IBM z14 - designed to help you build leadership in trusted digital experiences

General Introduction

Yesterday on July 17, 2017, IBM announced the new z14 “IBM z14, designed to help you build leadership in trusted digital experiences” (ZG17-0017). Allthough the strategy that lead to the technical choices is really important, I’ll mainly concentrate on the technical aspects. But still, I want to share this slide, from a presentation on z14, that really sums up what it’s all about.

Click on image for larger version

Whatever platform you are using for your business, its core will always be your data and the applications you build around them.But some platforms might be more suitable to serve that purpose than others. And we all know that the mainframe has always been that kind of platform. With the new announcement of the z14 we see today, lots of attention goes to the data.

• How can we protect our data ? Think about data breaches or compliance regulations like GDPR.
• How can we use it to create business advantages ? Think about analytics and machine learning.
• And how do we expand the reach of our business by providing transparent access to application developers using APIs ? Think about how anyone can develop and deliver z/OS-based assets in minutes via RESTful APIs. It’s really not a coincidence that 80% of the world’s data and transactions reside on or pass through the mainframe.

On to the technical aspects.
No suprises concerning the name : IBM z14. The model is 3906. Don’t ask why. The looks have pretty much stayed the same with a nice touch of blue added. And there’s the addition of thin covers. But more about that in the physical planning.
There’s the usual growth but once again there’s a really big increase on the memory side. We go from a maximum of 10TB to a maximum of 32TB. This means we go from 2.5TB per drawer to 8TB per drawer.

Overview

Here's an overview of the most important new functions and/or improvements

Click on image for larger version

Let's tackle some of the highlights now.

Models and sub-capacity settings

Similar to the z13 the new system has four regular models and one large sized model, but the naming is a bit different, or should I say, easier. No fooling around with numbers of engines and hexadecimal ingenuities. Just M01, M02, M03, M04 and the larger model M05. For the regular models, every drawer has 41 PUs and with the M05 each drawer has 49 PUs.

There are 2 designated spares per system. We have 5 SAPs per book. So if we take e.g. the M01 with 41 PUs, we subtract the 5 SAPs and the 2 spare processors, that leaves us with 34 PUs. Each system also has 1 IFP. And so we reach 33 usable processors for the first drawer. Consequent drawers have an additional 36 processors. As usual processors can be defined as Central Processors (CPs), ICFs, IFLs, zIIPs and optionally as additional SAPs. Here’s the overview of the PU allocation on the IBM z14. The z14 continues to support a 2 to 1 ratio for the zIIPs. zAAP are already out of the picture since the z13.

A full processor (the 701 or a specialty engine) has a capacity of 1.832 mips as opposed to 1.695 on the z13. We have again three sub-capacity levels (4-, 5-, -6) now for up to 33 CPs.

Memory : up to 32TB

As I mentioned already, the amount of memory in the system has again hugely increased. For the z13 the system minimum was 64GB and went up to 2.5TB per book and up to 10 TB for the entire system. Which was already pretty impressive. Now we see the following picture :

We start at a minimum of 256GB and go up to an amount of 8TB per drawer. An additional 192 GB of memory is reserved next to the customer purchased amount for the Hardware System Area (HSA). Next to that, more memory is in the box and is used for IBM Virtual Flash Memory (VFM) at which we will come back later on.

Processor design improvements

Processor speed
Last time we went down from 5.5GHz to 5.0GHz. Now we’re going up again to 5.2GHz.

CPC changes and cache
The z13 also saw the introduction of drawers with Single Chip Modules instead of Multi Chip Modules in previous versions. The 8-core chip has now become a 10-core chip. For the techies I add an illustration of a fully populated z13 CPC drawer compared to a fully populated z14 CPC drawer.

The main difference is that the two SC SCMs have been reduced to one per drawer on the z14. The on-core level 1 and level 2 caches have increased just as the on-chip level 3 cache. The level 4 cache has decreased a bit but this is countered by the fact that a single system controller means less latency.

Additional improvements

• New instructions in the single instruction, multiple data (SIMD) facility offer a boost for traditional workloads using decimal operations (i.e. COBOL 6.2, PL/I 5.2) and new application like analytics (i.e. Apache Spark for z/OS).
• The z14 delivers next generation simultaneous multithreading (SMT). SMT on the z14 improves throughput up to 25 percent for an IFL or zIIP to benefit exploiters. SMT has been extended to support the dedicated I/O processors called System Assist Processors (SAPs).
• The new Guarded Storage Facility (GSF) will deliver ‘as good as’ pause-less garbage collection to enable enterprise scale Java applications to run with fewer and shorter pauses for garbage collection.
• The compression co-processor in each core has been improved to use fewer CPU cycles for compression and expansion and to support DB2 index compression. These features enable further improvements in DB2 memory usage, data transfer, and storage efficiency.

Upgrades

And what are the upgrade scenarios ?

You can upgrade from any air cooled zEC12 and z13 model to any z14 model. Upgrading from a water cooled model goes only to a z14 water cooled model.

Another remark : Upgrading from a z14 model M01-M04 to a model M05 is not supported. The M05 is factory build only.

Pervasive encryption

This is an important one. In short, encryption should be pervasive, transparant and without performance nor application impact.
Therefore the z14 brings pervasive encryption at all levels as indicated in the illustration below. It’s set up in order to defend and protect your critical assets with encryption but without compromising transactional throughput or response times. And it requires no application changes.

By encrypting as much of your data and transactional pipeline as possible, you can reduce potential data breach risks and financial losses - and comply with complex regulatory mandates like GDPR. The IBM z14 gives you a transparent approach to encrypt virtually all of in-flight and at-rest data.

Further, pervasive encryption can dramatically simplify data protection and reduce the costs of regulatory compliance. Using simple policy controls, z14 pervasive computing streamlines data protection for mission critical DB2 for z/OS, IMS and virtual storage access method (VSAM) datasets.

The Central Processor Assist for Cryptographic Function (CPACF), standard on every core, supports pervasive encryption and provides hardware acceleration for encryption operations. It does this 2-6X faster than the z13 for data in-flight and at-rest.
And the new Crypto Express6S card gets a performance boost on z14. It gives on average a 1.5X to 2X performance increase over Crypto Express5S.
Combined, these two enhancements perform encryption more efficiently on the z14 than on earlier IBM Z servers.

Here’s an overview of the possibilities with the new Crypto Express6 card

New features : IBM Virtual Flash Memory

IBM Virtual Flash Memory (VFM) entirely replaces the Flash Express card and has the same use cases.

But . . . is more performant. Estimations give up to 10% end to end performance improvement and (yes) 1000X improvement in Read/Write latency. You might remember the picture that was often shown to illustrate the performance gain you had with Flash Express. Well, we go one step further up the ladder.

As far as capacity, you can go from 1.5TB up to 6TB, which means 1.5TB per drawer.

And you can compare VFM to HSA. It’s memory but it doesn’t take away any memory from the purchased user memory.

For those who already have Flash Express : during the upgrade there’s a feature conversion for it towards VFM. Additonal advantage : it saves you the two PCIe I/O drawer slots and there’s less power consumption.

And to be complete : the same will be happening with zEDC. Its functionality will also move to the CP in the next generation.

New features : Secure Service Containers

Apart from the name, I don’t think I should call this new. The first occurrence of this one was zAware introduced with the z12 back in 2012. 

You could call zAware a container like solution avant la lettre. But then again, what to say about Coupling Facilities. Later on with the z13, zAware was renamed to zACI or z Appliance Container Infrastructure. So now, Secure Service Containers is the new name for it. Containers have by now ‘conquered’ the world and it illustrates once again that the mainfame is quite a modern platform. For those not familiar with it, here’s a definition of Docker containers.

