EU Bank Upgrades ITOA Solution to Ironstream & Splunk Enterprise

Using Ironstream, the bank eliminated manual processes and expanded relevant records for Splunk integration and analysis

After a proof-of-concept exercise using Ironstream (and given Ironstream’s proven track record), the bank decided to select Ironstream as their mainframe-access solution for ITOA for the enterprise. The bank easily eliminated the manual processes, expanded the range of relevant records available for Splunk analysis, and gave a real-time view into the performance of client-facing applications. Furthermore, this improved visibility into IMS performance which positively impacted cost-control efforts and reduced MTTR (mean-time-to-recovery).

This Europe-based banking and wealth-management firm, with operations in over 50 countries, knew the value of enhancing its IT operations analytics (ITOA) solution by bringing operations log data from its distributed IT systems into the Splunk® Enterprise platform. Understanding how the addition of mainframe machine data to the Splunk platform could further improve IT ops and lead to a distinct competitive advantage, the bank had gone to considerable lengths to develop in-house software and processes to get a sampling of SMF (System Management Facility) record types from the z/OS environment into the Splunk platform. The results validated the anticipated value but left a lot to be desired.  They still had to use time-consuming manual processes to assemble workload and IMS performance data for analysis. That involved extracting operations log data from various z/OS subsystems and loading it into Excel spreadsheets for subsequent analysis.

Real time it was not.

Aside from real-time monitoring and visibility, they also wanted to be able to analyze USS logs as well as several more relevant SMF record types, and they wanted the capacity to forward up to 20 gigabytes per day of the insight-generating data from as many as 34 LPARS — requirements that their home-grown tool and processes couldn’t meet.

Wanting the best solution, the bank began to evaluate Precisely Ironstream — the leading provider of real-time access to mainframe machine data to the Splunk platform. In the course of this evaluation they were putting Precisely’s engineering team to the test with a variety of scenarios and requirements.

Read this case study to see how  the bank used Ironstream, and eliminated manual processes and expanded relevant records for Splunk integration and analysis.