Unlocking Mainframe Observability with OpenTelemetry and PropelZ™
In today’s hybrid IT environments, observability is critical for ensuring system performance, troubleshooting issues, and optimizing resources. OpenTelemetry (OTel) has emerged as the industry standard for collecting and exporting traces, metrics, and logs across distributed applications, helping organizations achieve full-stack observability. However, a major challenge remains — how to extend OpenTelemetry to IBM Z mainframes, which still power mission-critical workloads in banking, insurance, healthcare, and government. At VirtualZ Computing, we bridge the observability gap between mainframes and modern monitoring with the unique capabilities of PropelZ.
PropelZ enables real-time streaming of SMF data from mainframes to modern observability platforms like OpenTelemetry, helping enterprises gain end-to-end visibility across their entire IT ecosystem — cloud, hybrid, and on-premise.
What is OpenTelemetry?
OpenTelemetry (OTel) is an open-source observability framework designed to standardize the collection of traces, metrics, and logs from applications and infrastructure. It provides:
- Traces: Monitors requests as they travel across microservices and distributed systems.
- Metrics: Captures system performance data, such as CPU usage, memory consumption, and response times.
- Logs: Collects structured and unstructured logs for troubleshooting and deeper analysis.
- Exporters: Sends collected telemetry data to observability platforms like Datadog, Splunk, Prometheus, Jaeger, Grafana, AWS CloudWatch, and Google Cloud Operations.
While OpenTelemetry works seamlessly with cloud-native applications and microservices, it does not natively support IBM Z mainframes — leaving a blind spot in enterprise observability.
The Mainframe Observability Challenge
Mainframes process billions of transactions per day and generate massive amounts of operational data. However, most mainframe observability relies on legacy monitoring tools that:
- Are siloed from enterprise-wide monitoring: Mainframe insights are often locked within specialized tools, making it difficult to correlate with cloud-based applications.
- Lack real-time visibility: Many organizations rely on batch-based reports rather than real-time streaming telemetry.
- Require expensive, proprietary solutions: Legacy tools are costly and do not integrate easily with OpenTelemetry-based platforms.
For organizations modernizing their infrastructure, mainframe observability must be integrated into OpenTelemetry-based architectures — providing a unified, real-time view across all IT environments.
How PropelZ Enables OpenTelemetry for Mainframes
VirtualZ bridges this gap by enabling real-time mainframe telemetry streaming to modern observability platforms. Our PropelZ solution extracts SMF records, mainframe logs, and operational metrics—seamlessly integrating them with OpenTelemetry-powered monitoring tools.
Key benefits of PropelZ + OpenTelemetry for mainframe observability:
- Real-Time Streaming of Mainframe Telemetry
- PropelZ eliminates batch-based processing by streaming SMF data in real-time.
- Enables immediate visibility into system performance, transaction processing, and security events.
- Seamless Integration with OpenTelemetry and Modern Monitoring Tools
- Exports mainframe data to Splunk, Datadog, Prometheus, AWS CloudWatch, Google Cloud Operations, and more.
- Uses standard OpenTelemetry formats for traces, logs, and metrics, ensuring compatibility with existing observability pipelines.
- End-to-End Hybrid Cloud Observability
- Correlates mainframe performance with cloud, Kubernetes, and containerized applications.
- Enables IT teams to trace transactions across mainframes, cloud services, and distributed applications — eliminating blind spots.
- Eliminates Complexity & Reduces Costs
- No need for custom scripts or legacy monitoring solutions — our solution works out-of-the-box.
- Reduces reliance on expensive ETL pipelines and legacy SMF analysis tools.
- Improves Security & Compliance
- Helps organizations monitor security events and audit logs in real time.
- Supports compliance initiatives by streamlining mainframe data access for risk and audit teams.
Conclusion: Bringing Mainframes into the OpenTelemetry Ecosystem
Mainframes power critical business operations, but without proper observability, organizations face hidden performance risks, compliance challenges, and security blind spots. OpenTelemetry provides a modern, unified observability standard, but its lack of native mainframe support has been a major barrier — until now.
With PropelZ, enterprises can seamlessly integrate mainframe telemetry into OpenTelemetry-powered observability platforms — unlocking real-time insights, improving security, and driving operational efficiency.
Learn More
- Watch a demo of PropelZ.
- Try PropelZ.
- Review all VirtualZ Solutions, Thought Leadership papers, and Solution Briefs.
- Explore our YouTube channel, podcasts, and blog.
- Still have questions? Contact us.