New Mainframe Sort Innovations Built on IBM Z Platform
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As the IBM Z Platform continues to transform to support the needs of today’s hybrid cloud environments, it is focused on being robust, resilient, and securable. Hybrid cloud combines and unifies public cloud, private cloud and on-premises infrastructure to create a single, flexible, cost-optimal IT infrastructure. As the IBM Z Platform drives their hybrid cloud model forward, they have delivered significant enhancements in encryption and performance. These enhancements have created opportunities to leverage these improvements to deliver more value to clients as they continue to look for ways to improve their mainframe environment. Join us for a discussion with Denise Tabor, Product Management Director at Precisely, on IBM’s recent enhancements in resource optimization and security and how Precisely is leveraging these technological improvements. Watch this on-demand webinar to hear about: • IBM’s recent enhancements in IBM Z Platform resource optimization and security • Performance enhancements in Syncsort MFX that take advantage of new IBM capabilities • How we are leveraging IBM’s Pervasive Encryption in our Syncsort MFX solution
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New Mainframe Sort Innovations Built on IBM Z Platform
- 1. New Mainframe Sort Innovations Built on IBM Z Platform Enhancements Bill Hammond | Director, Product Marketing Denise Tabor | Product Management Director
- 2. Housekeeping Webinar Audio • Today’s webcast audio is streamed through your computer speakers • If you need technical assistance with the web interface or audio, please reach out to us using the Q&A box Questions Welcome • Submit your questions at any time during the presentation using the Q&A box. If we don't get to your question, we will follow-up via email Recording and slides • This webinar is being recorded. You will receive an email following the webinar with a link to the recording and slides
- 3. The global leader in data integrity software Our data integrity software, data enrichment products, and strategic services deliver accuracy, consistency, and context to power confident business decisions. Brands you trust, trust us Data leaders partner with us of the Fortune 100 90 Customers in more than 100 2,000 employees customers 12,000 countries Integrate Enrich Locate Verify Data Integrity Suite 3
- 4. Product families simplify and strengthen our branding DATA INTEGRITY DATA INTEGRITY IN ACTION Integrate Verify Locate Enrich Engage Precisely Streets Precisely Boundaries Precisely Points of Interest Precisely Addresses Precisely Demographics Precisely Spectrum Quality Precisely Spectrum Context Precisely Trillium New Infogix products Precisely Connect Precisely Ironstream Precisely Syncsort Precisely Assure Precisely Spectrum Geocoding Precisely Spectrum Spatial Precisely MapInfo EngageOne Communicate EngageOne Digital Self- Service EngageOne Compose EngageOne Enrichment 4
- 5. Product families simplify and strengthen our branding DATA INTEGRITY DATA INTEGRITY IN ACTION Integrate Verify Locate Enrich Engage Precisely Streets Precisely Boundaries Precisely Points of Interest Precisely Addresses Precisely Demographics Precisely Spectrum Quality Precisely Spectrum Context Precisely Trillium New Infogix products Precisely Connect Precisely Ironstream Precisely Syncsort Precisely Assure Precisely Spectrum Geocoding Precisely Spectrum Spatial Precisely MapInfo EngageOne Communicate EngageOne Digital Self- Service EngageOne Compose EngageOne Enrichment 5
- 6. Precisely Syncsort Product Line-Up Syncsort MFX + Syncsort ZPSaver Syncsort Optimize IMS Syncsort Capacity Management Syncsort Network Management Syncsort Optimize IDMS Syncsort Optimize DB2 Reduce costs Optimize efficiency Enhance performance Cutting-edge sort, copy while offloading workload to IBM zIIP engines to reduce CPU costs Low-risk, efficient migration for businesses switching from IMS to Db2 Set of tools for network monitoring, security, and performance management Ensure high-performing IT resources are available when and where you need them Improve IBM and CA database performance 6
- 7. USE CASE CHALLENGES DESCRIPTION & BUSINESS VALUE CUSTOMERS Mainframe Optimization • Contain hardware and software costs • Improve performance • Meet/exceed SLAs to support the business • Best-in-class solutions for optimizing mainframe performance and resource utilization • Dramatically reduce the costs by reducing billable CPU time, containing overall software costs and delaying hardware upgrades • Meet SLAs/batch windows to better serve the business Mainframe Database Migration • Minimize risk • Lack of skills/resources • Time to value • Minimize risk by migrating data from IMS to Db2 without making any changes to existing applications • Reduce overall maintenance costs and increased staff productivity by consolidating all critical data into the Db2 platform • No manual coding or mainframe expertise required Capacity Management • Capacity, performance incidents impact business • Difficult to get single view across enterprise • Lack of time/resources • Single solution to proactively manage capacity across your enterprise IT services and infrastructure • Avoid service disruptions • Predict and minimize IT infrastructure costs • Free up staff, maximize accuracy 7 Syncsort Use Cases
