Destination z

Company url: http://www.pathpointsoftware.com

Partnerworld Global Solution Directory:

http://www-304.ibm.com/jct09002c/gsdod/scsolutiondetails.do?cd=BPAS&sbcd=&solution=16532&lc=en

At our July Destination z teleconference, I had the opportunity to talk with Bob Buchanan, Vice President of Sales and Marketing at PathPoint Software. Bob is a veteran of the computer software and hardware industry with over thirty years of domestic and international experience.

Marc: Hi Bob, PathPoint recently joined our Destination z community. Can you tell me a little bit about your company and the solutions you provide?

Bob: PathPoint Software is dedicated to supporting the application support needs of mainframe customers worldwide. We offer a dynamic mainframe application discovery tool that provides a breakthrough, execution-based, approach for understanding how mainframe applications “really work”. Our produce, PathPoint, traces and captures the sequential application-processing path followed by specified, user entered, business transactions as they execute. Captured information provides unparalleled insight into execution-based application facts.

PathPoint’s dynamic approach eliminates the need to analyze static source code and “play computer” as you try to find the right code. No more guess work. PathPoint helps you find the right code.

PathPoint is also included in the IBM Global Services AMS Toolkit.

Marc: What are you finding are the greatest challenges your customers are facing and how does PathPoint Software help them?

Bob: Our customers are often facing a variety of challenges. They need to drive efficiencies into their mainframe application maintenance efforts, including analysis, testing and performance. PathPoint provides a means for customers to reduce analysis time by 50% or more and testing time by 50% or more and identify the cause of application performance problems. Our value proposition revolves around improving personal productivity, which drives down the time and significantly reduces the cost associated with many mainframe application maintenance projects.

PathPoint Software also helps customers struggling to understand how legacy online or batch mainframe applications "really" work – of major importance to customers who are need to make changes to existing applications or to identify the source of application problems. Users of PathPoint simply enter a business transaction of interest, or job a step number, and the product traces and captures the actual application-processing path followed by that executing business transaction – all without any change to source code. Information captured in the actual sequence of execution includes: input screen, programs called, call statements issued, tables/files accessed, how tables/files are accessed (CRUD) and output screen. Optionally, Cobol source code can be parsed during post processing to capture the conditional logic related to executing business transaction.

Marc: PathPoint sounds like it really helps customers quickly identify the “right code” in a mainframe application and relate this code to change requests and other problems. Please tell me a little bit more about PathPoint’s role in addressing application-level performance problems.

Bob: PathPoint captures application level performance timings for specified user-entered business transactions – very unique and valuable information. For example, we capture the elapsed time per call statement, the interim time between call statements, and the frequency of call statements. Using this information, customers can quickly identify the cause of bottlenecks in their applications and how to improve application performance.

Marc: What economic benefit would a user of PathPoint derive?

Bob: First of all, the mainframe application budget is a substantial portion of the overall IT budget in today’s corporations, as you know. And, application maintenance consumes a large percentage of the application budget itself. We are confident that PathPoint users can reduce their mainframe application maintenance budget by up to 20%. Why? Because PathPoint enables users to reduce analysis time by 50% or more, reduce system and regression testing time by 50% or more, and reduce overall project time.

Marc: How can folks find out first-hand about your product?

Bob: We encourage all mainframe sites to try PathPoint. The product can be installed in as little as 2 hours and does not require any change to source code. Visit our website for more details.

Marc: One last question, why is being part of Destination z a valuable community association for PathPoint?

Bob: PathPoint is delighted to be a part of the Destination z community. As an Advanced IBM Business Partner, a very active participant in the IBM Academic Initiative program, we are eager to engage in discussions with other IBM Business Partners serving the System z community. We feel that the Destination z community enables mainframe customers to understand that innovation continues in the world of mainframe computing – PathPoint is just one example of such innovation.

