I've written about this before (here and here). The End of Marketing (EOM) of the z10 was announced in July 2011. There were actually two dates : one for hardware upgrades and one for microcode upgrades. Hardware upgrades are already EOM since June 30, 2012. This concerns mainly features like connectivity cards, memory and extra books.
Now, as of June 30, 2013 field install features and conversions that are delivered solely through
a modification to the machine's Licensed Internal Code (LIC) will no longer be possible either. So if you still want to add a specialty engine (within the same book) or you want to do a microcode only upgrade or even downgrade, then I can only say : now is the time. After June 30, this will no longer be possible.
If your company has no intentions of upgrading soon, you might want to take a look at your Capacity on Demand records. If you have e.g. a z10 BC A01 CBU machine with CBU records, then you should check out the expiration dates of these records. Say you have a CBU record that expires on June 30, 2015 with 2 tests left. You can e.g. extend it by three years until June 30, 2018. This automatically includes three extra tests which come at a certain price of course. But it might give you some extra breathing space. Anyway, after that it's finished.
Showing posts with label Capacity on Demand. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Capacity on Demand. Show all posts
Wednesday, April 17, 2013
Thursday, October 22, 2009
IBM Announcement : z10 EC GA3 and z10 BC GA2
As I told you in my last post, IBM made a huge amount of announcements last Tuesday. Here's a first one on improvements for the z10 : 'IBM System z10 - Delivering security-rich offerings to protect your data (ZG09-0798)'. In the past, we sometimes saw huge amounts of new features at a new GA, but this time I think it's rather limited. Still, there are some interesting new things. I'll give you three of them. You can explore the rest of them in the announcement itself. It's a.o. about STP Enhancements and z/OS Alerts for error conditions, HMC/SE Digitally Signed Firmware . . .
If you're interested in specific features, watch out for the availability dates. Most of the features, like the Crypto Express3 card, will be available on November 20, 2009. The Improved Capacity for Planned Events options become available on December 31, 2009 and the OSA multi-port support for CHPID type OSC is scheduled somewhere in the first quarter of 2010.
- Next generation of cryptographic feature with new Crypto-Express3 card
I'm not that familiar with encryption and stuff, so I'm not going to divert on the new functions. But I do want to mention a statement of direction regarding Crypto-Express2 : "The IBM System z10 EC and z10 BC will be the last servers to offer Crypto Express2 (#0863) as a feature, either as part of a new-build order, or carried forward on an upgrade".
- Capacity for Planned Events (CPE) enhancement
As you know 'Capacity for Planned Events' was announced along with the z10 and functions as a kind of equivalent to CBU for planned events. Up to now you could turn on the full available capacity for the machine for a three-day planned period. Now you are able to limit this to the capacity you actually need and this should imply a cost reduction for your CPE activation.
- Configuration flexibility for OSA-ICC cards
"You can now exploit the four ports on an OSA-Express3 1000BASE-T Ethernet feature on the z10 EC and z10 BC, or the two ports on an OSA-Express3-2P 1000BASE-T on a z10 BC, when defining the feature as an Integrated Console Controller (OSA-ICC)" with CHPID type OSC. This means e.g. on a four-port card there are two PCI-E adapters with each two ports. But until now you lost one of the two ports when defining one of them with CHPID type OSC. This limitation has now been removed !
If you're interested in specific features, watch out for the availability dates. Most of the features, like the Crypto Express3 card, will be available on November 20, 2009. The Improved Capacity for Planned Events options become available on December 31, 2009 and the OSA multi-port support for CHPID type OSC is scheduled somewhere in the first quarter of 2010.
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
z10 BC (part 2) and z10 EC GA2
In my previous post I discussed the new functionalities for the System z10 BC. As part two of the z10 BC announcement I’m going to comment on some of the features that are announced simultaneously for the z10 BC (‘IBM System z10 Business Class - The smart choice for your business. z can do IT better (ZG08-0806)’) and the z10 EC (‘IBM System z10 Business Class - The smart choice for your business. z can do IT better (ZG08-0843)’. As you’ll notice on the picture below, there’s much more than what I can discuss in one post, so I guess I’ll talk about some of the other features in the near future.
