IBM Mainframes Nipped, Tucked For Cloud Age

Grazed from InformationWeek.  Author: Doug Henschen.

Statements about the death of the mainframe have been made for at least a couple of decades. But IBM keeps proving that with new technology and timely facelifts aimed at the latest market demands, mainframes can stay relevant.  The latest wrinkle remover for the System Z mainframe, spotlighted with this week’s release of the IBM zEnterprise BC12 (Business Class) entry-level mainframe, is extended support for growing use cases including big data analytics and cloud computing. The BC12 will start shipping in September, about one year after the release of vendor’s latest Enterprise Class machine, the zEnterprise EC12.

New capabilities inherited from the EC12 include an IBM DB2 Analytics Accelerator that IBM says provides significantly faster performance for workloads such as Cognos and SPSS analytics. That’s compared to BC12’s predecessor, the z114, and to alternative platforms, like highly distributed x86 server deployments. The BC12 also attaches to Netezza and newer PureData for Analytics appliances used for high-scale data warehousing…

On the cloud front, IBM is a contributor to the OpenStack architecture for cloud computing, which was initially developed by RackSpace and NASA. IBM has added z/VM Hypervisor and z/VM Operating System APIs for use with OpenStack. Thus, public cloud service providers (including IBM’s own SmartCloud) and companies building out private cloud capacity can take advantage of mainframe uptime, security and cost advantages…

Read more from the source @ http://www.informationweek.com/global-cio/interviews/ibm-mainframes-nipped-tucked-for-cloud-a/240158991