As virtualization makes its way deeper and deeper into the data center, organizations
are starting to leverage virtualization not only for the flexibility, efficiency,
and reduced cost of ownership it provides but also because it lifts many of
the constraints that govern which platform an application needs to run on. Different
types of applications possess different workload “personalities” and
these heavily influence how well an application will perform on a given virtualization
model.

Following are some tips for identifying those workloads that are best suited for consolidation onto mainframes and for analyzing
existing IT environments to determine the optimal approach for consolidating
workloads onto the mainframe platform.

Analyzing workloads onto mainframes

Partitioning, hypervisors, containers, and other approaches can all be used
to allow workloads to co-reside on a common platform. Given the relative
strengths and weaknesses among platform classes, considerable diligence is required
when consolidating workloads between them. This involves understanding which
applications will run on the mainframe, which applications will experience the
most benefit by moving, and what they will look like after the transition. In
practice, it is even more important to understand the subtlety of such a transformation,
particularly when the overall goals are to optimize the benefit while minimizing
the risk.

By modeling transformations in terms of the constraints that govern them, it
is possible to chart a course that reaches the end goal. These constraints can
be classified into three categories:

1. Technical constraints – what can go together

2. Business and process constraints – what should go together

3. Workload analysis – what fits together

Technical constraint analysis

Technical constraint analysis generally deals with compatibilities and affinities
between hardware and software components. What can run on what, what talks to
what, etc.  For mainframes, this step is concerned with what applications
will work on the mainframe, which will accrue the most benefit by moving, and
how they should be organized to optimally leverage these benefits.

Hardware and software compatibility - In addition
to understanding which applications talk to one another and which have an affinity
or aversion to one another, it is also important to understand how the applications
and their usage drive middleware to behave. Likewise, any cross-platform transition
must take into account whether the source systems employ any specialty hardware
such as token rings, faxes, and USB devices that may be difficult to move with
them. If any of these things influence how the application is configured in
the mainframe environment, it should be ruled out as a consolidation candidate.

Network connectivity and latency - Any shifts in the topological
location of an application may introduce changes in communication latency that
can

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