By Petra Goude, Global Practice Leader, Core Enterprise & zCloud
Enterprise leaders are increasingly being asked to forge new connections between their business and their IT to deliver better outcomes for employees and customers. Kyndryl Bridge was launched in late 2022 to offer a new approach for collectively selecting, provisioning, consuming, optimizing and managing IT across an organization. It provides an open integration platform designed to create an uninterrupted path between a digital business and the technology that delivers it.
We are pleased to announce that the Integrated AIOps service of Kyndryl Bridge is now enabled for all mainframe (IBM Z) customers.
Why is this important for mainframe customers?
Mainframe is often the core of the hybrid cloud environment, running mission-critical applications that are tightly connected with multiple platforms. Kyndryl Bridge allows integration of all operational data, whether it resides on the mainframe or in the cloud, in an end-to-end monitored and automated solution. This way, our customers and delivery teams can seamlessly implement data collection, event processing, analytics and automation into mainframe environments.
Integrated AIOps is a key component of the Kyndryl Bridge platform. As Kyndryl's mainframe solutions are now fully aligned with Integrated AIOps, the automations allow operational mainframe data to be incorporated into the platform. This enables a new and optimized way of working by providing a holistic and unified experience across the enterprise, supported by data and artificial intelligence. The Integrated AIOps dashboards allow customers to gain real-time visibility and operational insights.
How are the mainframe automations in Kyndryl Bridge being used?
Our delivery professionals are using the Batch Metrics Insights (BMI) solution in Kyndryl Bridge to help proactively recommend the next best action to take to drive better business outcomes. Another solution used is Levels of Automation (LoA), which identifies commands that are entered manually by operators and proactively automates them. Additional data insights, for example related to increasing use of mainframe MIPS (million instructions per second) or to software inventory, are also being ingested into Kyndryl Bridge.
Hence, the use of all these actionable insights enables continuous improvement of our customers' operations. It also helps to identify where further automation or configuration changes should be introduced to better align with global best practices.
How do customers benefit from this new Kyndryl Bridge integration?
Enabling Kyndryl Bridge in a mainframe environment can deliver a lot of benefits for customers. First, it helps to increase productivity by reducing the number of job failures and manual activities, and allows for faster troubleshooting by applying artificial intelligence and machine learning. Additionally, it can result in cost savings and less maintenance, by reducing the number of MIPS used, automating tasks, or recommending the removal of redundant software.
It also helps to better plan future hardware upgrades. Ultimately, the use of Kyndryl Bridge can drive improved delivery and differentiating value for our customers.
For example, reducing the volume of alerts that are handled manually by operators can save organizations multiple hours per month on troubleshooting. Reducing job failures saves time and helps to avoid any delays in the operation. Also, the ability to identify patterns and improvements can slash the need for manual interventions and make operations more predictable.
One customer example is from Stellantis, the global car manufacturer, which will be using Kyndryl Bridge for real-time insights and unprecedented control over its core IT environment. Kyndryl will infuse automation to drive efficiencies, provide global service capabilities to align with business priorities, and improve the quality of Stellantis' day-to-day IT performance to ensure smooth and efficient operations across the customer's manufacturing facilities.
With Kyndryl Bridge now available to all mainframe customers, we're taking another step to meet our customers where they are on their digital transformation journey and help them to drive better business outcomes from their IT infrastructures.