Get the facts

IBM’s System z mainframe draws on decades of innovation and collaboration with our most advanced clients – who run the most complex business operations on the planet. We think you’ll agree that System z is simply the most powerful tool available to clients to reduce cost and complexity and improve security and reliability in their data centers. Among other things, the proof is in the mainframe’s rapid adoption this decade in solving the most complex business, governmental and academic challenges, doubling IBM’s mainframe revenue share and driving growth in skills supporting the mainframe around the world.

• All 50 of the world’s top global banks depend on IBM mainframes to run some of the most sophisticated transactions on the planet.
• An IBM System z10 EC has the equivalent capacity of nearly 1,500 x86 servers with an 85% smaller footprint and up to 85% lower energy costs.
• The mainframe is a hotbed for business applications—with 600 new applications in 2007 alone—with momentum in both traditional and Linux, Java and business intelligence apps.
• System z is a strong driver of IBM's greater than 50% revenue share in the high-end server segment, according to IDC

HP’s “70 percent savings” number is misleading to clients.

The number is based on a single, unnamed company’s experience - not the experience of many companies, and not representative of the value that so many clients are seeing with the mainframe today. 

This is one of many misleading claims that HP has made relative to the IBM mainframe.  Click here (PDF, 877KB) to see a report which captures HP’s misleading points and sets them straight.

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• First, Mainframes dramatically reduce overall IT staff requirements versus distributed environments.
• All core infrastructure technologies require a skills plan. IBM offers many options to address client skills requirements.
• The fact is there is a skills boom fueled by the soaring growth of the mainframe.
• IBM's Academic Initiative for System z — creates thousands of mainframe-trained graduates every year. More than 400 universities worldwide have joined the Alliance to teach mainframe and large systems skills - up from just 24 universities in 2004. Over the past three years, nearly 50,000 students have participated in mainframe training and education.
• In 2006, IBM initiated a five-year, $100 million simplification program to enable technology administrators and computer programmers to more easily program, manage and administer a mainframe system. Through this initiative, IBM has made the use of mainframes more intuitive and more GUI-based, saving valuable time for programmers, system administrators and other IT professionals.

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Say What?

Gartner Group rates both System z and NonStop tied at 10 out of a possible 10. HP left out a fact that is critically important to client value….

• NonStop is a specialized system, with a specialized operating system that is losing share, doesn’t run any industry standard benchmarks and has a narrow set of applications.
• In contrast, the mainframe runs Linux, z0S, WebSphere and has been demonstrated to run Oracle Microsystems’ OpenSolaris. The mainframe also is a hotbed for business applications—with 600 new applications in 2007 alone—and a grand total of 4,000 unique applications.
• HP NonStop lacks many other characteristics needed for a general purpose system, such as the availability of a wide range of systems management tools, and mixed workload management capabilities. Gartner rated NonStop a 6 out of 10 for mixed workload management, for which System z earned the top rating of 10.

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Guess again.

• HP’s comparisons based on hardware specs (eg. engine-to-engine basis and on memory prices) overlook the utilization (up to 100%) and management advantages of the System z, which is what matters in operations and drives real lower cost of ownership.
• The combination of specialty engines, superior systems management, and the overall economics of the mainframe lead to TCO results that clearly favor the System z.
• IBM conducted a TCO assessment of System z10 and HP Superdome servers in a banking environment. The assessment showed that the z10 configuration provided excellent scalability with fewer cores, less supporting staff, and less power consumption than the HP distributed server configuration.
• Further, the HP Superdome configuration was 62% ($11.8 million) more expensive than the System z10 configuration in a three-year TCO comparison.

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