Marc: Thanks Bob. And I welcome readers to listen to the replay of our July 29th Destination z call featuring PathPoint Software. Visit the Destination z website

Hi everyone, Check out this YouTube video done by our IBM Destination z member, BetaSystems.  Click here to see the video. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=myscI0sWf_E

Hi everyone, DataDirect, one of our IBM Destination z members has just started their own blog called Data Connections. Check it out at DataDirect Technologies.[Read More]

We had a great turnout in the zZone at the IMPACT Conference. The zZone sponsors including DataDirect Technologies, Trident Services, Serena Software, Information Builders, Inc. (iWAY), Hostbridge Technologies and IBM System z greeted attendees to the "zone" , showed our products, and offered up a complimentary massage to visitors of each of the sponsors booths, plus a few more... :-)

Watch for upcoming zZone's at future conferences including the upcoming SHARE in Denver.

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Hey everyone, we have two new members of IBM Destination z for you to check out. These new members are Gillani, Inc from Richardson, Texas and Tricept Informationsysteme AG, headquartered in Germany.

You can learn about these z partners by visiting the IBM Destination z site .

Welcome to our newest members... and .. watch this space, we have more to come!!!



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More on the zZone at the IMPACT Conference. Check out this link to see who the zZone Premium sponsors are. And if you are coming to the conference in Las Vegas, grab a zZingo card at the zZone and earn yourself a chair massage while you visit these sponsors and up to 20 other vendors in the zZone zZingo promotion who will tell you about their products and services.

Watch for me in the "zZone" if your there!

Click here to see the zZone Sponsors at the IMPACT 2009 Site

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Are you heading out to IBM's Premier conference around SOA, WebSphere and the mainframe? If you are not, still time to consider it. If you are, please make sure you visit the zZone. What is the zZone you ask?

Well, it is a collection of our IBM Destination z members who can be found in a special area of the Solution Center (Exhibit Hall) at the conference. Our key Destination z Sponsors will be under the "Get into the zZone" banner. In addition, numerous vendors who provide applications, tools, and services to mainframe customers will also be identified by a zZone placard and will be included on a promotion that will allow visitors to earn a complimentary chair massage at the conference.

If your are attending IMPACT 2009, make sure you visit the zZone!

Finally, I will be there too. If you spot me, please stop and say hello!

For information on the conference, visit http://www.ibm.com/software/websphere/events/impact2009/.

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Hello folks,

Just a heads up that IBM in conjunction with WAVV will be conducting a Mainframe Career Exploration Day at the upcoming WAVV (the World Alliance of VSE, VM, and Linux User Group) conference in Orlando Florida on May 18th. If you are a student or faculty member in the Orlando area and you would like to participate, just let me know.

This is a great opportunity to learn about the mainframe and visit with several of our IBM Destination z members who will be attending and/or exhibiting at this event.

Hope to see you there.....[Read More]

You know, I'm sitting here and it occurred to me that I didn't mention the career day at the Lone Star College - Tomball, in Tomball, Texas (near Houston).

IBM arranged to bring their IBM System z10 BC demo machine to the campus, hooked it up. Tomball arranged to bring in about 70 students to see the z10, and for faculty members and College Students, IBM conducted a Linux Workshop where using the z10 mainframe the students installed Linux on the machine using z/VM (z/Virtual Machine).

The event was conducted to kick-off Tomball's efforts to begin teaching mainframe topics as part of their CS workforce program and potentially as part of their CS degree program. Tomball is a recent member of the IBM Academic Initiative, System z program and I look forward to watching as they build their program.[Read More]

Congratulations to those awarded the first ever IBM Destination z Scholarships. They were just announced by zJournal and the sponsors of the program.

The Destination z scholars are the following talented individuals:

• Adam Norwood, University of Arkansas, Management Information Systems master's program
• Sandeep Basnet, Illinois State University, Information Systems master's program, mainframe specialization
• Scott Wetter, Marist College, Computer Science undergraduate program
• Bob Molerio, Marist College, On-Demand with Enterprise Systems certificate program

Each of them has been awarded $1,000 to continue their academic pursuits. Again, congratulations to each of them.