Click on image for larger version in new window
OSA-Express3
With the z10 EC we saw the first announcement of one OSA-Express3 card (10GBe). The range of OSA-Express3 cards has now been largely extended. The cards also have twice as much ports as on the OSA-Express2 cards. This means less CHPIDs, less I/O slots and perhaps less I/O cages (z10 EC) or I/O drawers (z10 BC). An overview :
If you thought that the FICON performance wizards had pulled the last trick out of their sleeves with MIDAW, then think again. They now have come up with z10 High Performance FICON (zHPF) in order to substantially reduce channel overhead once again. It is mainly with small block sizes that the performance is largely improved, in other words mainly for online transaction processing.
It’s only available on the z10 and you have to be at least on z/OS 1.8. There’s a ZHPF=YES/NO parameter in the IECIOSxx member in the SYS1.PARMLIB which has to be activated (default is NO). For the moment it will only work with the DS8000 with R4.1 as it’s the only Control Unit which support this feature for the moment. This DS8000 enhancement was also announced yesterday : IBM System Storage DS8000 series (Machine type 239x) function authorization for zHPF and RMZ resync (ZG08-0908).
Click on image for larger version in new window
Capacity on Demand
‘Capacity on Demand’ has had many enhancements over the last couple of years. The z10 BC offers the same possibilities as the z10 EC : Capacity Backup (CBU), Capacity for Planned Events (CPE) and On/Off Capacity on Demand (OOCoD). Still some new functionalities are introduced for both systems.
There’s a whole Redbook describing every variation, but put simply you can order one or more records for each of these offerings. That way, you can have up to 200 records at your disposal on the Support Element. At that moment the records are said to be ‘staged’. In order to be able to actually use them, you have to install them. You can have a maximum of 8 installed records or tokens. This can e.g. be a combination of CBU tokens for CPs, CBU tokens for zIIPs and one token for On/Off CoD. This way of working was already introduced with the z10 EC, but the number of tokens is extended from 4 to 8.
The major change has to do with the way you are charged for your ‘capacity on demand’. There is no change for CBU and CPE : there’s a hardware charge but no additional software charge. For On/Off CoD you still have hardware as well assoftware charges. So what’s the big difference now ? Well, until now when OOCoD was activated, the charges were calculated according to the number of days it was used. In the new system, this is called ‘Post Paid OOCoD’. Completely new is that you can now also order ‘Pre Paid records’. You buy OOCoD records for a certain capacity in advance e.g. at the same time you order your new z10 BC. When you activate these records afterwards, there’s no payment to be done any more. It’s quite obvious (as opposed to the post-paid records) that these records have no expiration date.
There’s one other new feature I only come across in the z10 BC announcement : you are entitled to one (1) On/Off CoD Test per server with a maximum duration of 24 hours.
Other
From now on you can order Plan Ahead Memory. It means that you order more memory than you’ll be needing at this very moment. You pay immediately for the memory that you are actually using and you partially pay for the ‘plan ahead memory’, which you’re not yet using. When this memory is activated, in one or more steps, afterwards, you pay the rest of the charges for it. This can help you plan for nondisruptive memory upgrades.
The use of PSIFB (Parallel Sysplex using InFiniBand) has also been extended. From now on InfiniBand can also be used as a replacement for ISC-3 links. For the moment it’s exclusively available on the z10 with an unrepeated distance of 10km. Unlike the ISC-3 links, it does not use an I/O slot in the I/O drawer.
The HiperDispatch feature should have little or no impact with the z10 BC.
And there’s one other little sentence I’d like to mention that might perhaps slip your attention when browsing through the announcement. Just like on the z10 BC there's a “62% price reduction on memory for z10 EC when purchased after October 21, 2008, and with a specialty engine for new workloads (…) limited to 16GB per specialty engine".
Availability dates
October 28, 2008 : z10 EC New Features and functions, STP enhancements on z10 EC
January 28, 2009 : STP enhancements on z9 EC and z9 BC
January 28, 2009 : OSA-Express3 1000BASE-T and 10 GbE SR on z10 EC
January 28, 2009 : HCA2-O LR fanout card for Long Reach 1x InfiniBand on z10 EC
First Half 2009 : HMC feature #0090 on z10 EC, z9 EC, z9 BC
Click on image for larger version in new windowOSA-Express3
With the z10 EC we saw the first announcement of one OSA-Express3 card (10GBe). The range of OSA-Express3 cards has now been largely extended. The cards also have twice as much ports as on the OSA-Express2 cards. This means less CHPIDs, less I/O slots and perhaps less I/O cages (z10 EC) or I/O drawers (z10 BC). An overview :
- The z10 OSA-Express3 – 10 GbE card is either Long Range (LR) with single mode fiber or Short Range (SR) with multimode fiber. There are 2 ports per card.
