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Monday, September 20, 2004

Case Study: zLinux Cuts Costs at Controller's Office
The state of Idaho has tapped a zLinux solution to achieve immediate ROI of nearly half-a-million dollars annually
by Stephen Swoyer
8/17/2004If you think mainframe Linux is an over-hyped phenomenon, take a look at the state of Idaho. The government has successfully implemented Big Iron Linux to reduce its dependence on highly distributed Intel servers, paving the way for a transition from costly zOS application maintenance fees, and helping achieve positive ROI after cutting costs by nearly $400,000 each year.
How’s that for a mainframe Linux value proposition?
Like many Big-Iron Linux adopters, Idaho’s initial deployment plans were relatively limited in scope and ambition. For example, says George Judge, a deputy controller in the Idaho State Controller’s Office, his organization was looking for a way to streamline its highly distributed Intel-based infrastructure. “I was very concerned about the proliferation and the cost of the little … [Intel] boxes and the utilization of same,” he confirms.
As a side benefit, Judge believed he could tap Linux running on a zSeries mainframe to ratchet up quality-of-service and introduce features that couldn’t be replicated on Intel hardware. “I wanted to have a better recovery capability for our customer’s applications, and, of course, with the zLinux, when you recover the system, you’ve got everything back. All of the servers, all of the routers, all of the switches—all of the stuff, which is individual hard [Intel] boxes, is all virtual stuff when you do it on Linux.”
This led to other possibilities—including throwing off, or otherwise mitigating, the expensive maintenance costs associated with the use of some mainframe applications, says Judge: “Software costs seem to amount to 25 percent of my budget on an ongoing basis—that’s maintenance and software costs.”
These were important considerations, Judge allows, but what cinched the deal was the possibility of delivering a new mainframe Linux-based application that could substantially reduce the operational expenses and increase the efficiency of the Idaho State Controller’s Office. “We designed an application which allows people to view reports online in a .PDF format. That’s the first production application that we rolled out."
Before Idaho could get to Big Iron Linux Nirvana, however, it first had to take stock of its own readiness to do so. The reality, says Judge, was that the State Controller’s Office had no internal zLinux or zVM expertise, nor did it have a modern mainframe power plant on which to deploy Big Iron Linux. As a result, Idaho turned to IBM Business Partner and zLinux specialist Mainline Information Systems, which helped it purchase and deploy a new z800 mainframe system as well as implement zVM.
“We did not have any Linux background … [but] we had a real interest in wanting to do this and get our skills current, [because] everybody likes to learn new things,” says Judge. “We had [a previous] engagement with Mainline, and we used their services in a consulting manner when we installed VM, because we didn’t know anything about it. So we had them here for about four days to help us bring up VM and Linux.”
In this regard, says Conrad Vigo, a regional account executive with Mainline Information Systems, the Idaho State Controller’s Office was hardly unique. Many new zLinux adopters have no existing Linux or zVM skills, he says, but—in the case of zVM—beyond initial setup and some ongoing maintenance, this isn’t necessarily a constraint. “I haven’t found it [the zVM requirement] to be an issue. I think the Idaho Controller’s Office is a perfect example,” he says, adding: “We’ve got some [customers] who are in pilot mode. Some are in limited production, others are still trying to figure out how to use [zLinux], although they’re all interested. I can‘t say that I have one mainframe or Linux customer that I [have] talked with who hasn’t been interested in [zLinux].”
In the months that followed, Idaho got its IT staff up to speed on the use of Linux, and also sent three staff members to California for PHP training. The reason, says Marla Marchant, application development bureau chief for the Idaho State Controller’s Office, was that her organization’s new zLinux-based Web publishing system would have to be written entirely in PHP. The risks were great, she concedes, but so were the rewards. Once implemented, the new application would reduce Idaho’s dependence on clerical resources and help save precious budget dollars.
“We used to have intervention of clerical staff shuffling lots and lots of paper around. Before we started the project, we put together some projections by doing some analysis of the print statistics of our customers’ production systems. We know that we can’t totally eliminate printing of special forms like Accounts Payable remittance advice, but we felt like we could do away with the largest share of production reports,” she comments.
“When we went through and did our analysis, it came out very close to the data center saving in the area of $180,000 a year, and in between the two customers, something like $200,000 a year in print costs, and that was just the dollars that we charged them. We’d been supporting two large Xerox page printers, with maintenance costs, and by rolling out this application, we’re able to put in a bunch of small HP printers to reduce the maintenance costs.”
Now finished and in production, Idaho’s new zLinux-based Web publishing system taps a .PDF reporting format, PHP coding, and a MySQL repository. Best of all, says Marchant, it’s both user-friendly and user-empowering: “We’ve been able to build user interfaces where report-owners actually perform all of the maintenance activities that will trigger their reports to be pushed [from] the mainframe to the application running on zLinux,” she observes.
Better still, says Judge, the new zLinux application lets the Idaho State Controller’s Office provide much better service to its customers: “People get their reports almost instantly, instead of us having to box them up and mail them.” He adds: “What’s really slick about [the application] is that our customers don’t need anything but a Web browser and Adobe Acrobat. They get their reports in the morning when we get to work. Nobody has to box them [or] pick them up, so this is a real, real money saver for the state of Idaho.”
Idaho’s MySQL repository current stores almost 2.9 million pages, all of which are accessible from the Web, according to Judge. The new application currently supports as many as 600 concurrent users, a number that’s expected to continue to grow as the Idaho State Controller’s Office rolls the application out to a broader audience, such as vendors who provide goods and services to the state. “Our authentication database has 26,000 active users [state employees and others] over the course of a year, and any of those users are eligible to view online reports,” notes Marchant.
One of the best things about zLinux is that—thanks to its zVM underpinnings—system managers can husband compute resources to make more effective use of compute capacity. The result? The Idaho State Controller’s Office is using only a fraction (three to four percent)of its overall capacity, thus giving it plenty of room to grow. Even so, Judge is taking a very pragmatic approach to zLinux.