"Docker containers wrap up a piece of software in a complete filesystem that contains everything it needs to run: code, runtime, system tools, system libraries – anything you can install on a server. This guarantees that it will always run the same, regardless of the environment it is running in."

Software appliances are zAware, z/VSE Network Appliance and Operations Analytics for z Systems.

As we already talked about Pervasive Encryption, the Secure aspect is definitely important here. Here’s a couple of characteristics in favour of Secure Service Containers

• Reduces tampering or malware risk by validating application code during appliance installation and runtime
• Ensures confidentiality of data and code running within the appliance with automatic encryption – both at flight and at rest
• Provides simplified mechanism for fast deployment and management of packaged solutions
• Management provided via Remote APIs (RESTful) and web interfaces

You can find more information in Redbook SC28-6971 User's Guide. Not yet published at the moment this blog post was issued.

Connectivity

Here’s the new connectivity features

• FICON Express16S+ (FC/FCP/zHPF)
• 1 GbE OSA Express6S (LX or SX)
• 10 GbE OSA Express6S (LR or SR)
• OSA Express6S 1000BASE-T
• 10GbE RoCE Express2 (new feature)
• zHyperLink Express

Before I get to some of those, here’s a couple of graphs of what can be ordered on a new z14 and what can be carried forward. Everything that’s not mentioned like FICON Express8, Crypto Express4S and of course Flash Express cannot be ordered nor carried forward.

FICON Express16S+ should, in combination with zHPF, give a real performance boost for FICON as well as FCP performance.

zHyperlink Express is entirely new.and starts off where zHPF ends. For the moment it only works with DS8880.

zHyperLink is a short distance mainframe attach link designed for up to 10x lower latency than High Performance FICON. zHyperLink will initially speed DB2 for z/OS transaction processing and later improve DB2 active Log throughput and VSAM applications.

zHyperLink Express should give 7x faster read access and 10x faster writes of data.

Coupling Technology enhancements : Coupling Express LR
These are new Ethernet based Coupling Links using 10GbE RoCE technology. As a matter of fact, as you can read in the Statements of Direction, the IBM z14 will be the last z Systems high-end server to support HCA3-O LR fanout for 1x IFB (#0170). Customers should begin to think about a migration strategy for moving from 1X PSIFB to Coupling Express LR.
Another difference with its predecessor : this is a card taking up a slot in the PCIE I/O drawer. It’s the same adapter as RoCE Express2 but with Coupling Optics and firmware. The distance is 10 km unrepeated and up to 100 km with a qualified DWDM. The cabling utilizes the same 9u Single Mode fiber type as 1X IFB.
It becomes also available on the z13/z13s systems but it will require an IML before the first Coupling Express LR may be utilized. So a planned outage is necessary on those machines.

Physical planning

For the physical planning, nothing much has changed.

• Floor space – No change unless ordering Thin Covers
• Overhead I/O or Power – No change
• Power – No change to typical power consumption
• Environment – New ASHRAE A3 Classification (40C°/104F° maximum ambient temperature)
• Customer Water – No change
• Weight – Slight increase in weight depending on configuration
• Airflow – No change
• New Feature - Thin Covers : System depth for air cooled machines with thin covers is reduced by 14.7 inch or 37.33 cm and weight is reduced by 108 lbs or 49 kilo.

Operating systems support

z/OS Support Plan :

• z/OS 2.3 Sept. 29, 2017 GA
• z/OS 2.2 with PTFs
• z/OS 2.1 with PTFs
• z/OS 1.13 (compatibility only)
• IBM Software Support Services purchase
• September 2016, EoS

z/VM Support Plan :

• z/VM 6.4 with PTFs
• z/VM 6.3 with PTFs

z/VSE Support Plan:

• z/VSE 6.2 Preview 4/11/17
• z/VSE 6.1 with PTFs
• z/VSE 5.2 with PTFs
• October 31, 2018 = EoS
• z/VSE 5.1
• June 30, 2016 = EoS, limited toleration
• Earlier releases can not IPL

Linux for System z Support Plan : Minimum Distributions

• SLES 12 SP2
• SLES 11 SP4
• RHEL 7.3
• RHEL 6.8
• Ubuntu 16.04

One remark from IBM : “IBM cannot legally discuss z14 exploitation prior to GA from distributors”

Software pricing

MLC – AWLC pricing
The software pricing is again pretty straightforward this time. It remains the same for MLC : AWLC. Still, there’s a benefit of on average 5%. How is it realized ? Quite simple, there’s a reduction on some softwares depending on the MSUs of the machine, as also happened with the z13.

NEW : Container Pricing
IBM is introducing Container Pricing for IBM Z for qualified solutions running on IBM z13 and z14 servers. Container Pricing will provide simplified software pricing for qualified solutions.

Container Pricing can scale from collocated solutions within existing LPARs, through to separate LPARs, up to multiple-LPAR solutions, without directly impacting the cost of unrelated workloads.
Additionally, Container Pricing will simplify pricing and billing on the IBM Z platform, by superseding a number of existing price offerings and by fully automating the billing process.

One example : the Payments Solution will provide a "per payment" pricing option for IBM Financial Transaction Manager for z/OS deployments. This new offering directly ties operational cost to business value by basing the price on the number of payments processed, rather than capacity used to process them.

Container Pricing for IBM Z is planned to be available by year end 2017 and enabled in z/OS V2.2 and z/OS V2.3.

NEW : Sub-capacity pricing for z/VM and z/VM based programs
Sub-capacity pricing for the z/VM V6 operating environment is available to clients running z/VM Version 6 Release 3 or higher. Software pricing at less than full machine capacity can provide more flexibility and improved cost of computing as a client manages the volatility and growth of new workloads.Through the implementation of sub-capacity pricing for select z/VM programs, clients can pay for z/VM programs based on defined workload requirements and not necessarily the full engine capacity of the machine.

There are separate announcements for those new prcings at which I may come back later on.

Statements of Direction

• Stabilization of z/VM V6.3 support:
  IBM z14 is planned to be the last z Systems server supported by z/VM V6.3 and the last z Systems server that will be supported when z/VM V6.3 is running as a guest (second level). z/VM V6.3 will continue to be supported until December 31, 2017, as announced in announcement letter # 915-025.
• Future z/VM release guest support:
  z/VM V6.4 will be the last z/VM release supported as a guest of z/VM V6.2 or older releases.
• Disk-only support for z/VM dumps:
  z/VM V6.4 will be the last z/VM release to support tape as a media option for stand-alone, hard abend, and snap dumps. Subsequent releases will support dumps to ECKD DASD or FCP SCSI disks only.
• IBM z14 will be the last z Systems server to support FICON Express8S:
  IBM z14 will be last z Systems high-end server to support FICON Express8S (#0409 and #0410) channels. Enterprises should begin migrating from FICON Express8S channels to FICON Express16S+ channels (#0427 and #0428). FICON Express8S will not be supported on future high-end z Systems servers as carry forward on an upgrade.
• IBM z14 will be the last z Systems server to support HCA3-O:
  IBM z14 will be last z Systems high-end server to support HCA3-O LR fanout for 1x IFB (#0170) and HCA3-O fanout for 12x IFB (#0171). Enterprises should begin migrating from HCA3-O channels to ICA SR and/or Coupling Express Long Range.
• IBM z14 will be the last z Systems server to support zEDC:
  IBM z14 will be the last z Systems high-end server to support zEDC (#0420). In the future, z Systems high end server zEDC functionality will move from the zEDC adapter to the Central Processor (CP).
• OSA-Express6S 1000BASE-T adapters:
  OSA-Express6S 1000BASE-T adapters (#0426) will be the last generation of OSA 1000BASE-T adapters to support connections operating at 100 Mb/second link speed. Future OSA-Express 1000BASE-T adapter generations will support operation only at 1000 Mb/second (1Gb/s) link speed.

