GOC

DataDirect Technologies today released new mainframe Service Oriented Architecture performance benchmarks for its latest mainframe integration suite, DataDirect Shadow version 7.

 

The tests were conducted at the DataDirect Technologies’ mainframe products development lab in Sugar Land, Texas. At the lab, test parameters compared the previous version of the DataDirect Shadow product against the current, version 7 release.

 

According to company, officials ran the initial performance tests for each of the major mainframe Web services provider integration types supported by the DataDirect Shadow product, including business-logic integration, screen-logic integration and data-logic integration.

 

The results indicated a 170 percent average increase in transactions per second across all three integration types, according to the company. Business-logic integration services delivered the greatest throughput performance increase of 300 percent. The company says that an organization requires the transformation of mainframe applications into reusable, Web services and the ability to access data via Web services, when evolving toward a SOA.

 

Due to the processing costs associated with Web services, the barrier for entry into SOA has become higher with mainframe systems. DataDirect Technologies expects these costs to increase as mainframe SOA adoption matures and the complexity of Web services on the mainframe grows.

 

DataDirect Shadow version 7 is the first mainframe integration middleware to capitalize on the inherent performance and cost advantages of the IBM (News - Alert) specialty engines, and has the ability to improve performance and reduce costs associated with mainframe SOA enablement. The company said that this solution opens the System z9 Integration Information Processor (News - Alert) to additional workloads beyond DB2, including mainframe data queries to IMS, VSAM, Adabas and IDMS, as well as SOAP/XML parsing for the transformation of business logic and screen logic into Web services.

 

SOA integration processing and data queries can be diverted from the mainframe’s General Purpose Processor thanks to the DataDirect Shadow product’s patent-pending design which then helps them offload to the zIIP and/or System z Application Assist Processor specialty engines.

 

DataDirect refers to the Gartner (News - Alert), Inc. research brief, IBM Mainframe Specialty Engines Affect General Purpose Processor Performance, May 27. Analysts John R. Phelps and Mike Chuba said that specialty engines, regardless of multiprocessing ratio impact, represent the most attractive price/performance environment for a mainframe.

 

Gregg Willhoit, chief architect of the Shadow product at DataDirect Technologies noted in a statement that from a technology perspective, they have solved the bulk of mainframe integration challenges with SOA. He indicated that the bigger hurdle has been making SOA cost effective for the mainframe, which the DataDirect Shadow product delivers through its unique ability to divert processing intensive workloads away from the mainframe GPP to non-measured specialty engines.

 

Willhoit said that performance tests conclude on average, 76 percent of DataDirect Shadow version 7 processing can be diverted to the zIIP specialty engine, with improved performance and the potential for significant cost savings.