IBM zEnterprise Mainframe Swallows Blades

With its new zEnterprise mainframe system IBM is setting up a high-performance piece of big iron as the central management point of enterprise data centres, with other systems directly feeding off the mainframe’s attributes.

IBM may be pretty much the only player in the mainframe space, but it is continuing to innovate. And each new iteration is a big deal for the company, despite the mainframe representing a shrinking portion of the IBM bottom line. The new zEnterprise system delivers more power, performance, and energy efficiency than its predecessor. Yet it is also more cost efficient. By enabling enterprises to manage workloads across systems as one, zEnterprise can reduce data center labor costs by up to 70 percent, IBM said.

A ‘system of systems’

In a call with analysts discussing IBM’s second quarter 2010 earnings, IBM Chief Financial Officer Mark Loughridge referred to the new mainframe as “a system of systems,” meaning that the zEnterprise enables users to manage and run other systems off of it.

IBM formally announced the new system at events in New York and London today. The zEnterprise’s new systems architecture enables workloads on mainframe, Power7 and x86 systems to share resources and be managed as a single, virtualised system.

Charles King, principal analyst at Pund-IT, said the move indicates “We’ll be seeing the traditional walls between the IBM hardware platforms will be removed.”

Indeed, IBM’s goal in designing the zEnterprise was to extend the strengths and capabilities of the mainframe – such as security, fault tolerance, efficiency – to other systems. It claims the new architecture brings the strengths of the IBM mainframe to workloads running on IBM x86 and Unix systems – enabling the data centre to be centrally managed.

In an interview with eWEEK, Tom Rosamilia, general manager of IBM’s System z business, said the company’s new mainframe design is a “bold move” to fundamentally change how data centres are managed. The zEnterprise is the most powerful, scalable mainframe ever – running 40 percent faster than System z10 on various workloads, and up to 60 percent faster on Linux workloads, the he said.

A mainframe designed by customers?

The system was developed over the past three years with direct involvement from a team of IBM’s 30 top customers worldwide, said Rosamilia. This team of clients provided direct input at every stage of the development process, giving the most customer input into the development of any IBM product in IBM’s history. The customers were, in effect, an extension of IBM’s R&D team, he said.

“We’re extending our reach to other configurations and architectures – including Power Blades and System x blades – so people can run these mixed environments,” Rosamilia said.

Moreover, Rosamilia added, “We’re not saying move everything to the mainframe. Some things run really well on Intel or Power. This is an acknowledgment that there is a need for fit-for-purpose solutions.”

Building the system was no small feat. The new IBM zEnterprise system was developed at a cost of $1.5 billion in R&D. More than 5,000 IBMers worked more than three years totaling more than 31 million hours in a 24-hour development process across 18 IBM labs worldwide, Rosamilia said. And four IBM Fellows and 20 IBM Distinguished Engineers led this process.