Documentation

There are some new and updated Redbooks available. They should all be grouped on a special page dedicated to z14 which is normally over here. Here's a short overview of a couple of them..

• New – IBM z14 Technical Introduction, SG24-8450-00
• New – IBM z14 Technical Guide, SG24-8451-00
• New – IBM z14 Configuration Setup, SG24-8460-00
• Updated – IBM z Systems Connectivity Handbook, SG24-5444-17
• Updated – IBM z Systems Functional Matrix, REDP-5157-02

Of course you can also find all manuals in the Library section of Resource Link.

Key dates

Here's just a small selection of items and key dates.

July 17, 2017

• Announcement day
• First Day Orders for GA Systems
• Resource Link support (e.g. Manuals available in Library section)

September 13, 2017

• Features and functions for the IBM z14
• GA for IBM z14 Models M01, M02, M03, M04 and M05
• Upgrades from zEC12 and z13 models

December 15, 2017

• z/VM Guest exploitation support for pause-less garbage collection
• z/VM support for encrypted paging

December 31, 2017 :

• MES features for Models M01, M02, M03, M04, and M05
• IBM HMC Mobile for z Systems and LinuxONE

Well, that's about it for the moment, I'm planning some follow up posts and we'll also publish our Realdolmen z Systems eZine in the coming days.

IBM z/OS V2R2 officially announced

On Tuesday IBM announced z/OS 2.2 : 'IBM z/OS Version 2 Release 2 -- Fueling the digital enterprise (ZP15-0369)'. Let me give you some general statements about this new release and it's obvious you will get the most out of it when you're on a z13.

"Exceptional service levels for scalable environments and clouds
z/OS enhancements leverage the new z13 chip multithreading design, vector processing, and huge amounts of memory to help with throughput, performance, and latency

Enable analytics with information management, storage, and delivery
Data serving is promoted to a new level with new I/O capabilities designed for throughput and autonomics, enhanced vector processing support, and memory scalability designed to improve performance

Deliver a trusted and resilient system of record
With its legendary security and support for the most highly regulated industries, z/OS V2.2 is designed to help you build public key infrastructure services, serves as your secured data vault, helps you meet regulatory requirements, and can help reduce operational risk

Capture the potential of the mobile enterprise
With new capabilities on near real time, you can understand customer sentiment, analyze information for more targeted insight, conduct transactions with a mobile device, and serve customers across the globe"

 z/OS 2.2 together with the z13 is positioned as thé modern platform ready for future innovations at your shop.

When we look at the prerequisites, you have to be on z10 or later in order to be able to run z/OS 2.2.

z/OS 2.2 becomes available on September 30, 2015. If you're on z/OS 1.13 or z/OS 2.1 you can upgrade directly to z/OS 2.2 with full coexistence, migration, and fallback support. If you're on z/OS 1.12 you will have to pass through z/OS 2.1. You can still order z/OS 2.1 (as I already pointed out in a previous post) until January 25, 2016.

And for all the fascinating technical details, just check out the announcement itself !

Announcement : General Price Action on System z Software

Here's the annual EMEA announcement for the MLC software price changes. They become effective July 1, 2013 : 'General Price Action on System z, zSeries and S/390 Software Program Products (ZA13-1001)'. The same reason as always : "As a result of currency fluctuations over the past few years, the prices of some Program Products have become unaligned when compared between countries in Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA). In order to better harmonize pricing structures across countries within EMEA and also versus US prices, IBM has decided to adjust prices accordingly."

There's a new element however. We do no longer talk about 'price changes'. "IBM is therefore announcing price decreases and increases in the Monthly License Charges for selected System z, zSeries, and S/390 Program Products and their features". A bit of a laconic explanation follows : "For each price point for which the price will be reduced, the applicable reduction will not exceed 2%. Likewise, for each price point for which the price will be increased, the price increase for the impacted MLC prices will not exceed 5%".

The following softwares are excluded : IMS V9 through V12 and CICS TS V3 and V4.

Announcement : IBM z/VSE V5.1 - Additional enhancements available

z/VSE 5.1 has been generally available since November 11, 2011. Today some enhancements have been announced : 'IBM z/VSE V5.1 - Additional enhancements available (ZP13-0116)'.

Here's an overview :

• Support innovative IBM zEnterprise EC12 technology
  • Configurable Crypto Express4S
  • OSA-Express4S 1000BASE-T
• Support enhanced IBM System Storage options
  • IBM System Storage TS1140
  • IBM System Storage TS7700 Virtualization Engine Release 3.0
  • IBM System Storage DS8870
  • IBM Storwize V7000 Release 6.4
• Allow 64-bit Input/Output (I/O) processing for applications
• Extend the z/VSE connectivity and networking options in heterogeneous environments
• Provide IPv6/VSE V1.1 security enhancements

These enhancements will be made available with PTFs for z/VSE V5.1 with a GA of June 14, 2013.

I also see a couple of interesting Statements of Direction :

"IBM intends to add functionality that allows initial installation of z/VSE without requiring a physical tape. Clients who use a tape for initial installation only may no longer be forced to include a tape in the z/VSE configuration. With this ease of use function IBM will fulfill client requirements.

It is planned to reduce the AEWLC and MWLC list price of IPv6/VSE V1.1."

If you want to know more about this, there's a Live Virtual Class today at 5 p.m. Brussels Time. You can register over here.

IBM Announcement - IBM zEnterprise enhancements

This is a bit of a strange announcement : it's a collection of some System z enhancements : 'IBM zEnterprise enhancements (ZG13-0042)'. I'll give you the summary, so if anything interests you, then just check out the announcement for more details.

"Today's enhancements extend System z unique leadership attributes for improved integration, agility, and security. These include:
IBM® zEnterprise BladeCenter Extension (zBX) Model 003

• Improved flexibility with top exit I/O and power cabling

IBM zEnterprise BladeCenter Extension (zBX) Model 002

• Improved flexibility with the ability to dynamically add virtual storage to configurations for the IBM BladeCenter HX5 (7873)

IBM WebSphere DataPower Integration Appliance XI50 for zEnterprise ( DataPower XI50z) V5.0 firmware for zBX Model 003

• Increased governance with improvements to help control insight into your service-oriented architecture (SOA)
• Enhanced security by enforcement of security industry standards to Web 2.0 infrastructure and mobile applications
• Enhanced processing power with extended memory support

IBM System z Advanced Workload Analysis Reporter ( IBM zAware)

• Increased distance allowed between the IBM zAware host system and IBM zAware monitored clients
• Renaming of feature codes to improve clarity of ordering

Available now are the following items announced for first quarter 2013 in the IBM zEnterprise EC12 announcement:

• zBX Model 003 move from one IBM zEnterprise EC12 to another IBM zEnterprise EC12
• DataPower Blade remove or move from one zBX to another zBX

z/OS® support for these zEC12 functions is planned to be available by March 31, 2013:

• 2 GB pages, with the z/OS V1R13 RSM Enablement Offering web deliverable and the PTF for APAR OA40967
• Dynamic reconfiguration for Flash Express , with the z/OS V1R13 RSM Enablement Offering web deliverable and the PTF for APAR OA40968"

There's also a statement of direction that might be of interest to some people, but I just don't know how widely spread non-raised-floor System z servers are.

