IBM Simplifies the Mainframe With New Consolidation and Security Software

IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced a set of consolidation and security software solutions designed to make the System z mainframe easier to use as the strategic platform of choice for running modern applications. IBM also announced an online meeting place to enable the mainframe community to interact and quickly gain access to industry information and solutions.

These developments -- announced at IBM’s System z Summit symposium in New York City -- are part of IBM’s five-year, $100 million mainframe simplification investment to help small- and medium-sized companies run modern business applications on System z using in-house expertise. The announcements help demonstrate how System z can deliver superior benefits over distributed systems.

IBM Destination z

To help businesses adopt, manage and migrate to the mainframe, IBM launched a strategic program, dubbed as IBM Destination z. As one of its initial services, it provides an online meeting place (available at www.ibm.com/systems/destinationz) for customers, systems integrators, IBM Business Partners, software vendors and academic institutions to connect with each other and with mainframe experts, access development tools and the latest mainframe solutions. IBM Destination z provides links to platform economics -- such as total cost of ownership tools -- and case histories that reveal financial and business benefits. For administrators, it provides technical guidance from top systems integrators, workload management tools and academic resources to make mainframe migration faster and easier using standards-based code, such as Java* and C++, or popular Web services capabilities such as IBM DB2® and WebSphere®.

In addition, IBM is launching a System z program for systems integrators to drive business development and provide a broad spectrum of technical resources. More than 20 IBM Business Partners and leading systems integrators, such as France-based information technology services company Sogeti, have already joined IBM Destination z.

“The mainframe is stronger than ever. With the popularity of a SOA (Service Oriented Architecture), we’re seeing a rebirth for the mainframe,” said Jean-Marc Gaultier, vice president of Sogeti. “Sogeti is seeing a lot of client interest in the mainframe. In fact, to support our clients in this area, the company is launching a Mainframe Academy in Europe to train and introduce college graduates to mainframe technology. Sogeti has almost 40 years of experience in providing mainframe services to clients, and we see this as an area of continued growth for the Sogeti Group.”

Software Simplification

The new IBM software announced today addresses a number of areas most crucial to a broad swath of customers, including enterprise management and security compliance. For example, the new software:


Simplifies compliance while thwarting threats. Leveraging technology from its recent acquisition of Consul, IBM announced Tivoli zSecure V1.8.1 suite with modular solutions designed to help administer mainframe security servers, monitor threats, audit usage and configurations, and enforce policy compliance. This comprehensive suite can enhance mainframe security by automating time-consuming administration and audit processes. The suite can also ease security compliance, which plagues organizations already flooded with numerous regulatory adherence codes, such as the daunting task of maintaining audit and controls documentation while automatically detecting security exposures. It provides quick analysis and reporting on mainframe events.
Eases management of consolidated environments. One of the most important challenges corporations face as they consolidate many distributed servers onto a single virtualized mainframe environment is relating IT resources consumed to the departments that use the system. To help simplify the process, IBM is introducing IT Value Based Analytics (ITVBA) to drive IT cost transparency. Using IBM’s Global Business Services methodology along with Tivoli Usage Accounting Manager and Tivoli Decision Support tools, business and IT executives have on-demand information to manage an organization’s IT resources. By relating IT costs to business services, these tools help to better manage and optimize mainframe and distributed resources.
Simplifies the management of large applications. IBM is enhancing the mainframe’s renowned virtualization software, z/VM, by supporting ten times more virtualized memory and up to 256 GB of real memory, which is equal to approximately 192 days of MP3 music or 1,024 sets of encyclopedias. The additional amount of memory supported helps enable customers to significantly increase the amount of memory consumed by virtual servers running on z/VM, thus enhancing the server consolidation capabilities of the platform. z/VM is designed to consolidate burgeoning server farms by replacing physical servers with “virtual” servers running in a single mainframe. The software lowers energy consumption and other costs associated with data centers that have hundreds of single-application servers. This new z/VM enhancement can increase scalability by consolidating more memory-intensive workloads such as database applications onto a single copy of z/VM -- which may result in greater cost savings.
“Last year, we announced a bold $100 million effort to simplify the mainframe by 2011. Today’s announcements clearly prove that IBM is delivering on that plan around common business requirements deemed critical by our customers -- economics, efficiency and security,” said Jim Stallings, general manager of IBM System z.

IBM Implementation Services for Customers with Multiple Mainframes

IBM also announced IBM Implementation Services for Parallel Sysplex, a new service product designed to help clients implement and optimize a clustered mainframe environment. Parallel Sysplex enables an expanding infrastructure to be an effective, resilient foundation that can adapt to new technologies and support opportunities for growth. Available immediately, IBM is offering eight new modules from infrastructure review to availability and performance assessment to deployment planning. This new service product is part of a family of IBM High Availability solutions that allows clients to choose cost-effective and appropriate technology solutions to meet business needs.

System z Summit

In conjunction with today’s announcements, IBM is hosting its System z Summit symposium with many of the industry’s top technology analysts. Also appearing at System z Summit are IBM customers, business partners, system integrators, as well as university professors and students who participate in the IBM Academic Initiative for System z program. More than 300 universities worldwide have adopted IBM’s mainframe education program for 21st century skills, and over 42,000 have been educated about the mainframe.

System z Summit attendees received a recap of recent and new announcements regarding the benefits of building, running, and managing modern applications and architectures on System z, using modern tools, including those within the IBM software brands Lotus**, Rational®, DB2®, Tivoli® and WebSphere®.