|
|
 |
ROI CASE STUDY
zPrime™—Minimize Costs During Mainframe Migration
HIGHLIGHTS:
Goal: Minimize costs during mainframe migration
Industry: Transportation |
2-Year ROI: 80%
2-Year Benefit: $548,300
Break-Even Point: 180 days
|
Business Challenge
A North American trucking company plans to retire their mainframe system as they move applications to a virtualized distributed environment. High mainframe costs motivated them to migrate off the platform. During the planned 2-year transition period, the company wants to lower mainframe costs as far as they can. They expect mainframe workloads to sharply decline at several intervals as legacy applications are shut down. They are not looking for ways to make their migration project faster or easier, just cheaper.
Mainframe Environment
This moderately sized mainframe shop has two Z9 systems with an installed capacity of 720 MSUs, though they have also implemented soft caps to reduce software license costs and are actually operating within a self-imposed limit of 490 MSUs. They have three zIIP processors that could handle about 175 MSUs.
The company’s workloads are expected to decrease at a 10-15% annual decline rate, though the drops are not steady—they occur at planned points in time when applications are disabled. The company plans to lower their soft caps again in a few months to reflect their workload decline and to continue lowering software costs by eliminating workload spikes.
The workload mix revolves around DB2 and CICS with quite a bit of online transaction processing. IMS is not in the workload mix at this shop.
Financial Benefits
An initial ROI analysis for this organization shows that they have ample specialty processor capacity to handle about a quarter of their normal business workload, though they have never achieved anything close to that level of usage. The shifts in workload will lower monthly software costs immediately, with savings until the platform is retired.
Declining workloads from the application migration effort means that the company will be constantly evaluating its soft caps to avoid peak usage periods. zPrime lets the company lower its soft caps further than would otherwise be practical, giving them the ability to cut costs to the bone. Projecting the company’s MSU usage with and without zPrime shows that they can safely lower their soft caps by about 100 MSU. That’s 100 MSUs that will be shaved off IBM’s 4-hour rolling average billing metric.
For this company, lowered central processor workloads mean savings of $548,000 over the 2-year decommissioning project. That’s a half million dollars the company can spend on fuel, salaries, or new trucks instead of on a computing platform they view as obsolete and that they are working to retire.
Summary
NEON zPrime can deliver cost savings for this company by lowering monthly software costs. Although the company is not investing in any new software for the mainframe, they see zPrime as a possible exception because of its ability to deliver value even on shrinking workloads on a legacy system that’s on its way out.
About This Case Study
NEON Enterprise Software uses a sophisticated ROI model that can accurately forecast zPrime project costs and savings. NEON analysts have worked with more than 100 companies to prepare detailed projections based on accurate site-specific data.
 Request an ROI consultation.
|
|
|
|
|