IBM plans to offer only Top Exit I/O Cabling and Top Exit with Power on future System z servers for non-raised-floor implementations. Bottom exit cabling (I/O and power) will no longer be offered or supported in non-raised-floor environments. Enterprises with non-raised-floor data centers should begin planning for top exit I/O cabling and top exit power cabling.

If I'm not mistaken that was already the case for the zEC12 but the z114 still offered both options. So, any successor to the z114 will only have top exit I/O and Power cabling.

IBM Announcement : z/OS 2.1

Well, we already talked a couple of times about the new version of z/OS and of the new release schedule that comes with it. So today we see the pre-announcement : 'Preview: IBM z/OS Version 2 Release 1 and IBM z/OS Management Facility -- The foundation for Smarter Computing (ZP13-0013)'.

Some highlights :

• Further optimize data placement with significant enhancements to policy-based storage tiering.
• Provide a top-down perspective on performance and capacity planning efforts across zEnterprise ensembles with RMF™ support for new SMF records for the Linux™ on System z® , and for the Linux on System x® and AIX® operating systems running on zBX blades. RMF V2.1 also adds support for Windows™ Server running on zBX blades.
• Extend existing batch runtime environment support for COBOL-based applications to interoperate with PL/I programs in addition to Java™ programs, all with shared DB2® with transactional integrity, and extended support to encompass DFSMStvs processing for VSAM record-level sharing data sets. These enhancements are intended to provide flexibility in application development and provide modern programming models to help you extend business applications.
• Reduce batch run times by having DFSMShsm-migrated data sets allocated by batch jobs recalled in parallel, in order to reduce overall elapsed recall times.
• Simplify I/O configuration tasks with improvements for z/OS FICON® Discovery and Auto Configuration (zDAC), which provides improved support for installations with less-complex I/O configurations.
• Exploit available fonts, with fonts included as a new base element of z/OS to give you capabilities you need for print in a global marketplace.

Prerequisites
 
z/OS V2.1 is planned to run on IBM System z servers starting from System z9 up to the zEC12.
In addition, beginning with z/OS V2.1, IBM plans to support these and later IBM storage control units:

• 3990 Model 3 and 3990 Model 6
• 9393
• 2105
• 2107
• 2421, 2422, 2423, and 2424

Planned availability date is September 2013.

Do go and have a look at the announcement itself. It's quite extensive covering lots of details. And what's also interesting : there's a summary of all important web pages for z/OS. Oh well, why don't I just take them over here as well :

• z/OS website

  http://www.ibm.com/systems/z/os/zos/

• General literature

  http://www.ibm.com/systems/z/resources/

• Previously announced statements of direction

  http://www.ibm.com/systems/z/os/zos/zos_sods.html

• z/OS Internet Library

  http://www.ibm.com/systems/z/os/zos/bkserv/

• z/OS Basic Skills Information Center

  http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/zos/basics/index.jsp

• Descriptions of courses worldwide

  http://www.ibm.com/services/learning

• z/OS downloads

  http://www.ibm.com/systems/z/os/zos/downloads/

• CustomPac

  http://www.ibm.com/services/custompac

• ShopzSeries

  http://www.ibm.com/software/shopzseries

• z/OS Communications Server

  http://www.ibm.com/software/network/commserver/zos/

• z/OS Management Facility

  http://www.ibm.com/systems/z/os/zos/zosmf/

IBM DB2 Analytics Accelerator for z/OS V3.1

Yesterday was a prolific announcement day for IBM. Rumours of improvements for the IBM DB2 Analytics Accelerator (IDAA) were already heard before the summer, but now they're officially announced : "IBM DB2 Analytics Accelerator for z/OS V3.1, together with related prerequisite hardware, is a high-performance software offering that delivers fast analytic query responses (ZP12-0503)". We're of course talking about the Netezza technology which replaced the Smart Analytics Optimizer last year.
In short, DB2 tables are offloaded to the Netezza box. When a query is launched DB2 decides whether to fetch the data in its own tables or to go and get them from the Netezza box. The IDAA has proven to be way more performant than queries executed on the mainframe itself. It makes analytical queries possible which were unthinkable of in the past. This happens all transparently to the user or application program launching the queries.

So, what's new with this new version ?

The IDAA can now function as a High-performance storage saver : "this feature stores a DB2 table partition or full table of data solely on the accelerator, reducing the need for host storage. This feature removes the requirement for the data to be replicated on both the DB2 storage and the Accelerator storage. Tables can now be divided between traditional database resident partitions on DB2 for z/OS and high-performance storage saver on the DB2 Analytics Accelerator". The implication is of course that you have data which is only stored in one place. In case the IDAA is unreachable, you don't have access to those data. On the other hand, it could be a great solution to put archived data not only on tape with rather slow access, but also keep them on the IDAA for fast access when needed. In other words : another opportunity to improve and speed up your analytical queries.

Another complaint that was sometimes heard was that customers needed (even for their Data Warehouse) near real-time accessability. This was not possible until now as you always had to copy at least on a partition level. Now we have the incremental update feature. "With the new incremental update capability, tables within the accelerator are continually updated throughout the day. This technology reads the log of the database residing on DB2 for z/OS and applies those updates to the DB2 Analytics Accelerator. With this feature enabled, queries off-loaded to the DB2 Analytics Accelerator operate on a near real-time version of the data". Of course you still control the timing for those updates yourself. Nice improvement !

Also the UNLOAD of the data has been changed via what's called Unload lite. "With UNLOAD Lite, the data conversions are done on the accelerator and not on z/OS". This implies that you can save some MSUs with this.


The DB2 Analytics Accelerator for z/OS software requires :z/OS 1.11, or later,DB2 V10.1 for z/OS, DB2 Utilities Suite for z/OS V10.1, XML Toolkit for z/OS V1.10, IBM Ported Tools for z/OS V1.2.0.

This new version will become available on November 30, 2012.

The new IBM zEnterprise EC12 - A technical introduction

General Introduction

Ok, ok, I’ll anticipate a bit. I’m sure some of you will remark when they’ve read through this : is that all ? Does that justify a new System z announcement ? IBM zAware, Flash Express, some kind of discount on the MLC pricing and … oh, that’s it ? Well, I guess it is. Or not ? It's definitely not what people at IBM will tell you when you make this remark. They really invested a lot of money and people into this system and it really has a lot more to offer than you would think at first sight.
Well, you know what, let me walk you through it and at the end you can let me know which side you are choosing.

The new system that’s being announced today is the zEnterprise EC12 or zEC12 (machine type 2827) : ‘The IBM zEnterprise EC12 - proven hybrid computing designed to manage multiple workloads, with the simplicity of a single system (ZG12-0262)’. Although dimensions haven’t really changed, the zEnterprise has a completely new look.

Click on image for larger version

What about the name ? If you follow the logic of the zEnterprise z196, this should be the zEnterprise z2A1, but it isn’t. It’s the zEnterprise EC12. zEnterprise is clear, this is the new brand name since it was introduced in 2010. Apparently EC pops up again for the Enterprise Class Models. And we seem to have picked up the count again where we left off after the z10, skipping 11 and now resuming at 12. Hence : zEnterprise EC12 or zEC12. Thank God IBM keeps its naming conventions transparent.

I’ll first give you the general technical details. Then we’ll have a look under the covers with some special attention to connectivity and physical planning. Then we move on to the new features : Flash Express and IBM zAware. Other topics covered are Operating Systems, zBX, the HMC, software pricing, Statements of Direction, documentation and some key dates.

