In New York City, on September 12, 2019, IBM announced the
latest and greatest iteration of its Z systems mainframe computing platform,
the IBM z15. And I was lucky enough to be there for the unveiling.
The official IBM announcement letter can be found here if you want to dive into the details. But before you go there, consier first reading what I have to say about it below.
Before going any further, here I am with the new z15 in New York… don’t we make a
handsome couple?
The event was held at 3 World Trade Center in lower Manhattan. Ross Mauri, General Manager of IBM Z, kicked off the event extolling the unprecedented security delivered by the z15 with encryption everywhere and the data privacy passports. He claims that the IBM z15 is the most secure platform you can get, and the new capabilities back that up. Mauri also acknowledged that "there's always the next big thing in technology" but stated that "IBM is innovating and leading by anticipating customer needs to ensure the on-going relevance of the mainframe."
And there is a lot to like about the new IBM z15 platform,
both for long-time users and those embracing the platform for new development.
IBM is embracing the multicloud
approach and reminding everybody that the mainframe is a vital component of multicloud
for many organizations.
But modern
infrastructure with the latest application development techniques is not as
simple as throw out the old and bring in the new. I mean, let’s face it, if you
have a mainframe with possibly hundreds or thousands of man years of work
invested in it, are you really going to take the time to re-code all of that
mission-critical work just to have it on a “new” platform? Rewriting
applications that work today cannot be the priority for serious businesses!
Especially when the modern mainframe is as new as it gets, runs all of that
legacy code that runs your business, and also supports new cloud apps and development,
too.
The IBM Z
works perfectly as a part of your multicloud development strategy. The cloud
promises an open, flexible world. But your most critical workloads also need to
run securely and without interruption. To accomplish both objectives you must support
cloud with an underlying IT infrastructure. And for Fortune 500
companies and other large organizations, the multicloud includes the mainframe
as part of the enabling infrastructure.
What’s
New
The new
IBM z15 is housed in a convenient 19 inch rack, and that means it can be
integrated into a standard rack. So you get all the benefit and strengths of
the mainframe while fitting into the size expected by a standard data center.
Did you know that there are more transistors in the new
IBM z15 chip than there are people in the world! Inside the IBM z15
processor chip, there are 15.6 miles of wires, 9.2 billion transistors and 26.2
billion wiring connections — all of which allow a single z15 server to process
1 trillion web transactions per day.
The
mainframe is the ideal platform for many organizations. It provides the
resiliency, security, and agility needed to power, secure, and integrate your
hybrid cloud. And it capably, securely, and efficiently runs your
transactions and the batch workload required to keep your business humming. IBM
used to talk about five 9s of availability (that is 99.999%) but with the new
IBM z15, IBM can deliver seven 9s (that is 99.99999%)! That is 3.16 seconds of
downtime per year, or only 60.48 milliseconds of downtime per week. Now that is
impressive!
The primary new features that are worth your time to investigate further, and that were highlighted by IBM at the kickoff
event are:
- Encryption everywhere which protects your data anywhere, even after it leaves your system, with new IBM Data Privacy Passports, which delivers privacy by policy.
- Cloud native development that simplifies life for developers as they build and modernize applications using standard tools, including new support for Red Hat OpenShift. This enables you to both modernize the apps you have and to deploy new ones using the tools of your choice.
- IBM Z Instant Recovery can reduce the impact of planned and unplanned downtime. Instant Recovery can speed the return to your pre-shutdown SLAs by up to 2x.
The flexibility of the z15 is
noteworthy, too. The new IBM z15 provides the flexibility to implement 1 frame...
or up to 4 frames, as your capacity needs dictate.
And did you know it can run multiple operating systems, not just
z/OS? The IBM Z platform can run z/OS, Linux on Z, z/VM, z/VSE, and z/TPF. This
enables organizations to run legacy applications and modern, specialist ones
using the operating system of their choice. Indeed, convenience and flexibility
are hallmarks of the IBM Z platform.
The IBM z15 is a modern platform for all of your processing needs. And that is backed up not just by IBM, but also a brand new survery from BMC Software, in their 14th annual mainframe survey for 2019. The survey shows that 93% are confident in the combined long-term and new workload strength of the IBM Z platform, the strongest showing since 2013! Other highlights inlcude a majority thinking that mainframe growth will continue, along with increasing MIPS/MSU consumption... not to mention that the mainframe is handling increases in data volume, number of databases, and transaction volume. If you are working with mainframes in any way, be sure to check out the new BMC Mainframe Survey.
Indeed, with the new IBM z15 things are looking great for the mainframe and those that rely upon it to power their digital business.
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