“As we’ve moved down the path with these mainframe Linux applications or implementations, we’ve realized that there are some things that make good business sense to move to, and others that [do] not. The more I/O intensive [an application is], the better the mainframe is. If it’s a heavy-duty high-compute-[intensive] application, maybe that’s not the best to do. But this kind of [Web publishing] application is great; [there's] very little cost,” he says.
With this caveat in mind, the Idaho State Controller’s Office hopes to migrate its zOS-based Lotus Domino applications to zLinux. “So far we do not have that in a production mode, but we are actively testing those Domino applications. My hope is that I’m going to be able to freeze those software costs so they don’t keep growing,” Judge indicates.
Going forward, Marchant says her organization plans to deliver at least two additional custom applications. “We have two more applications under way that will open up our Linux environment to our vendor community. These Web applications will allow vendors to take advantage of electronic funds transfer. They will be able to go to our web site and look at their remittance advice and [electronic fund transfer] settlements the morning after the funds transfer posts to their accounts,” she concludes.

posted by OttoKee  # 9:22 PM

Thursday, September 16, 2004

Bob Evans, IBM mainframe pioneer, dies at 77
Published: September 5, 2004, 7:20 PM PDT
By Steven Musil Staff Writer, CNET News.com -->

Bob Evans, an IBM computer scientist who helped to develop the modern mainframe computer, died Thursday. He was 77.
Evans died of heart failure at his home in the San Francisco suburb of Hillsborough, his son Robert Evans said.
Evans began working at IBM in 1951 as a junior engineer after earning a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from Iowa State University. When he retired from IBM 33 years later, he was vice president of engineering, programming and technology.
In the 1960s, Evans led a team that developed a new class of mainframe computers called the System/360, or S/360, which allowed different applications to be run simultaneously. IBM invested $5 billion in the project at a time when the company's annual revenue came to $3.2 billion.
"Prior to the S/360, each computer was a unique system. They were made to an individual customer's order, and there was no continuity from design to design," Colette Martin, the director of zSeries products for IBM, told CNET News.com before the mainframe's 40th anniversary in April. "Prior to the S/360, they were single-application systems."
The architecture introduced in the S/360 is still in use in IBM mainframes.
In 1985, President Ronald Reagan recognized Evans' work on the project with the National Medal of Technology. In 1991, he was presented with a Computer Pioneer Award from the Computing Society of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers.
From 1981 to 1995, Evans acted as a chief science adviser to the government of Taiwan, and later helped to start Taiwan's Vanguard International Semiconductor Corp.

posted by OttoKee  # 7:24 PM
OUTSOURCING

Malaysia caught in no man's land? By Cordelia Lee,
CNETAsiaThursday, September 16 2004 6:04 PM

comment If you've been reading any of Malaysia's major local newspapers over the last couple of weeks, you would have read the report that Malaysia is the third most popular destination for shared services and outsourcing based on AT Kearney’s 2004 Offshore Location Attractiveness Index.
Malaysia's sudden shot to fame caught many industry folks by surprise, which led to some questioning the reliability of the AT Kearney report. Interestingly enough, the AT Kearney team, which conducted the survey in North America, said they were equally stunned and had re-checked their numbers a couple of times.
Some people were curious to find out where Malaysia ranked in the last year's survey. As it turned out, Malaysia did not even make the 2003 list. In its previous report, AT Kearney stated that "the country appears to have been undiscovered as an offshore location".
AT Kearney’s vice president Ooi Joon Leong explained to CNETAsia that the objective of the 2003 survey was to compare the countries that were well-known for offshoring. Ooi said that after analyzing last year's survey findings, Malaysia did rank among the top five.
"With 2004 survey, AT Kearney decided to screen all countries and then indexed the shortlisted countries," he said, noting that the methodology used was not that different.
"There was some tweaking of parameters but the method was generally the same. The study was based on objective data and not opinions or impressions of individuals," he stressed.
Ooi said Malaysia lacks mindshare and its key challenge is to build greater awareness of the country as an attractive offshoring location.
Ravi Aron, a professor of information and operations management at Wharton and who has been researching BPO (business process outsourcing) trends for over two years, has a different perspective.
"I don't know if I'd go with Malaysia at No.3, and Singapore has been put too low at No.5," he said.
Indeed, Aron finds Singapore far more competitive than India or Malaysia when it comes to high-end IT requirements. He points to Singapore's superior telecommunications and IT infrastructure, transparent financial institutions, squeaky clean legal system, and the availability of a strong pool of senior management personnel. All these key factors substantially offset Singapore's higher wages, he said.
Malaysia appears to be caught in "no man's land" between India and Singapore, and Aron doesn't think it can ever beat India in the cost game. The cost of hiring Indian workers with good analytical skills is 40 percent lower than Malaysian workers.
"Malaysia can produce, at best, one worker for the mid-to-high end BPO market for every 10 to 11 workers that India can offer," he said.
In the high-end value segments like financial services, biotech, healthcare, and mission critical supply chain coordination, Singapore still reigns. In contrast, Malaysia has limited domain expertise and experience. Malaysia is just not competitive in either end of the market: It cannot match India, or China, at the volume end, nor Singapore at the value end, Aron rationalized.
Industry pundits say Malaysia must power on its heavy marketing machinery if it wants to lure the larger firms from China, India, U.S. and the U.K. And with the intense competition out there, the government will have to identify which service segments make more sense for Malaysia and zero in on those investors.

posted by OttoKee  # 6:42 PM

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