Technical specifications

Let’s start by giving you an overview of the most important technical specifications with all new elements indicated in blue.

Click on image for larger version

Models and sub-capacity settings

Similar to the z196 the zEC12 has four regular models and one large sized model : H20, H43, H66, H89 and HA1 (the ‘A’ standing for ‘10’, so ‘A1’ stands for ‘101’). For the regular models, every book has 27 PUs with the HA1 each book has 30 PUs.
There are 2 spares designated per system. We see 4 SAPs per book. So if we take e.g. the H20 with 27 PUs, we subtract the 4 SAPs and the 2 spare processors, that leaves us with, hey, 21 PUs. Well, each system has 1 PU which is reserved for future use. And, no, don’t ask, I really don’t know what it will be used for. As usual processors can be defined as Central Processors (CPs), ICFs, IFLs, zAAPs zIIPs and optionally as additional SAPs.
A full processor (the 701 or a specialty engine) has a capacity of 1.514 mips as opposed to 1.202 on the z196. We have again three sub-capacity levels (4-, 5, -6) now for up to 20 CPs.

The zEC12 supports two different internal I/O infrastructures : the InfiniBand I/O infrastructure first introduced on the z10 supporting the 6 GBps InfiniBand I/O interconnect and the PCI Express Generation 2 (PCIe Gen2) I/O infrastructure introduced with z196 and z114 supporting the 8 GBps PCIe I/O interconnect. Only the last one is available on new systems.

Memory

In general we have the same RAIM Memory design as introduced on the z196. The system minimum is 32 GB and goes up to 768 GB per book and up to 3 TB for the entire system. This means the same maximum as on the z196. You can go up to 1 TB per LPAR. The fixed HSA is now set at 32 GB.

Where are the improvements ?
First of all the Out of Order core execution has become more performant than on the z196. There’s the introduction of 2 GB page frames, increasing efficiency for DB2 buffer pools, Java heap and other large structures. Decimal format conversions enable broader exploitation of Decimal Floating Point facility by COBOL programs.

And there’s the improved cache, too. A small comparison :

z196

• L1 private 64k i, 128k d
• L2 private 1.5 MB
• L3 shared 24 MB / chip
• L4 shared 192 MB / book

zEC12

• L1 private 64k i, 96k d
• L2 private 1 MB i + 1 MB d
• L3 shared 48 MB / chip
• L4 shared 384 MB / book

And next to that, there’s the additional Flash Express, which I will discuss later in this post.

Processor speed

Processor speed has now gone from 5.2GHz on the z196 to 5.5GHz on the zEC12

 

Click on image for larger version

 Upgrades

In short you can upgrade from any z10 EC or any z196 to a zEC12.

When a z196 with a zBX is upgraded to a zEC12, the zBX Model 002 is converted to a Model 003. Mind you, this takes a considerable amount of additional planning. So be sure to walk this through with BP or IBM Subject Matter Experts.

Under the covers

Here’s a picture of how an air cooled model might look like on the inside

Click on image for larger version

The cooling has been changed for this new system. As far as I understand it for the moment, you have ‘fill and drain’ kits for both air and water cooled models. The radiator is filled with some kind of cooling fluid which is used for cooling the cores in the book. This fluid is cooled with water in the water cooled models and with air in the air cooled models. It’s an entirely new system which is completely incompatible with the z196.

Drawers and connectivity

Must I remind you of the fact that ESCON is no longer supported ?
Let’s have a look at the other card types.

FICON

Well, nothing spectacular concerning FICON. The FICON-Express8 card can be carried forward and the FICON-Express8S card for the PCIe drawer was already available. There is some improvement with zHPF as the 64k byte limit is eliminated allowing the card to fully exploit its available bandwidth.

OSA-Express

There’s now also a new OSA-Express4S 1000Base-T card for the PCIe I/O drawer.

The card has 2 ports accounting for 1 CHPID.

There’s nothing much to tell about the other OSA-Express cards. It’s pretty straightforward as already saw on the illustration above.

Crypto-Express

The new Crypto Express4S card has one adapter per feature and you initially have to order two features. There are three configuration options for this PCIe adapter, but only one configuration option can be chosen at any given time. Switching between configuration modes will erase all 'card secrets'. The three options are : Accelerator, Secure IBM CCA coprocessor (default) and IBM Enterprise PKCS #11 (EP11) coprocessor, which is new.

Just a final remark on connectivity in general : there are limitations on carrying forward I/O cages and drawers. A maximum of 45 Non-PCIe Feature Cards can be carried forward following strict rules. So, do your planning carefully if you still have a lot of these cards.

Physical Planning

Measurements, weight, clearance

As far as I can see, as good as no changes regarding the footprint. There will apparently be identical floor cutouts for the zEC12 as for the z196 with no significant increase in weight. The depth of the system with covers will increase by 64 mm or 2.52 inches.

Top exit power cabling and non-raised floor option

The overhead Power option is shipped separately and installed on-site to allow for door clearance. In some cases this can avoid ordering the machine with height reduction saving the IBM CE some extra work.

The only thing for which there is no overhead support is for the water supply on water cooled systems. So it also speaks for itself that for the new non-raised floor models, only air cooled systems will be available.

Let’s move on to the really new features now.

Really New 1 : Flash Express

As a picture tells more than a thousand words, I guess this illustration shows you immediately what Flash Express is about :

Flash Express is used to deliver a new tier of memory, which is indeed slower than real memory but which is a lot faster than external disk. So, Flash Express introduces Solid State Drive (SSD) technology to the zSeries family. An operating system, such as z/OS, will be able to access blocks of flash storage as storage locations within a logical partition.

The main application of internal Flash in the zEC12 GA-1 is paging store for z/OS. z/OS paging subsystem will work with a mix of internal Flash and External Disk. This leads to improved paging performance realized through a simplified configuration. That way Flash Express can improve availability and reduce latency during transition periods and spikes. It helps accelerate start of day processing. It enables faster snapshots of diagnostics (e.g. SVC dump, standalone dump).


With pageable large (1MB) pages it can improve performance of DB2 and Java making it also ideal for applications with random read access and high read/write ratios.


Flash Express is implemented via NAND Flash SSDs (Solid State Drives) mounted in PCIe Flash Express feature cards.

They plug into PCIe I/O drawers in pairs. They are cabled together to form a Raid 10 Mirror for redundancy thus providing 1.6 TB of storage.

A maximum of 4 pairs is allowed per system.

Internal Flash is accessed using the new System z architected EADM (Extended Asynchronous Data Mover) Facility, an extension of the ADM architecture used in the past with expanded storage. Definition in IOCDS is not required.

You assign flash memory to partitions like main memory by minimum/maximum memory amount, not by feature. Each partition’s flash memory is isolated like main memory. You can dynamically increase the partition maximum amount of flash or dynamically configure flash memory into and out of the partition.

For the moment Flash Express is only used by z/OS 1.13 (4 GB LPAR or larger) plus PTFs. In the future it may also be exploited by Linux on System z … For availability, check the key dates below.

Really New 2 : IBM zAware

IBM zAware grew from the awareness (no pun intended) that systems are changing very fast and are gradually getting more and more complex. It becomes a real challenge to detect problems soon enough before they cascade and lead to system failures at some or other point. The challenge lies in the ability to identify the causes of system anomalies and other problems proactively and repair them as quickly as possible, within SLA conditions before the system lets you down. That’s why IBM developed IBM zAware (IBM System z Advanced Workload Analysis Reporter).

