Five Reasons Why HCL ZAO Is Must for IBM Z Systems Customers

Mission-critical business applications continue to rely on IBM Z Systems/Mainframe platforms for its versatile, secure, high-performance, and high availability architecture.

About 80 per cent of the world’s corporate data resides or originates on mainframes and is commonly used in a variety of industries, including:

• 44 out of the top 50 worldwide banks
• The top 10 insurance organizations
• 18 of the top 25 retailers 

We can understand by above stats how crucial is IBM Mainframe for the enterprise business. But with that also comes an array of Complex architecture and software assets spread across the enterprises. A business must know what software inventory and its usage. Without this information, these companies are more than likely paying for seldom-used, unused or obsolete software.

This is where the HCL Z Asset Optimizer (HCL ZAO) comes into the picture, specifically designed for IBM Z Systems/Mainframe customers to manage software asset inventory, their usage and license information in one integrated solution.

Check out the five reasons why HCL ZAO is must for your IBM Z Systems/Mainframe. 

1. Complete Automation – Automatic discovery of Mainframe software assets & application usage 

 ZAO, a market leading Mainframe software asset discovery tool that can recognize over 15,000+ mainframe software products and features from IBM and other software vendors and provides comprehensive software inventory reports. Also it accurately tracks and reports the usage of in-house z/OS applications – Batch workload , CICS , IMS transactions written in COBOL, PL/I, C/C++, REXX , Java 

2. ROI on Z Systems -Optimize Software Licensing Cost 

ZAO has a unique capability called “licensing & contract Optimization” to save hundreds of thousands of dollars for Mainframe customers without impacting the systems & business applications (Zero Impact to business application).

Insights from ZAO can helps Mainframe customers to:

• Negotiate licensing cost with software vendors 
• Eliminate Less Frequently used Software products or Not used products 
• Identify over- or under-licensing software’s. 
• Identify candidate for MIPS optimization 

3. Audit & Compliance -Reduce corporate risk

A failed software compliance audit can cost an organization heavenly as a fine per violation. An audit can be failed due to the presence of pirated software, using more licenses than allotted, or other violations of the software’s End-User License Agreement (EULA).

License information of vendor software products can be imported into ZAO. The license information is compared to their installation (inventory) and usage information to identify cost reduction and audit exposures opportunities. 

4. Operation efficiency -Mainframe Infrastructure Management

ZAO provides robust reporting capabilities and it’s a Go-to tool for Sysprogs on Software/Hardware Upgrade or Migration projects. ZAO Provide detail impact on Applications, Batch Jobs & Users that helps in Planning, Validation & Testing stages. 

5. Flexible Deployment options – available for both on z/OS and Linux 

With the latest HCL ZAO V2.1, there are deployment options on Container technology on Linux on Z and z/OS.  

• On z/OS: Identify and offer nearly real-time module usage data of programs running in batch or transaction mode (CICS or IMS) in each configured z/OS system in a Parallel sysplex environment. 
• On Linux:  Take advantage of ZAO engine built for Docker Container for Linux on Z. and take advantage of the IBM Integrated Facility for Linux (IFL) engines. 

Last but not the least, it comes with flexible pricing options tailored to customer needs. You can schedule a demo to explore more about its offering and usage to enhance your current mainframe infrastructure.