- The z10 OSA-Express3 GbE comes in a Long Wave (LX) and a Short Wave (SX) version. The cards have 4 ports and for the z10 BC there’s a Short Wave (SX) card with 2 ports.
- The z10 OSA-Express3 1000Base-T card keeps the same functionalities as its predecessor (e.g. OSA Integrated Console Controller). The card has 4 ports and again there’s a 2 port version for the z10 BC.
If you thought that the FICON performance wizards had pulled the last trick out of their sleeves with MIDAW, then think again. They now have come up with z10 High Performance FICON (zHPF) in order to substantially reduce channel overhead once again. It is mainly with small block sizes that the performance is largely improved, in other words mainly for online transaction processing.
It’s only available on the z10 and you have to be at least on z/OS 1.8. There’s a ZHPF=YES/NO parameter in the IECIOSxx member in the SYS1.PARMLIB which has to be activated (default is NO). For the moment it will only work with the DS8000 with R4.1 as it’s the only Control Unit which support this feature for the moment. This DS8000 enhancement was also announced yesterday : IBM System Storage DS8000 series (Machine type 239x) function authorization for zHPF and RMZ resync (ZG08-0908).
Click on image for larger version in new windowCapacity on Demand
‘Capacity on Demand’ has had many enhancements over the last couple of years. The z10 BC offers the same possibilities as the z10 EC : Capacity Backup (CBU), Capacity for Planned Events (CPE) and On/Off Capacity on Demand (OOCoD). Still some new functionalities are introduced for both systems.
There’s a whole Redbook describing every variation, but put simply you can order one or more records for each of these offerings. That way, you can have up to 200 records at your disposal on the Support Element. At that moment the records are said to be ‘staged’. In order to be able to actually use them, you have to install them. You can have a maximum of 8 installed records or tokens. This can e.g. be a combination of CBU tokens for CPs, CBU tokens for zIIPs and one token for On/Off CoD. This way of working was already introduced with the z10 EC, but the number of tokens is extended from 4 to 8.
The major change has to do with the way you are charged for your ‘capacity on demand’. There is no change for CBU and CPE : there’s a hardware charge but no additional software charge. For On/Off CoD you still have hardware as well assoftware charges. So what’s the big difference now ? Well, until now when OOCoD was activated, the charges were calculated according to the number of days it was used. In the new system, this is called ‘Post Paid OOCoD’. Completely new is that you can now also order ‘Pre Paid records’. You buy OOCoD records for a certain capacity in advance e.g. at the same time you order your new z10 BC. When you activate these records afterwards, there’s no payment to be done any more. It’s quite obvious (as opposed to the post-paid records) that these records have no expiration date.
There’s one other new feature I only come across in the z10 BC announcement : you are entitled to one (1) On/Off CoD Test per server with a maximum duration of 24 hours.
Other
From now on you can order Plan Ahead Memory. It means that you order more memory than you’ll be needing at this very moment. You pay immediately for the memory that you are actually using and you partially pay for the ‘plan ahead memory’, which you’re not yet using. When this memory is activated, in one or more steps, afterwards, you pay the rest of the charges for it. This can help you plan for nondisruptive memory upgrades.
The use of PSIFB (Parallel Sysplex using InFiniBand) has also been extended. From now on InfiniBand can also be used as a replacement for ISC-3 links. For the moment it’s exclusively available on the z10 with an unrepeated distance of 10km. Unlike the ISC-3 links, it does not use an I/O slot in the I/O drawer.
The HiperDispatch feature should have little or no impact with the z10 BC.
And there’s one other little sentence I’d like to mention that might perhaps slip your attention when browsing through the announcement. Just like on the z10 BC there's a “62% price reduction on memory for z10 EC when purchased after October 21, 2008, and with a specialty engine for new workloads (…) limited to 16GB per specialty engine".
Availability dates
October 28, 2008 : z10 EC New Features and functions, STP enhancements on z10 EC
January 28, 2009 : STP enhancements on z9 EC and z9 BC
January 28, 2009 : OSA-Express3 1000BASE-T and 10 GbE SR on z10 EC
January 28, 2009 : HCA2-O LR fanout card for Long Reach 1x InfiniBand on z10 EC
First Half 2009 : HMC feature #0090 on z10 EC, z9 EC, z9 BC
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