Here’s an illustration of how IBM zAware monitors your sysplex(es).

Click on image for larger version

Let’s have a look at the several components on this picture. IBM zAware is running in its own LPAR (on a CP or an IFL), kind of acting as e.g. a coupling facility does. Therefore it is also defined from the HMC. So it needs its own memory as well and this is estimated to start at 4GB and an additonal 200MB per monitored system. It also requires its own DASD and connectivity via HiperSockets or OSA ports. It can monitor any System z Server running z/OS 1.13 + PTFs. However, it can only run on a zEC12.

IBM zAware goes through massive amounts of OPERLOG messages (including all z/OS console message, ISV and application generated messages) and turns this into useful information. It creates a 90 days baseline. Starting from this baseline it performs machine learning, pattern recognition, and statistical analysis on the new streaming messages. It looks for unexpected patterns detecting unusual behavior of z/OS images in near real time.
The results are presented in a single browser based view showing the health of your Parallel Sysplex via a relative weighting and color coding as you can see in the example below.

The colors give you an indication on the timeline of possible problems with their weight and you can drill down on any problem (color) in order to get more details about it.
IBM zAware can also provide information in XML format that can feed other processes or tools.

There are some overlaps with other products like e.g. z/OS Health Checker, z/OS PFA and z/OS RTD. Still it goes one step further because it’s a self learning pattern based message analysis tool able to diagnose complex z/OS problems across your sysplex reporting problems that might bring down your system(s).

IBM zAware is a fee-based feature based upon the number of z/OS images it is monitoring. The good news : IBM zAware licenses for DR machines are included in the base purchase, so no extra cost there.

Operating Systems

z/OS Support Plan :

• z/OS V1R10 with PTFs (Toleration, Lifecycle Extension Required)
• z/OS V1R11 with PTFs (Toleration, Lifecycle Extension required)
• z/OS V1R12 with PTFs (Exploitation of some functions like e.g. Crypto Express4S)
• z/OS V1R13 with PTFs (Exploitation of most functions plus Flash Express and IBM zAware Support)
• z/OS V2.1 with Full Exploitation in base

z/VM Support Plan :

• z/VM 5.4, 6.1, and 6.2 will support zEC12 in compatibility mode with PTFs
• Exploitation support to be provided with z/VM 6.3 (to GA after zEC12)

z/VSE Support Plan:

• z/VSE plans to provide compatibility support at zEC12 GA1 for:
• z/VSE 4.3 with PTFs
• z/VSE 5.1 with PTFs

Linux for System z Support Plan :

• IBM intends to support zEC12 with the following distributions:
• SUSE SLES 10 and SLES 11
• Red Hat RHEL 5 and RHEL 6

zBX and hybrid computing

General

When you take a look at the zBX Model 003, apparantly there was no money left to do a restyling for this box too. As a matter of fact, when you take a closer look at new functionalities or features, there’s nothing much that really accounts for introducing a new model at all. There’s no big deal happening under the covers either. To put it bluntly : no new types of blades (not even for the DataPower XI50z), just some extra connectivity for redundancy and throughput reasons, and that’s about it. Does that justify the extra amount of planning and work it takes for the forced upgrade from model 002 to model 003 when upgrading to a zEC12. I’m just not sure about it.

So what ís new here ?
For the Unified Resource Manager dynamic discovery and configuration of storage is added. There’s a fulfillment of the statement of direction to implement new Unified Resource Manager APIs to enable discovery, monitoring and management of ensemble resources using external tools. As an example, IBM Tivoli is using these APIs.

For connectivity the 10 Gb cables between BladeCenter 10Gb switch and 10 Gb TOR (Top of Rack) switch are doubled enabling a potential of 20 Gb Ethernet bandwidth via link aggregation.

By the way, if you should have a IBM Smart Analytics Optimizer (ISAOPT), it is no longer supported on the Model 003. You will have to migrate to the IBM DB2 Analytics Accelerator (IDAA) which is the separate Netezza box. If this was all you were running on the zBX, you probable won’t even need a Model 003.

I’ll finish this part with a spark of good news : at least there is no cost for upgrading from Model 002 to Model 003 and transferring zManager from z196 to zEC12.

And of course the zEnterprise keeps its enormous wealth of possibilities that were already introduced since it's first announcement back in 2010.

Operating system support on zBX

Support for Linux environments on System x blades in zBX

• 64-bit version support only
• Red Hat RHEL 5.5, 5.6, 5.7, 6.0 6.1
• SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) 10 (SP4) and SLES 11 SP1

Support for Windows environments on System x blades in zBX

• Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 and Microsoft Windows Server 2008 (SP2)
• For either Windows the Datacenter Edition is recommended

Support of AIX environments on POWER7 blades in zBX

• AIX: AIX 5.3 Technology Level 12 or higher,
• AIX 6.1 Technology Level 5 or higher, AIX 7.1

HMC

It’s simple : only HMCs with feature code FC0091 are allowed on the zEC12. When carrying them forward previously supplied FC 0091 consoles are upgraded to the newly required 16 GB with Driver Level 12 adding an additional 8GB to them. FC0091 shipped prior to zEC12 have only 8GB.

For those still using dial up connections : HMC application LIC for zEC12 and zBX Model 3 will NOT support dial modem use. Modems on installed HMC FC0091 hardware will no longer work and future HMCs will no longer have modem hardware.

Another point of attention : the HMC LAN switch (FC0070) which could be supplied with former systems is no longer provided. They can be carried forward or the customer must acquire the switches separately to implement the required HMC LAN connectivity.

Related announcement : 'Hardware Withdrawal: Hardware Management Console (HMC) (ZG12-0244)'

Software Pricing

The software pricing is pretty straightforward this time. It may come as a surprise, but the pricing metric remains the same for MLC : AWLC. Still, there’s a benefit of on average 5%. How is it realized ? Quite simple, there’s a reduction on some softwares depending on the MSUs.

Let me give you an example. You have a zEC12 with a machine capacity of 1.500 MSUs and your SCRT reports 1.300 MSUs for z/OS and in a smaller partition 300 MSUs for Cobol. Well, it’s not the reported MSUs that count. Since your machine has 1.500 MSUs, you’ll get a reduction compared to the z196 of 5% on those softwares. So, no need to make elaborate calculations starting with 2% on the first 45 MSUs, then 4% from 46 to 315. No, plain and simple 5% because the machine has 1500 MSUs. You see, even software pricing can be easy from time to time.

More information on software pricing can be found in a separate announcement : 'Technology Update Pricing for AWLC offers price-performance advantages for IBM zEnterprise EC12 servers (ZP12-0418)'. Here you also find the list of software to which the reduction is applicable. Transition offerings are available for mixed sysplex environments.

Statements of direction

The zEC12 will be the last high server to support connections to an STP Mixed CTN. This includes the Sysplex Timer(R) (9037): After zEC12, servers that require time synchronization, such as to support a base or Parallel Sysplex(R), will require Server Time Protocol (STP), and all servers in that network must be configured in STP-only mode.    

Removal of support for Ethernet half-duplex operation and 10 Mbps link data rate: The OSAExpress4S 1000BASE-T Ethernet feature is planned to be the last copper Ethernet feature to support halfduplex operation and a 10 Mbps link data rate. The zEC12 servers are planned to be the last IBM System z servers to support half-duplex operation and a 10 Mbps link data rate for copper Ethernet environments.   