Visit zJournal for more information on the scholarship.

We are working to build another scholarship program for the Fall 2009 semester, and we will announce it formally at the zJournal and Destination z web sites.

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Bob Thomas, the publisher of z/Journal and Mainframe Executive magazines has just started the Mainframe Zone, a new blog about the mainframe, and it looks like something you should bookmark and check out regularly. Not only can you get great news about the mainframe there, but you also just might win a really cool t-shirt if you participate in Bob's contents.

Rather than stealing his thunder, I'll repeat what Bob just wrote to me:

"I have decided to do a mainframe-oriented blog titled the MainframeZone – please take a look at www.mainframezone.com. It's not that I was craving more work. Rather I am starting the MainframeZone to try to draw more attention to the IBM mainframe and as a rallying point for the mainframe community.

"In the MainframeZone I will primarily be an aggregator of important or cool mainframe-centric information that I think mainframe folks will find informative and interesting. For example, I will highlight other mainframe-centric blogs as well as new announcements, applications, users, etc. In addition, I am including two regular features; a Mainframe Trivia Contest and the Mainframe Hall of Fame. Winners and contributors will receive a "Mainframes Rule" T-shirt (you can see it on the blog now.) I will also be including stuff I find clever or amusing such as Wit & Wisdom quotes and my favorite New Yorker cartoons."

There's already some pretty cool stuff there, and looks like Bob is posting new material at least a couple times a week, so go have a look. I'm sure you'll like it.

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Just to be sure two important new features for the Destination z community don't get lost in all the recent news about the new System z10 Business Class mainframe:

1. STUDENTS: You really don't want to miss this chance to win a scholarship to add to your mainframe skills. The new IBM Destination z Enterprise Computing scholarship is sponsored by a group of IBM Destination z Business Partner members and supporters listed to the left. If you're in engineering, computer science, and business information management students you should consider applying.



2. Check out the latest new Destination z members -- OpenTech, B.O.S., and DataDirect are the latest IBM Business Partners to join the community. And here's something you shouldn't miss: Several members of the IBM Destination z community are featured on a new video that you can watch on IBM-TV. Check out their passion for the mainframe and for the Destination z community. You can find a link to it on the Destination z home page.

And always let me know what you think. Add your comment to my blog and I'll get back to you as soon as I can

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Hey z team--

Just came across a really useful site for those of you working with information management software for System z. It's the new Information Management Software for System z e-media site, and I think you'll find its collection of materials both interesting and useful. Check out the webcasts, teleconferences, brochures, whitepapers, and demos you'll find there. The URL is

http://event.on24.com/event/10/77/73/rt/index.html?eventid=107773&sessionid=1&key=F7CB6172EA2BB5B79CB34ABADBC995AD&eventuserid=15876496_

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And speaking of SHARE: Jeff Gould, director of research for Interop Systems, attended the event and came away realizing a couple of important things:

• "Cobol is not dead. And neither is the mainframe"
• If the State of California budget team had been at the event, they might have seen some ways to save money

According to Jeff, the California Controller is keeping money in the state budget to pay for Cobol development, claiming that the language is dead, there is no way to modernize mainframe applications, and that the only thing to do is to keep throwing money at the problem.

Dead wrong, says Jeff. Here's part of what he wrote: "In the past few years a whole new class of mainframe applications has emerged which bring non-mainframe environments such as Java and Linux to Big Iron. WebSphere on z, Linux on z – these are much more than mere checkbox options in some ... marketing scheme. A substantial chunk of the 10,000 or so System z mainframes in the world are actually running these environments. And they are doing it for big-time production apps too, not just development."

Have a look at the rest of Jeff's story. Just more evidence proving what we already know. The mainframe is back, and it really never went away.[Read More]