- 8. Today’s Conversation • Introductions • How we work with IBM • Precisely’s IBM Z Platform projects • Encryption • Sort Performance • Future direction 8
- 9. Denise Tabor • Background • Responsibilities • Working with our customers • Working across Precisely Presentation name 9
- 10. Working with IBM Long history of collaboration Db2 Utility Team z/OS Team in Poughkeepsie DFSMS Team
- 12. Encryption Customer Value Provides data security at the data set level (file system), minimizing administration costs Challenge Consumes additional processor cycles to decrypt/encrypt – adding costs Solution Syncsort MFX and encryption on zIIP
- 13. Integrated Sort Accelerator Customer Value Reduces CPU usage and improves elapsed time by speeding up sorting Challenge Limited ability to take advantage of the chip Solution Syncsort MFX and offloading to zIIP
- 14. Future Projects Additional optimization improvements Leverage new technologies Encryption enhancements Precisely's IBM Z Platform product portfolio
- 15. Q & A Presentation name 15
- 17. Presentation name Suggested Calls to Action 17 • Syncsort MFX website Syncsort MFX: Increase the efficiency of your mainframe (precisely.com) • Recorded webinar covering Precisely’s mainframe solutions Optimize the Value of Your Mainframe with Solutions From Precisely – Precisely • White Paper Getting the Most Out of your Mainframe – Precisely • Contact Precisely Get in Touch - How to contact Precisely Sales, Media & Support
Editor's Notes
- We have proven products that many customers have successfully used for years. They bring a great deal of brand equity and goodwill to the relatively new Precisely brand, and that supports our cross-sell efforts within the existing customer base.
- We have proven products that many customers have successfully used for years. They bring a great deal of brand equity and goodwill to the relatively new Precisely brand, and that supports our cross-sell efforts within the existing customer base.
- We began in the fall by doing extensive research. We spoke to internal stakeholders as well as customers and partners across product portfolios and geographies. We also conducted surveys with data professionals from enterprises in a range of industries we serve.
- Q: [Bill} Thanks for joining us today Denise. Why don’t we start off with you telling us a little about your role here at Precisely? A: [Denise] Direct from the university, I started my career at a state agency, learning MVS systems programming skills with a small but highly intelligent group of people. They mentored me for several years, and I learned the basics of maintaining several systems, but then focused on Db2. From there, I became a production and application Db2 DBA and then transitioned to a vendor company. I am fortunate enough to have held positions in technical support and sales engineering, where I really enjoyed being a customer advocate and internal liaison across the different departments. This was a natural segue into my current experience in Product Management, where I’ve been for several years. I joined Precisely in early 2020, and I’m currently responsible for the mainframe and capacity management products. I love working with customers, listening to their challenges and formulating solutions that meet their needs. In order to do that, of course, I need to work closely with sales, support, engineering, marketing, and of course, our IBM partnership feeds into that collaboration as well.
- Q: [Bill] You mentioned you need to work closely with IBM. Tell us a little about the interactions you have with IBM people or departments. A: [Denise} We have a very close relationship with IBM – the Db2 Utility team, the z/OS hardware architects, and the DFSMS engineering team know us very well. We have been working with the Db2 Utility team for almost 10 years to develop the IBM Db2 SORT product together. About 5 years ago, we started work with the z/OS Poughkeepsie team and hardware architects for z15’s integrated accelerator for Z SORT research. And finally, about 2 years ago, we started work with the DFSMS team to implement the EXCP encryption API for basic and large format datasets. This collaboration allows us to provide a performant solution for sorting with encryption (more on that later). We will continue to work with IBM in the future to ensure that we take advantage of any opportunities provided by their engineers.
- Q: [Bill] Thanks Denise… obviously we value our close working relationship with IBM very highly. I would like to move us into the meat of our discussion today. Here at Precisely, we have number of products designed to help customers get the most from their IBM Z platform. Across our portfolio, what projects are you working on that will help customers as they continue to optimize their IBM Z Platform environments? A: [Denise] Today, we have two very important projects in the works. Encryption support to improve performance when processing encrypted data and exploiting the hardware enhancement to the z15 machines by IBM.
