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Autonomic
The zSeries is designed to deliver the highest level of application availability required in today's on demand environment. It offers extremely high reliability and is endowed with self-healing and self-managing features so your system can constantly fine-tune itself to help provide the level of performance required for on demand business operations. Fault avoidance and tolerance design features can help minimize business disruptions, as well as permit concurrent maintenance and repairs.
The IBM eServer Capacity Upgrade on Demand feature allows for the nondisruptive addition of one or more Central Processors (CPs), Internal Coupling Facilities (ICFs), IBM eServer zSeries Application Assist Processor (zAAP), and/or Integrated Facility for Linux (IFLs) to increase your server resources when you need them without incurring downtime.
The IBM eServer On/Off Capacity on Demand capability of the z990 is designed to provide even greater flexibility by allowing you to turn on additional, temporary system resources at busy times of the year and then turn them back off when they're no longer needed*. This can give you exceptional control over costs while you meet your dynamic capacity needs.
The z990 can provide reserved emergency backup CPU capacity through its Capacity BackUp feature. This feature gives extra capacity to your operation in emergency situations where you have lost capacity in another part of your establishment and need to recover capacity on a designated z990 system.
Highly Safe and Secure
In the on demand era, security is more critical than ever. An IT infrastructure can now be a tangible manifestation of a brand image. It is the way a company can help maintain the privacy of confidential information and the security of the system itself. The Crypto Express2 feature combines the functions of PCICA and PCIXCC in a single feature with two coprocessors. This is designed to provide an equivalent level of SSL acceleration and may provide improved secure-key and system throughput on the z990 system.
The Crypto Express2 feature, designed for FIPS 140-2 Level 4, supports highly secure applications requiring hardware acceleration for SSL and TLS protocol transactions, as well as the security functions - PKE, PKD, TDES, DUKPT and EMV2000 - which were announced in April, 2004.
The zSeries cryptography is further advanced with the Cryptographic Assist Architecture implemented on z990 general purpose processors (CPs) and competitively priced Integrated Facility for Linux (IFL) processors. With unprecedented scalability and data rates the z990 processor provides a set of symmetric cryptographic functions, synchronously executed, which can enhance the performance of the en/decrypt function of SSL, VPN (Virtual Private Network) and data storing applications which do not require FIPS 140-2 Level 4 security.
An open, flexible server
The z990 offers the flexibility to manage numerous operating systems on a single server, including z/OS, z/VM, VSE/ESA, TPF and Linux on zSeries and Linux on S/390. The z990 supports both ESA/390 and z/Architecture modes. Since both of these architectures are supersets of previous architectures, they are designed to provide seamless support for previous architectures dating back to the S/360. As such, they are designed to support existing application investments without change to realize the benefits of new technologies with the z990. z/OS and the z990 are designed to automatically adapt to support the relevant 24-bit, 31-bit and 64-bit addressing schemes.
While zSeries servers support a number of different operating systems, their most advanced features are optimized for z/OS. z/OS is the foundation for the future of zSeries, an integral part of the z/Architecture designed and developed to quickly respond to the demanding quality of service requirements for the on demand era. z/OS – coupled with the multi-book design of the z990 – easily allows you to physically scale up to the amount of server capacity you need. It is designed to deliver the highest qualities of service for enterprise transactions and data, and extends these qualities to new applications using the latest software technologies. It provides a highly secure, scalable, high-performance base on which to deploy Internet and Java technology enabled applications, providing a comprehensive and diverse application execution environment.
Powerful Integration
With zAAPs, customers can extend the value of existing zSeries investments by strategically integrating new Java technology-based workloads alongside core-business applications and data on the mainframe at an extremely cost effective price point.
Attractively priced, zAAPs can allow your enterprise to further leverage the flexibility of the J2EE open programming model, along with zSeries virtualization technologies to help simplify and integrate the IT infrastructure, increase overall system productivity, and lower the overall costs of computing for running Java technology-based application on the platform.
Integration of the Java applications executing on zAAPs, within the same z/OS LPAR as their associated database subsystems, can help simplify the server infrastructures and improve operational efficiencies. For example, use of zAAPs could reduce the number of TCP/IP programming stacks, firewalls, and physical interconnections (and their associated processing latencies) that might otherwise be required when the application servers and their database servers are deployed on separate physical server platforms.
z/VM, strategic to Linux and new workloads on zSeries, uses virtualization technology as a foundation to offer Virtual Machine (VM) capabilities on a mainframe. It allows you to virtualize processor, communications, storage, I/O and networking resources to help minimize the planning, purchasing and installing of dedicated hardware to support additional workloads. An ideal platform for consolidating servers and simplifying the infrastructure, z/VM enables you to run hundreds of Linux images simultaneously on a single system – helping to reduce both cost and complexity – while benefiting from the reliability and availability of the z990.
The z990 provides important improvements to the QDIO architecture to help improve performance and minimize the overhead of running Linux and other virtual server guests running under z/VM V4 or V5.
Linux and zSeries make a great team. The Linux open standards-based platform supports rapid application portability which can be adapted to suit changing business needs. zSeries enables massive scalability within a single server. Linux and z/VM take advantage of the zSeries capacity by allowing you to run hundreds of virtual blade servers simultaneously – so you can scale out virtually to leverage z990 high utilization and help lower the total cost of ownership. Vendor Grid computing products may be available which can help leverage Linux on zSeries and z/VM to provide Grid node capacity to help meet changing needs. Linux on zSeries supports the 64-bit architecture and can utilize the 16 HiperSockets available on the z990 for high-speed TCP/IP communication among partitions and virtual servers at memory speed.
z/VM V4.4 and later allows IPLing from Small Computer System Interface (SCSI) disks attached to FICON Express running FCP mode channels for Linux and other guest operating systems that contain the required support when z/VM is running on a z990, z890, z900, or z800 server equipped with the SCSI IPL feature enabler. z/VM V5 provides the ability to IPL the VM system directly from FCP-attached SCSI disks. With this support, you will be able to install, IPL, and run z/VM from SCSI disks.
Linux also benefits from the zSeries support of FICON Express and FICON Express2 FCP channels, switches and open storage FCP/SCSI devices with full fabric connectivity. With the z990, you can IPL operating systems that support SCSI-attached disk attached via the zSeries FCP channel. zSeries FCP LUN Access Control , an exclusive on z990 and z890, is previewed and is designed to allow the host to control access to SCSI storage controllers and their devices in Linux and Linux hosted by z/VM environments, including z/VM system owned SCSI disks. This expanded attachability means you have more choices for new storage solutions, may have the ability to partition existing SAN attached storage devices for improved consolidation to leverage your current investments and help lower the cost of ownership for your Linux implementation.
* Contact an IBM Representative for additional terms and conditions that may apply.
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