More on zEnterprise

As a follow-on to last week's post about IT pros in the LUW space who need to educate themselves on the mainframe and z/OS, here's a quick list of informational and technical resources.

As a starting point, visit IBM's zEnterprise home page. Here you'll find an overview of mainframe servers and other hardware.

The Linux on IBM System z homepage provides an overview of the benefits of using Linux in mainframe environments.

Here are some zEnterprise IBM Redbooks that have been updated in the past month:

IBM zEnterprise 196 Technical Guide

IBM zEnterprise 114 Technical Guide

IBM zEnterprise Unified Resource Manager: Building an Ensemble

A Structured Approach to Assessing Heterogenous Workload Deployment to the IBM zEnterprise System

Finally, here are some of my previous posts related to the topic of zEnterprise:

• IBM Introduces IDAA to Speed Analytics
• The Significance of the IBM zEnterprise System
• The Mainframe and Information Management
• The System of Systems

Hopefully you find this information helpful. Please share your own sources of information in Comments.

IBM Introduces IDAA to Speed Analytics

Not that long ago, running a large report typically took a few hours, and that was fine. But given the critical role that business intelligence now plays in making business decisions, time is a luxury.

Reading this explanation of BI, I was reminded of some of my work in the area of tuning decision support queries. These queries eventually ran against a separate copy of the data known as a data warehouse to avoid impacting the operational data.

As the need to run analytic queries against operational data becomes greater, the fact that these queries are often still long-running (and can provide unpredictable response times) becomes a bigger issue. To streamline the process, DBAs are asked to analyze and tune the SQL, which of course, besides being time-consuming for us, doesn't always produce favorable results anyway. And when companies don't get favorable results, they may look to other platforms to provide their analytics.

Last year, IBM is came out with IBM Smart Analytics Optimizer (ISAO) for DB2 for z/OS V1.1, which ran on z/Enterprise 196 with zBX hardware. Now just 15 months later, IBM has unveiled IBM DB2 Analytics Accelerator for z/OS V2.1. IDAA runs on IBM zEnterprise 196 or 114 with IBM Netezza 1000-3 hardware. Simply put, this solution is designed to provide faster response times for long-running, unpredictable queries. IBM also touts it as a cost-saver, because it's intended to save DBAs from implementing expensive SQL tuning efforts that can require new indexes or materialized query tables (MQTs).

Like the zIIP engines, the IDAA is a workload-optimized platform designed for special purpose processing. As such, you don't need to change your application to take advantage of it.

If you have the opportunity to work with IDAA, please post a comment so others can benefit from your experience.

The Significance of the IBM zEnterprise System

Imagine taking the multitude servers you currently manage and consolidating them into a single machine. Imagine when your project needs a new server, being able to dynamically create and use this image almost immediately, rather than wait weeks for purchasing and configuration work. This exciting technology is available now with the IBM zEnterprise System.

IBM is revolutionizing IT infrastructure through the introduction of zEnterprise 196 (z196), zEnterprise 114 (z114) and zEnterprise BladeCenter Extension (zBX) hardware. Before I get into what this hardware is all about, consider the IT challenges many organizations face.

The primary challenge is managing the dozens of servers that work together to run a given application. This configuration isn't scalable, and when new hardware is needed, the entire application must be recertified. The old hardware is worthless. With companies running leaner, this makes it almost impossible to keep up with the work needed to manage and upgrade these systems. To add to the complexity, these applications tend to store data in DB2 running on z/OS. 

On top of this, when organizations seek to improve performance, they typically either add new servers or upgrade existing ones. This only increases the complexity of these environments.

In contrast, the IBM z196/z114 along with zBX blades allows you to centrally manage and configure disparate platforms. This provides application scalability through the hardware as well as scalability in managing all of the components, including diverse operating systems (z/OS, z/VM, z/VSE, z/TPF, Linux on System z) and zBX blades running (Linux for System x XH5, POWER7 with AIX, specialty blades for IBM WebSphere DataPower XI50 and IBM Smart Analyztics Optimizer) with a future blade planned for Windows.

The z196 and z114 are designed to handle both CPU-intensive and I/O-intensive workloads while providing the superior scalability and high availability you expect from the IBM mainframe. Another aspect that makes this new platform revolutionary is its native virtualization capabilities. zEnterprise allows you to create and managed thousands of virtualized images, and these capabilities are also extended to the zBX. Through virtualization, the physical resources can be shared among multiple workloads. These workloads can have varying policies with different objectives. The Unified Resource Manager manages and fulfills the objective of the workload policy in the most optimal and efficient way. You'll soon hear much more about zEnterprise and its native virtualized systems management capabilities, as well as its relationship with cloud computing.

For a detailed overview of the zEnterprise System and the benefits it brings to your organization download the new IBM Redbook, "IBM zEnterprise System Technical Introduction."

Has your organization moved to zEnterprise? What about zBX? Are you considering either? Please share your experiences in Comments.

The Mainframe and Information Management

As a proud mainframer, I'm excited to see IBM continue to bring innovation to managing information on the System z platform. Naturally I'm particularly pleased that so much of this innovation is connected to DB2 for z/OS, which has been the focus of my entire 20-plus year career in information management.

Along those lines, I want to point to this recently updated Redguide from IBM's Redbooks organization. This publication explains in detail how running information management on System z can benefit your organization. I'll list just a few of these benefits:

• The mainframe has proven capabilities when it comes to managing mission-critical databases.
• The mainframe has superior availability and scalability characteristics.
• The large capacity of the System z servers, combined with the energy-efficient design, provide the capbility to run a low-cost centralized information management infrastructure.

This architecture presents DB2 for z/OS as the operational data store and underlying database for the data warehouse. The next generation of mainframe hardware is transforming this into a heterogeneous architecture that allows you to take advantage of System z server-managed "accelerators" running on IBM System x or IBM Power blades. The first accelerator is IBM Smart Analytics Optimizer for DB2 for z/OS V1.1, which has been available since late 2010. This solution, which integrates System z, DB2 on z/OS, IBM BladeCenter, and IBM storage, can, according to IBM, accelerate certain queries by one to two orders of magnitude.

The hardware for the Smart Analytics Optimizer is based on the new zEnterprise 196 and the new IBM zEnterprise BladeCenter Extensions on which the optimizer runs. I'll write more about this new hardware next week.

The System of Systems

If you're a mainframe professional and you read this blog with some regularity, you likely are not only familiar with the mainframe's storied past, you understand that the platform has a solid future. But on the off chance you need further evidence that the mainframe isn't dead, along comes the "System of Systems."

The IBM zEnterprise System 196 (z196) -- aka, the "System of Systems” -- is a new hardware platform that aims to address the complexities of managing today's multi-architected (and often inefficiently designed) data centers.

The z196 is revolutionary because it allows you to integrate and unify IBM System z, Power Systems and System x resources as one complete system. Imagine an organization with applications running end-to-end on multiple hardware and software platforms. Maybe the customer portal uses WebSphere Application Server on IBM System p AIX, which accesses the customer data stored in DB2 on z/OS. Each layer of connection from one platform to the other adds to the complexity of diagnosing performance and failures at each of these points.

The z196 brings integration to these types of environments, thanks to the zEnterprise Unified Resource Manager. This allows you to install, monitor, manage, optimize, diagnose and service resources and workloads from a single point of control. Another key component of the z196 is the zEnterprise BladeCenter Extension (zBX). This tightly coupled blade system includes a high-speed private network running POWER7 or, eventually, System x blades. (IBM has stated that Windows will be supported, but a timeframe hasn't been given.)