity Software
performance workshop typically 2-3 days of free education. Held
annually at different universities, this is an opportunity to
learn how to optimize the z/VM platform and utilize zVPS for analysis.
Performance Tuning Guide on our customer website is
maintained to answer questions and educate users on how to analyze
performance of z/VM, Linux and zVSE.
Costs Matter
Every business and government agency scrutinizes costs. Often
costs are not obvious such as carbon impact of thousands of
servers in a large data center. As installations look more
at costs of their IT infrastructure, Velocity Software
assists
in many ways:
Cost of Software: Velocity Software has maintained the same
cost structure for almost 20 years. And we have added many features
that are delivered at no charge to meet customer needs.
Product Upgrades Included All product upgrades
to support new hardware, new releases of the operating systems,
and new function we have added are provided at no charge.
Product Support is always FREE. Support is always included
in the standard lease agreement.
Current Support: Velocity Software has their own datacenter
with a z15 T01 that runs current levels of each z/VM release as well as
old ones, every supported release of Linux, supported releases of zVSE
as well as z/OS. Our purpose of keeping leading edge hardware and
software is to provide our customers support when they need it,
reducing time to introduce new function and capacity.
Minimal Implementation time! Measured in hours, not days/months
For example, our z15
was installed, turned over to Velocity Software, and two days later,
z/VM was installed with RACF and the Velocity Software stack. At
this point, zVPS and zPRO were installed and fully operational.
We had about 200 Linux servers created and managed across
four LPARs configured in Single System Image architecture.
As compared to months of implementation for competitive
products implemented
using the Linux webserver and the IBM SMAPI interface. Reduced
implementation time of all our software reduces customer costs
significantly as compared to any other product options.
Product Trials and Proof of Concept is always FREE.
We are generous with trials and POCs to ensure everybody is happy.
This includes everything customers get at no charge.
zVSE at no charge feature for those installations
with zVPS and VSE, we provide the VSE feature at no charge.
Velocity Software is a privately held global
company, headquartered in
Mountain View, California.
