IBM mainframes are not generally considered a hotbed of activity for the Java programming language, but you might be surprised. BMC Software Inc. recently surveyed 1,200 mainframe users and found that 93 percent said their Java usage on big iron is growing, with 46 percent saying it’s increasing at least 10 percent a year.

That’s why the systems management giant is today announcing MainView for Java Environments, a version of its MainView systems manager that provides insight into how Java is consuming resources and affecting application performance on the modern mainframe.

“Companies are using a lot more Java on the mainframe than Cobol, PL/I and assembler languages,” said John McKenny, vice president of strategy and operations for zSolutions at BMC. “They need agile development, and Java is one way to do that quickly.” However, the BMC survey found that 43 percent of Java users on IBM zSeries boses are experiencing performance problems.

As an interpreted language, Java never has had a reputation as a speed demon. For one thing, Java programs aren’t very nice neighbors. They consume system resources without regard for the needs of other applications or services. Java programs run in their own virtual machine, which consumes overhead in CICS and IMS regions. Java also routinely performs garbage collection, which can cause unexpected slowdowns.

“Since Java manages its own resources it can consume excessive amounts of processor time and memory resources leading to performance or availability problems if not proactively managed,” said Tim Grieser, program vice president for Enterprise System Management Software at International Data Corp., quoted in a BMC press release.

MainView  automatically discovers all Java virtual machines running in a client’s environment across an entire data center. It provides a single graphical console to quickly understand the impact of Java applications on resources and other applications and transactions. It helps to improve application performance and ensures availability while reducing license fees by monitoring and offloading tasks from the System z Integrated Information Processor (zIIP) special purpose processor.

This is the latest module in BMC’s MainView line, and integrated systems and automation management package that monitors all stacks running on mainframes. BMC says MainView consumes about 50 percent fewer resources than other systems managers.

BMC is providing a 60-day trial of MainView for Java Environments to existing MainView customers. After that, the software is priced on a per-MIPS basis. For example, the license fee for a 100 MIPS machine is $70,000 before discounts, McKenny said.