Introducing IBM Apptio Mainframe TCO: Complete Visibility into Mainframe Costs and Usage

Mainframes continue to play a central role in powering the world’s most critical business operations, from financial transactions to core enterprise applications. Mainframes are used by more than 70% of global enterprises and still handle 90% of all credit card transactions (Gartner).

Yet, as cost pressures rise and modernization discussions accelerate, IT Finance and IT leaders face a growing challenge: understanding and managing the true costs of their mainframe environments.

Mainframe costs span hardware, software, licensing, labor, storage, and networking – tracked through usage-based metrics like MIPS (Million Instructions Per Second) and MSUs (Million Service Units). While precise for IT teams, these measures can be difficult for business stakeholders to interpret, and without translation into business terms, they lack the context needed to make informed decisions. Without clear visibility into cost drivers or how they align to business units and applications, organizations struggle to:

• Accurately allocate mainframe costs
• Understand total cost of ownership for mainframes
• Track MSU consumption by workload type
• Measure unit cost changes for modern workloads
• Decide which workloads to retain, modernize, or migrate
• Monitor and adjust cost, performance, and capacity

Without a unified, data-driven view of mainframe total cost of ownership (TCO), usage, and consumption, decisions risk being based on assumptions – not facts.

That’s where IBM Apptio’s newest solution comes in: IBM Apptio Mainframe Total Cost of Ownership (TCO).

Purpose-built to deliver a clear, defensible view of mainframe costs, enabling accurate cost allocation, comprehensive utilization tracking, and data-driven decision making. It supports a variety of performance data sources, and when paired with IBM Z IntelliMagic Vision for z/OS performance management software, it unlocks deeper insights and a 360° view of mainframe economics. It surfaces detailed insights across total costs, consumption trends, and cost allocation, helping organizations manage mainframe spend and better inform modernization decisions.

With this level of transparency, organizations can:

• Understand and track the ongoing financial impact of mainframe operations
• Accelerate modernization decisions with both cost and performance insights
• Track and analyze consumption trends, such as MSUs and CPU seconds
• Allocate costs accurately, mapping spend to applications, business units, and workloads for clear accountability

Here’s what the solution provides:

Mainframe Cost Transparency & Allocation

To manage mainframe costs effectively, the first step is understanding the true cost. IBM Apptio Mainframe TCO provides a defensible, end-to-end view of total cost of ownership, covering labor, vendor, cost pools, and business applications for every workload. Costs can be broken down by workload, product line, application and environment, giving IT Leaders and IT Finance the clarity to allocate spend fairly and with confidence.

By establishing mainframe cost transparency, users can answer fundamental questions like:

• What is the TCO for our mainframe services?
• Which components (e.g., software, compute, storage) are driving the most cost?
• Are costs being allocated fairly to the business units that consume them?

Mainframe Unit Rates & Consumption Insights

Understanding how mainframe capacity is consumed, and the unit costs associated with that consumption, is essential for evaluating efficiency and usage patterns. IBM Apptio Mainframe TCO enables organizations to track MSU trends over time, including both GCP and zIIP usage, across workloads, applications, and product lines. Trend views display monthly, quarterly, and yearly growth, making it easier to uncover anomalies, identify seasonal patterns, and monitor changes in workload behavior. Side-by-side comparisons of GCP and zIIP MSUs provide clarity on how different types of processing are utilized.

When paired with IBM Z IntelliMagic Vision for z/OS, organizations can drill deeper into workload performance to quickly determine the “what changed and why” behind a shift in unit rates or consumption patterns. This integrated view connects financial signals from IBM Apptio with operational context from IBM IntelliMagic Vision, helping teams move from visibility to action faster.

These insights help answer questions such as:

• How is mainframe being consumed across products, applications, and workloads?
• How are unit costs trending for GCP and zIIP workloads over time?
• Are there anomalies or spikes in consumption that need further investigation?

Mainframe Showback and Chargeback

Driving accountability across business units starts with clear, defensible reporting. IBM Apptio Mainframe TCO enables showback and chargeback views that connect actual mainframe usage to its associated costs, whether by application, workload, or business unit. With IBM IntelliMagic Vision, this allocation is supported by detailed consumption data, ensuring fairness and accuracy. These reports give Finance and IT leaders a shared view of consumption, making cost discussions fact-based and productive.

These insights help answer questions such as:

• Which business units consume the most mainframe resources?
• Are costs being attributed accurately based on usage data?

Mainframe Workload Efficiency

Once you understand mainframe usage and unit costs, the next step is finding ways to improve efficiency. IBM Apptio Mainframe TCO provides a detailed view of all workloads running on the mainframe, including their GCP and zIIP usage, so you can highlight applications where resources seem disproportionally high. This includes identifying redundant workloads, underutilized applications, or patterns that drive unnecessary peaks.

When paired with IBM Z IntelliMagic Vision for z/OS, you can go deeper to see why inefficiencies exist, whether due to spikes in transaction volumes, changes in batch processing, or shifts in application behavior. This level of detail extends to specific address spaces, CICS transactions, and DDF transactions, giving you precise visibility into where capacity is being consumed. IntelliMagic Vision can also be configured to run change-detection reports by application, so anti-patterns such as loops or ramps are caught in test or early production instead of being buried in a monthly summary report. With both cost and performance context, teams can take targeted action to reduce waste and make better use of mainframe capacity.

These insights help answer questions such as:

• What are all the workloads/applications currently running on mainframe?
• How are they utilizing GCP and zIIP capacity?
• Are there inconsistencies or spikes in usage that could indicate inefficiencies or unexpected cost drivers?

Understand Mainframe TCO and Usage with Confidence

Whether you’re managing mainframe today or evaluating its place in a hybrid IT strategy, IBM Apptio Mainframe TCO is a powerful solution for any organization seeking greater transparency into its mainframe environment.

IBM Apptio Mainframe TCO, combined with performance management software like IBM Z IntelliMagic Vision for z/OS, gives your organization the clarity, transparency, and control needed to understand mainframe TCO and usage with confidence. Sign up for a demo to learn more.

Learn more about IBM Apptio Mainframe TCO