Mainframe TCO Management in YäRKEN

YäRKEN’s Mainframe TCO Management feature empowers organizations to gain a granular, actionable understanding of their mainframe costs. By providing a detailed breakdown of spend across key categories, it enables accurate budgeting, informed decision-making, and proactive cost optimization.

Feature Overview

Mainframe TCO Management offers a comprehensive view of mainframe cost drivers, segmented into facilities, hardware, software, network, and labor. This breakdown delivers visibility into how and where resources are consumed, supporting precise financial analysis and strategic planning.

Key Spend Categories:

• Facilities –> Data center costs including lease, security, and utilities.
• Hardware –> Depreciation or lease expenses.
• Software –> Mainframe-specific licenses and maintenance.
• Network –> Connectivity costs tied to mainframe operations.
• Labor –> Internal, external, and consulting labor directly related to mainframe workloads.

With low data complexity, organizations can efficiently gather, manage, and analyze these costs.

Benefits of Mainframe TCO Management

• Enhanced Planning & Budgeting: Build accurate budgets with clear visibility into all mainframe-related costs.
• Informed Strategic Decisions: Evaluate modernization, migration, or optimization initiatives with confidence.
• Proactive Variance Tracking: Identify and address budget deviations early.

Implementation Guide

1) Gather Spend Data:
Collect cost data from your general ledger, invoices, budgets, and fixed cost estimates (e.g., hardware leases, depreciation).

2) Configure Spend Drivers:
Identify and input primary spend drivers such as software licensing, labor, hardware depreciation, and facilities costs.

3) Analyze Cost Drivers:
Use YäRKEN’s analytics to assess shared resource consumption (e.g., data center facilities) and benchmark against peers or alternative platforms.

4) Generate Reports:
Produce reports on spend over time, cost per MSU (Million Service Units), and comparative benchmarks to inform strategic decisions.

5) Support Strategic Initiatives:
Leverage insights to drive initiatives like data center exit planning, budgeting, and workload optimization.

Extending Beyond Mainframe TCO

Mainframe Application Spend Analysis
Break down mainframe costs by individual applications to enable better performance management, lifecycle planning, and faster decision-making.

Application TCO Management
Analyze the full cost of ownership for applications across all platforms —> mainframe, virtual, cloud, and hybrid, also including middleware, licensing, and support costs.

Digital Service Value Realization
Incorporate outcomes-based metrics, usage assumptions, and service unit pricing over time to connect spend with delivered business value.

Business Case & Scenario Planning
Use TCO insights to build defensible business cases, compare options, set performance targets, and refine strategic assumptions.

Client Benefits

With YäRKEN’s Mainframe TCO Management, organizations can expect:

• Accelerated Decisions: Faster, data-driven decisions supported by comprehensive reporting.
• Improved Budgeting: Greater accuracy in forecasts and budget allocations.
• Cost Transparency: Clear, defensible visibility into mainframe-related costs.
• Strategic Resource Optimization: Confidently align resources with business priorities.

 In conclusion, mainframe TCO Management in YäRKEN provides the transparency and insights needed to optimize mainframe investments. Combined with capabilities like application spend analysis, value realization and business case planning, it ensures a holistic and strategic approach to IT cost management…. empowering organizations to plan, optimize, and communicate the value of their IT investments.

Whether you’re looking to get clearer on your IT investments or want to explore how YäRKEN helps teams simplify and optimize mainframe TCO, let’s start a conversation. We're here to help!