- Q: [Bill] Q: [Bill] So for the project to improve sorting for encrypted data sets with pervasive encryption, could you explain in details why our customers need that improvement, what solution has been implemented into our products and any performance benchmark information you can share here? A: [Denise] Let me first explain our need to support the encryption initiatives of our customers. Regulatory requirements such as GDPR and CCPA, are designed to protect data and safeguard privacy. Loss of data or compromised information can come with high penalties, and new innovations to assist with this data protection have been implemented to fortify security. The IBM Z Pervasive Encryption solution is a method to enable extensive encryption of data in-flight and at-rest to meet these protection standards. This solution is enabled by administrative policy controls and is designed to be application transparent, without requiring application changes. Data set encryption provides data security at the data set level using DFSMS access methods. This system-wide solution is more cost effective than traditional software encryption solutions. And DFSMS access methods provide data set encryption for sequential, basic, large, and extended format datasets. The challenge to implementing data encryption is it consumes processor cycles, so it doesn’t come without penalty. And although mainframe customers love the pervasive encryption approach, no one likes the additional resource consumption. For Syncsort MFX users, if the input or output data set is encrypted, BSAM must be used instead of our high performant low level IO access methods, and there is an extra cost from that perspective. Last year, IBM’s DFSMS team developed an EXCP encryption API solution called IGGENC to help vendors like us use our low-level IO for encrypted data sets and improve encryption performance. DFSMS splits the encryption/decryption processing from the I/O processing, so we will use our low-level IO methods to read and write the data sets and use IGGENC to encrypt and decrypt data on the zIIP processors. This will significantly reduce the CPU cost and elapsed time. We’ve seen some great performance improvements from our preliminary benchmark testing. For Syncsort MFX, we have seen up to 45% CPU and 40% elapsed savings, and for ZPSaver we have seen up to 80% CPU and 40% elapsed time savings when processing encrypted, basic and large format datasets. This Zpencryption enhancement will be delivered in two phases. Phase 1 is to provide this new ability for SORTIN data sets which is now available. Phase 2 will be for SORTOUT data sets, providing the end-to-end improvements. We are expecting to release the second phase before the end of the year.
- Q: [Bill] You also mentioned you are working on a project to improve sorting performance using the integrated accelerator for Z SORT. What is the integrated accelerator for Z SORT? Any performance improvement have you seen by leveraging Z SORT technology? A: [Denise] The IBM Integrated Accelerator for Z Sort is a new coprocessor designed for the z15. Z Sort can help reduce CPU usage and improve elapsed time for eligible workloads by speeding up sorting, shorten batch windows, and improve select database functions. The challenge to taking advantage of this new hardware is that customers need our utilities, Syncsort MFX and its zIIP-offload capabilities, to optimize sorting workload and achieve performance gains. As I mentioned before, we worked closely with the IBM z/OS Poughkeepsie team and hardware architects for the sort accelerator. We have developed new algorithms in Syncsort MFX to take advantage of the coprocessor and will release this capability in the coming weeks. With the new algorithms, our customers can see dramatic improvements to batch sort job performance. DFSORT provided minimum support for the sort accelerator late last year, and based on our testing, information available from the documentation and our interaction with the Poughkeepsie lab, we have identified several limitations with DFSORT and the IBM Integrated Accelerator. Taking advantage of the new IBM Integrated Accelerator hardware does not improve I/O for the initial file read and final file write, both of which are critical stages of the batch sort process. The new technology only applies to in-memory sort jobs, and users need to ensure there are enough memory objects available for their sort to utilize the hardware. DFSORT may require a memory object size to be ~2x the input file size for Z SORT to be enabled. There are over 20 conditions that will disable DFSORT’s use of Z SORT and revert to DFSORT’s traditional sorting technique. (refer to page 14 of the DFSORT Z SORT users’ guide here) When used with the Db2 Utilities, DFSORT only supports REORG TABLESPACE. Counter to the above limitations, Syncsort MFX improves I/O processes, does not require the size of the memory object, and will support many more conditions that are lacking in DFSORT’s support for Z SORT. In addition, although DFSORT has made some performance gains in very limited cases, our Syncsort MFX and Syncsort ZPSaver products will still offer superior performance. Preliminary Benchmarks* In the Precisely lab, we conducted some preliminary benchmarks in several modes to compare performance metrics between DFSORT Z SORT support, MFX with and without Z SORT support and MFX Z SORT support + ZPSaver. What we found is that even without zSORT, MFX STILL outpaces DFSORT in terms of CPU consumption, adds around 20% improvements for our own sort Z SORT, and of course, super charges performance with ZPSaver! This support will be coming within a few days. We also collaborated with the Db2 Utilities team to develop Z Sort enablement in Db2 Sort – used in the LOAD, REBUILD INDEX and REORG utilities. The support was delivered at the end of 2020, and Db2 Sort customers can see both CPU and elapsed time benefits up to 37% better than using DFSORT (which as I said earlier, currently only supports the Db2 REORG utility).
- Q: [Bill] Those sound like really impactful enhancements for our IBM Z Platform customers. Precisely has a long history … over 50 years… of software solutions for mainframe customers? As you look at continuing that long support, what are some of the areas of innovation you are looking forward to? A: [Denise] We are always assessing performance and efficiency improvements to make to our products, so we will be focusing on these in the future. In addition to that, as new technologies come from IBM, we will examine them to see if we can exploit them for further performance boosts. We’re currently working on the second half of the delivery for encryption, and we expect some innovations from IBM in this space next year. By the way, Bill, we have spent the majority of time discussing MFX, but I will remind our audience that we have performance and efficiency solutions that address Db2, IMS, IDMS, and Network challenges for the z/OS platform. [Bill] Ironstream and Connect