DEVOPSdigest

Compuware and AppDynamics are integrating solutions so enterprise IT organizations can more quickly, easily, and accurately resolve issues with multi-platform applications that use DB2 on IBM z Systems mainframes as a backend database.

Customer-facing web and mobile apps at large enterprises often depend on mainframe DB2 databases. When these apps fail or underperform, the business can lose revenue, customers, and even brand value.

DB2 databases and associated mainframe code, however, are often created and managed by siloed teams using siloed tools. So when DB2-related issues arise, cross-functional enterprise DevOps teams often struggle to get the information and insight they need to quickly identify and resolve root causes.

The integration of the AppDynamics Application Intelligence Platform and Compuware Strobe overcomes this problem by giving DevOps teams direct access to essential DB2 diagnostics from their AppDynamics user interface, with context to the specific transaction.

Benefits of this integrated access include:

- Fast, accurate identification and remediation of complex software execution issues in mixed mainframe/distributed environments

- Better DevOps collaboration across diverse IT disciplines by providing teams with shared access to a rich, granular “single version of the truth”

- Greater business agility from the ability to identify and modify problematic DB2 calls with greater speed and confidence—even as new code is continuously introduced into the production environment

- Revenue and brand value gains from reduced downtime and improved customer experience

- Mitigation of business risk associated with excessive dependence on increasingly scarce DB2 skills.

“Enterprises can substantially enhance their digital value proposition to the customer by more aggressively leveraging their DB2 data, but this puts them in the precarious position of then having to resolve potentially subtle DB2-related issues more quickly and with greater certainty than they’ve had to in the past,” said Compuware CEO Chris O’Malley. “By teaming with AppDynamics, Compuware is letting enterprises achieve those DB2-based value gains without suffering the associated potential DB2-based pains.”

AppDynamics President and CEO David Wadhwani said, “At AppDynamics, our goal is to provide enterprise IT with one platform for unified monitoring, DevOps collaboration, and application analytics. Through our partnership with Compuware, we will be able to more completely achieve that goal as it relates to the mainframe.”

AppDynamics and Compuware plan to continue jointly innovating in ways that help IT unify DevOps across distributed and mainframe platforms. The initial integration will allow AppDynamics users to receive Compuware Strobe performance analysis when they discover a potential issue with a DB2 SQL call.

"When a performance problem could be on the client or on the mainframe server, or somewhere in between, isolating and solving the problem can be complicated,” said Bonnie Baker, noted DB2 expert and President, Bonnie Baker Corporation. “The Compuware and AppDynamics integration enables the distributed guru, with SQL access path information in hand, to work with the mainframe guru, creating a new team of problem solvers who can work together for the common good."