Removal of ISC-3 support on System z: The zEC12 is planned to be the last high-end System z server to offer support of the InterSystem Channel-3 (ISC-3) for Parallel Sysplex environments at extended distances. ISC-3 will not be supported on future high-end System z servers as carry forward on an upgrade.  
The same applies for OSA-Express3 support and FICON Express4 support.


IBM System z Integrated Information Processor (zIIP) and IBM System z Application Assist Processor (zAAP) simplification: IBM zEnterprise EC12 is planned to be the last high-end System z server to offer support for zAAP specialty engine processors. IBM intends to continue support for running zAAP workloads on zIIP processors ("zAAP on zIIP"). This is intended to help simplify capacity planning and performance management, while still supporting all the currently eligible workloads. In addition, IBM plans to provide a PTF for APAR OA38829 on z/OS V1.12 and V1.13 in September 2012 to remove the restriction that prevents zAAP-eligible workloads from running on zIIP processors when a zAAP is installed on the server.

Documentation

IBM Announcement page.
Here you'll also find more product details, the data sheet and an elaborate FAQ, which also gives you an idea of some price features

The Technical manuals will be available in the Library section of Resourcelink.

Two redbook drafts are available : the IBM zEnterprise EC12 Technical Introduction and the IBM zEnterprise EC12 Technical Guide.

I'll come back with a larger overview as soon as all documentation is fully available.

Key Dates

August 28, 2012 :

• Announcement Day
• First Day Orders for GA Systems

September 4, 2012

• zEC12 Models H20, H43, H66, H89, and HA1
• z10 EC and z196 upgrades
• z196 with zBX model 002 upgrades to zNext with zBX model 003
• IBM zAware
• Flash Express - orderable August 28, 2012, and deliverable September 19, 2012. Planned availability of z/OS exploitation of functionality is December 14, 2012

December 7, 2012

• Model conversions for IBM zEnterprise EC12

December 14, 2012

• z/OS V1.13 support for Flash Express available at http://www.ibm.com/systems/z/os/zos/downloads/

December 31, 2012

• MES features for Models H20, H43, H66, H89, and HA1

1Q2013

• zBX model 003 move from one zNext to another zNext
• z/OS support for 2 GB large pages and dynamic reconfiguration for Flash Express

And to wrap things all nicely up, here's a video that walks you through all components of the new system

Announcement - Software withdrawal : IBM System z selected products

I've been asked what's happening over here because my post rate has dropped to practically below zero. Almost like the weather over here. Well, there's just one reason, or actually there are three : work, work and work. So I'll try and catch up a bit. Sorry if this one's old news for you, but I only now had the time to have a look at it. But hey, I haven't seen it anywhere else as well.

On June 5 IBM made the following announcement : 'Software withdrawal: IBM System z selected products - Some replacements available (ZP12-0244)'.

Maybe the most important one here is that SystemPac for z/OS V1.12 will be withdrawn on July 23, 2013. It was previously announced as withdrawn on July 24, 2012 but evidently due to the announced changed release schedule for z/OS, this has been prolonged.

Others that are listed

• Lifecycle Extension for z/OS 1.9 will be withdrawn from marketing (WDFM) August 27, 2012. After that "extended service for z/OS V1.9 will be evaluated on an individual basis".
• CICS Transaction Server for z/OS 4.1 will be WDFM September 10, 2012 

But of course there are a lot of others. I'd say : just check them out !

IBM announces price changes on z/OS V1 and some other products

"Back to life, back to reality", you know the song (No ? Have a look over here), well it was the first thing that came to my mind, when reading the new IBM announcements.

First there's this one 'Price Changes on IBM z/OS V1 Operating System Software Program Products (ZA11-1053)'. It's a price raise for z/OS V1 and its features. But it's mainly for the larger companies as it only applies to VWLC and AWLC pricing. It does not apply to Entry Workload License Charges (EWLC), Advanced Entry Workload License Charges (AEWLC) or Flat Workload License Charges (FWLC). Depending on the pricing metric MLC charges will increase with 5% to 6%.

Another Price Change is on Subscription and Support (S&S) for some IPLA software (ZA11-1061). The selected products are :

• IBM DB2 Automation Tool for z/OS Subscription and Support
• IBM DB2 Cloning Tool for z/OS Subscription and Support
• IBM IMS Batch Terminal Simulator for z/OS Subscription and Support
• IBM CICS VSAM Transparency for z/OS Subscription and Support
• IBM Tivoli Business Service Manager for z/OS Subscription and Support
• IBM WebSphere Message Broker for z/OS Subscription and Support
• IBM Tivoli Storage Manager Extended Edition for z/OS Media Subscription and Support
• IBM Tivoli Storage Manager for z/OS Media Subscription and Support
• IBM Tivoli Omegamon for z/OS Management Suite Subscription and Support

Do check out the announcement because price changes can vary quite a bit from country to country and from product to product.

IBM Announcement : some System z software withdrawals

Today IBM announces some System z software withdrawals : 'Software withdrawal: IBM System z selected products - Some replacements available (ZP11-0602)'. There's a couple of softwares I would like to mention here. It's about withdrawal from marketing dates, so it's about last dates you can order these softwares. So, of course, this is just a reminder for those very few who are not always up to date and still want to order these products.

The first one is IBM Smart Analytics Optimizer for DB2® for z/OS V1.1. This one will be WDFM on December 12, 2011. It will be replaced by the new Netezza solution : IBM DB2 Analytics Accelerator for z/OS V2.1, which was announced along with a lot of other products on October 12 of this year. This complements an earlier announcement with the hardware withdrawal of the IBM Smart Analytics Optimizer (ISAOPT) feature on the IBM zEnterprise BladeCenter Extension (zBX) (ZG11-0350). This also means that this Netezza Solution is running on Netezza hardware and no longer on the zBX. This strikes me as being completely against the entire argumentation IBM built up so carefully in favor of using the zBX as opposed to loosely coupled distributed solutions, no ?

A couple of other softwares being WDFM are :

• IBM z/VM 5.4 on March 12, 2012
• IBM z/VM 6.1 on November 28, 2012
• IBM z/VSE 4.3 on June 25, 2012
• IBM DB2 for z/OS 9.1 on December 10, 2012
• IBM PSF for z/OS 4.3 on September 30, 2012

2011Q4 IBM mainframe announcements

A lot of interesting mainframe news was announced this week. I'm going to give you a brief overview of the announcements before I go into more details in some following posts. You shouldn't expect those to arrive before next week as I'm off to the IBM briefing center at Montpellier for the rest of the week - attending the Oracle on System z event.

The eye-catcher is of course Windows on zBX, but there's really much more. I'll start by giving you the titles of the announcements, the links and some brief information. Just to tease you for what's coming !


IBM DB2 Analytics Accelerator for z/OS , V2.1 enables a new class of business intelligence and data warehousing workloads for the IBM System z platform (ZP11-0546)
IDAA (yes, we needed another acronym) is the successor of ISAOpt (euh, IBM Smart Analytics Optimizer). It is based on Netezza technology and it should deliver an even far better performance. For the rest, it is implemented as transparantly as ISAOpt for DB2 for z/OS applications. What I find a bit annoying here is that it is not integrated into the zBX and therefore it is not managed by the Unified Resource Manager.


IBM z/VSE V5.1 - 64-bit virtual for future workloads (ZP11-0560)
z/VSE 5.1 is designed to

• "Provide 64-bit virtual addressing for workload growth or new applications.
• Introduce an architectural level set (ALS) that requires IBM System z9 or later.
• Exploit innovative IBM zEnterprise technology.
• Exploit enhanced IBM System Storage options.
• Offer new networking functions for more connectivity options.
• Provide Connector enhancements for high availability".

zEnterprise further extends hybrid computing with support for Microsoft Windows and other enhancements (ZG11-0275)
zHPF enhancements, APIs for the Unified Resource Manager, GDPS improvements and a lot more. But of course focus will mainly be on "Microsoft™ Windows™ on select IBM BladeCenter® HX5 (7873) blades installed in the zBX".


