Tuesday, 20 November 2007

Survey: Many IT Organizations Do Not Monitor MIPS Growth

Despite the rising costs associated with MIPS creep, a majority of IT executives, 58 percent to be specific, do not continually monitor MIPS usage according to a recent survey.

The report, which was conducted by Compuware to help organisations better understand MIPS usage and MIPS management in mainframe organisations, revealed that 43 percent of IT leaders believed their organizations manage MIPS ineffectively.

“As MIPS usage increases faster than business growth and other IT costs, it is consuming a larger portion of the IT budget and forcing reductions in other, potentially more strategic areas. Application failures, poor application performance, and increased MIPS usage due to new system software releases and software packages have a growing impact on IT costs,” said Bruce Klenk, Director of Product Management, Compuware Service Management Products.

“For businesses to improve application performance and reduce IT costs, it is imperative to control MIPS growth by implementing solutions that effectively monitor and manage MIPS usage.”

The survey showed a remarkable growth in MIPS consumption of more than 10 percent, on average, annually. This figure was greater than overall business growth (9 percent) and IT cost growth (7 percent).

The survey also brought to light a number of factors driving increased MIPS consumption, with business growth, poor application performance and recurring application failure topping the list.

While business growth is obviously beneficial, unwanted and costly increases in MIPS consumption associated with recurring application failures and poor performance can be monitored and controlled. 84 percent of respondents say improving the quality of applications in terms of response time and availability is important and 69 percent say that delaying or reducing CPU upgrades is important and yet 43 percent admit they are not effective in managing MIPS today.