Why The Mainframe Will Never Die

We will also continue to improve the capacity of our systems with respect to processor, memory and I/O performance. As we do so, we will remain focused on efficient use of data centre resources. Each successive generation of the IBM mainframe has made improvements in the area of energy consumption. In fact, z uses less electricity than other platforms of the same capacity. Progress and improvement across the classic mainframe qualities of service will continue as well.

Why is a System z mainframe better than, say, a farm of x86 boxes?
An IBM System z10 Enterprise Class mainframe has the equivalent capacity of nearly 1,500 x86 servers, with an 85 percent smaller footprint and up to 85 percent lower energy costs. An IBM System z10 Business Class server has the capacity of up to 232 x86 servers with an 83 percent smaller footprint and up to 93 percent lower energy costs.

Given these capacity capabilities, System z has become an ideal platform for the consolidation of distributed workloads. This can dramatically reduce data centre complexity, reduce systems management requirements and bring improved levels of availability, security and scalability to the application environment. Once running on System z, workloads can also enjoy the benefit of supporting future growth in a very cost effective fashion and very often within the same physical footprint. If you consider the reliability of System z, its ability to seamlessly scale, and the wide variety of application environments supported, it becomes clear that System z is also the ideal platform to deploy application environments supporting emerging business models such as those based on cloud computing.

Nothing beats the mainframe for heavy-duty transaction processing in financial services, retail, airline reservations, anything that requires the ability to securely manage hundreds of millions of concurrent transactions. How’s this for robust? In 2007, benchmark tests with Bank of China confirmed a record 9,445 business transactions per second [tps] in real time based on more than 380 million accounts with three billion transaction histories.

As for security, System z’s security capabilities are extensive and layered. Every aspect of the system has security as a key design point. Our security support is highly integrated, from the hardware and firmware up, all the way to the application layer.

In the future, the competitive edge will be given to businesses that implement an infrastructure that is both highly cost-efficient as well as dynamic. This infrastructure must be able to grow and respond to changing requirements quickly while providing the best business resilience. This is exactly what System z has been designed from the ground up to do.

What has the recession meant for mainframe sales?
All companies have experienced a challenging year so far, of course. Despite that, we believe we have held share against our competitors in these tough economic conditions.

IBM’s global reach clearly is a big advantage for us. In the first quarter of 2009, System z revenue grew 37 percent in worldwide growth markets like China and India. We’re seeing customers in these emerging markets really start to develop their infrastructure in banking, retail and other key sectors. They see z and its unique characteristics as ideal to support the unique needs of their industries.