IBM z/VM V6.2 - Accelerate the journey to smarter computing with multi-system virtualization and virtual server mobility (ZP11-0499)
This had been a statement of direction for some time. Well, here it is now : "Multi-system virtualization clustering technology allowing up to four z/VM instances to be clustered in a Single System Image (SSI)". This also implies "Live Guest Relocation to move Linux™ virtual servers without disruption to the business, helping to avoid planned outages"


IBM Tivoli Storage Manager for z/OS Media V6.3 and IBM Tivoli Storage Manager Extended Edition for z/OS Media V6.3 enable FICON attached device access for IBM Tivoli Storage Manager V6.3 Server on AIX and Linux on System z (ZP11-0465)
I like this one as well. It took some time to deliver but it's finally there. Lots of customers were running TSM for z/OS and invested in FICON coupled tape or DASD solutions. But then it was announced that TSM V6 would no longer run on z/OS. So you had to convert to another platform that was not able to connect to your FICON attached equipment. So, this TSM for z/OS Media is the missing link between both. You can now migrate to V6 but you can still write your data via z/OS to your FICON attached equipment. The concept is also "designed to allow the tape volume and stored data that was previously inventoried by the Tivoli Storage Manager for z/OS V5.5 server remain accessible on the z/OS system by the Tivoli Storage Manager V6.3 server on AIX or Linux for System z without having to move the tape volume from the z/OS managed tape library".

Short takes

I'd scribbled down a couple of ideas for a post, but I think I'll just combine them in one of my 'Short Takes'. It's about IBM announcement links, my colleague at IDUG, a z/VSE Live Virtual Class, Raid 5 and 6 are doomed and a zEnterprise FAQ. Here we go.

• First of all you might have noticed that the IBM announcement page (Offering Information) has somehow undergone a facelift. Nothing that spectacular, but I also noticed that along with this, all my links in previous posts to IBM announcements are no longer valid. Apparently it's a 'ShowDoc.jsp' that has been replaced by 'ShowDoc.wss' in the link. Damn. Damn. Damn. So, any link to an announcement you click on will be invalid. Fortunately I always include the announcement number. But that's a small comfort. So I might be in for some massive updates. Furthermore, many links in the latest newsletter that was sent out last week will no longer work either.
  

• I'm proud to tell you that my colleague from RealDolmen Frederik Engelen will be presenting at the EMEA IDUG conference next November in Prague. Subject is 'A DBA's guide to using TSA' (Tivoli System Automation). He's presenting in room Stella on November 16 from 8.30 am to 9.30 am. Abstract of the presentation : "Tightly integrating DB2 with Tivoli System Automation software, IBM added automatic failover capabilities to the trusted HADR database clustering technology. After a quick refresh on HADR, this session will go more in-depth on the inner workings of TSA and its interaction with DB2 to provide you with what you need to know before introducing this in your environment" If you go and see him, give him my regards !

• I'm a bit too late with this one, but there was a Z/VSE Live Virtual Class today on 'z/VSE V4.3 Support of four-digit device addresses'. You can find all information about z/VSE Live Virtual Classes over here. And of course there will be a replay of this virutal class.

• Something completely different : check out this interesting blog post from The Storage Buddhist : '3 TB drives signal the end of RAID 5 / RAID 6'. This has everything to do with the growing size of drives, the growing time to rebuild disks and the conclusion is quite simple : " Either way, the days of RAID5 are just about over and the days of RAID6 are numbered also". Just take a look at it, it leaves me puzzled about this. It's really about making future choices.

• I've written about FAQs before and I think the zEnterprise FAQ is a very nice one. If some one's asking me a question about zEnterprise I always know the answer immediately. Hey, I'm a presales guy, it's my job. Just kidding. So, if you have a question about zEnterprise that's not directly up your alley, this FAQ is the place to go. Or you can ask me of course !
  

IBM Announcement : Withdrawal of the 3953 Library Manager

I guess the title of the announcement says it all : 'Hardware withdrawal: IBM TotalStorage 3953 Library Manager Model L05, select features for IBM TotalStorage 3953 Tape Frame, and select features for IBM Virtualization Engines TS7510, TS7520, and TS7530 - Some replacements available (ZG11-0221)'.

Time goes fast, so I'll try to reconstruct some of the history behind this. The IBM 3494 Tape Library had its built-in library managament functions. When the TS3500 (3584) was introduced for the mainframe at around 2005, it didn't have these library functions. So IBM introduced the 3953 Library Manager with its own frame in which also tape controllers could be built in. It was also used to connect to the TS7700 Virtualization engine. By 2009, the TS7700 could have its own library management functions and did no longer need the 3953. Now, a couple of weeks ago IBM introduced the new 3592 C07 Tape Controller that also has its own library management functionality. So . . . exit the 3953 Library Manager.

This became effective August 9, 2011.

IBM Announcement : System z selected products withdrawals

Effective September 30, 2012, October 31, 2012, November 12, 2012, December 31, 2012, April 30, 2013, and September 30, 2013, IBM will discontinue program services for a whole range of software products : 'Software withdrawal and support discontinuance: IBM System z selected products (ZP11-0341)'.

You should really take a look at this list because one can better be prepared. They will of course also pop up on our System z Newsletter. By the way, the new System z newsletter is coming out next week.

Those that drew my attention were z/OS 1.11 and z/OSMF 1.11 (September 30, 2012), CICS VSE 2.3 (October 31, 2012), IMS 10.1 (November 12, 2012) and z/VSE 4.2.2 (October 31, 2012).

The new z114 mainframe : overview of the announcements

I've been writing an overview of the new z114, but I thought it might be a good idea to just start off with a list of announcements related to this one. But do come back today for my general overview of the z114.


Mainframe

IBM zEnterprise 114 - Freedom by design (ZG11-0207)

IBM zEnterprise BladeCenter Extension support for select IBM BladeCenter HX5 blades (ZG11-0200)

IBM zEnterprise 196 enhancements deliver faster access to data (ZG11-0193)

Advanced Entry Workload License Charges offers price/performance for the IBM zEnterprise z114 (ZP11-0311)

Special consideration for FICON Express and OSA-Express features on IBM System z (ZG11-0196)

Site preparation and installation support for IBM zEnterprise 114 (ZG11-0195)

Hardware withdrawal: IBM System z10 EC, IBM System z10 BC, and a selected IBM zEnterprise 196 feature - Replacements availabe (ZG11-0116)


Storage

IBM XIV Storage System Gen3 offers a new high-performance model 114 for machine types 2810 and 2812 (ZG11-0199)

IBM XIV Storage System Software Version 11.0.0 (5639-YYB) supports for new IBM XIV Gen3 hardware (ZP11-0310)

New IBM System Storage Tape Controller 3592 Model C07 enhances performance and connectivity (ZG11-0211)


Software : z/OS

IBM z/OS V1.13 delivers new availability, batch programming, and usability functions (ZP11-0313)

IBM z/OS Management Facility V1.13 delivers new function for simplified software deployment, disk storage management, and a more unified z/OS experience (ZP11-0303)

IBM SMP/E for z/OS, V3.6 provides new functions designed to support z/OSMF software deployment, and two new reporting capabilities (ZP11-0320)