Business IT modernization supplier BMC bought Model9 in April last year, and has rebranded its software as the AMI Cloud.
BMC is a private equity-owned $2 billion a year revenue company supplying enterprise IT operations and service management with a focus on automation and digital transformation and, latterly, the application of AI. Its customers are mid-size to Fortune 500 enterprises. AMI stands for Automated Mainframe Intelligence and it is a suite of mainframe data management products encompassing AMI Storage Management, Storage Migration and Storage Performance focussed on the z/OS environment.
John McKenny, SVP and GM of Intelligent Z Optimization and Transformation at BMC, said in a statement: ”Organizations rely on their mainframes to run their always-on, digital world. By launching BMC AMI Cloud, we’re helping them modernize their mainframe by eliminating the need for specialized skills and unlock their mainframe data to gain the benefits of cloud computing, so they can secure the most value for their organizations.”
Model9 supplied mainframe VTL (Virtual Tape Library) and data export services so that mainframe customers could avoid using slow and costly mainframe tape on the one hand, and move mainframe data to open system servers and the public cloud for application processing that is not available in the mainframe world.
BMC has evolved the Model9 software assets into a trio of AMI Cloud offerings alongside the AMI Storage threesome:
- AMI Cloud Data—Migrate mainframe backup and archive data to cloud object storage; part of the classic Model9 VTL tech.
- BMC AMI Cloud Vault—Create an immutable data copy of the mainframe environment in the cloud with end-to-end compression and encryption for protection against cyber-threats and ransomware. This uses Model9’s data export capability.
- BMC AMI Cloud Analytics—Transfer and transform mainframe data for use in any AI/ML analytics cloud applications which simply may not be available in the mainframe environment.
Simon Youssef, head of Mainframe at Israel Postal Bank, was on message with his statement: “I am thrilled with the exceptional results we have achieved by implementing BMC’s data protection and storage management solutions for our mainframe data. With BMC AMI Cloud, we were able to modernize our legacy infrastructure and unlock new levels of efficiency and cost savings. BMC’s solution seamlessly integrated with our mainframe systems, eliminating the need for costly tape backups and streamlining our data management processes.”
BMC told an IT Press Tour in Silicon Valley that is investing heavily in integrating AI throughout its portfolio. CTO Ram Chakravarti said: “Operationalising innovation is the key to competitive advantage … AI is data’s best friend.” He talked about BMC building a set of interconnected DigitalOps products.
After talking with the BMC staffers it seems likely that customers will have several AI bots (GenAI Large Language Model Assistants) and they will interact. A CEO at an enterprise customer could, for example, ask Microsoft Copilot a question and Co-pilot then use sub-bots to get domain-specific information, such as the BMC bot. There could be a contest between BOT suppliers to get the CxO-facing bot, the top-level one, in place and then expand their Bot’s applicability in a land-and-expand strategy.
