IBM announced the zEnterprise mainframe server and a new systems design that allows workloads on mainframe, POWER7 and System x servers to share resources and be managed as a single, virtualized system. The new mainframe is also "the most powerful and energy-efficient mainframe ever," the company says.
"The new mainframe is the fastest enterprise server in the world and represents a giant leap forward in performance," says Tom Rosamilia, general manager for IBM Power and z Systems. "This new dimension in enterprise computing - extending mainframe governance to POWER7 and System x blades integrated into the zEnterprise System architecture - was developed over the past three years with direct involvement from a team of IBM's 30 top customers, which provided direct input at every stage of the development process."
The new systems design combines IBM's new zEnterprise mainframe server with new technology - the IBM zEnterprise BladeCenter Extension and the IBM zEnterprise Unified Resource Manager - that enable it to manage workloads running across System z, and select POWER7 and System x servers. IBM says the new technology is the result of an investment of more than $1.5 billion in IBM research and development. IBM also says the zEnterprise System "marks the most significant design change in 20 years for the IBM mainframe, extending the mainframe's powerful reliability and security features to additional systems in the data center."
As a result, companies can integrate the management of zEnterprise System resources as a single system and extend mainframe qualities, such as governance and manageability, to workloads running on select IBM POWER7 and System x blade servers. IBM says this new integrated ability to manage workloads across systems can drive up to 40% lower acquisition costs and reduce cost of ownership by 55%.
The zEnterprise System also helps address the jumble of disparate technologies seen in today's data centers, added over time to run specific applications and which operate in silos, sometimes unable to communicate with each other in real time and requiring separate staff and software tools to manage. IBM estimates that complex database queries can experience up to a ten-fold performance improvement in a hybrid environment enables by the new system.
IBM is also announcing the new IBM Smart Analytics Optimizer created by IBM Research - an accelerator for analytic workloads integrated to the new mainframe through the BladeCenter Extension. With the hybrid features of the new zEnterprise system and the Smart Analytics Optimizer, IBM says that customers can analyze data to anticipate emerging business trends, capture new opportunities and avoid risks up to 10 times faster. Using zEnterprise with DB2 10 for z/OS (currently in beta), Cognos Business Intelligence and SPSS Predictive Analytics, clients will have a single platform for greater insight across their most critical core information. Go here for more information.