Tuesday was IBM Announcement Day for the new zBC12 processor, z/OS 2.1 details, and more. So today I give you my potpourri of practical tips, my hodgepodge of hints...my medley of miscellaney. I do so love alliteration.
Onward! (Some Very interesting items to me are marked in red bold).
First, here’s the release: IBM July 23 press release
Where to start? The main z/OS page has been updated at: http://www-03.ibm.com/systems/z/os/zos/
There’s an article referencing some pricing at arstechnica I have no idea who they are.
IBM is delivering a new Linux-only based version of the zBC12, the Enterprise Linux Server (ELS). The ELS includes hardware, a z/VM Hypervisor and three years of maintenance.
The zBC12 includes a number of performance enhancements over IBM’s previous “midrange” offering, the z114. It uses a faster, 4.2GHz 64-bit z/Architecture processor (an improvement over the z114’s 3.8GHz CPUs), and has twice the maximum memory of the z114 at 498GB. And as far as mainframes go, the zBC12 is priced to move, starting at $75,000—or for lease starting at $1,965 a month. That’s roughly half the cost of buying the equivalent computing power in commodity x86 hardware.
zSecure. Although this is primarily RACF, there are audit subsets for ACF2 and Top Secret, and it runs on both z/OS and z/VM. http://www-01.ibm.com/software/security/products/zsecure/
The BC12 announcement has some features that look to be retrofitted to the EC12:
New I/O and Parallel Sysplex features and functions exclusive to the zBC12 and zEC12 at GA2 including: zEnterprise Data Compression, designed to support a new data compression function to provide high-performance, low-latency compression with relatively low CPU overhead; 10 GbE RoCE Express, designed to help optimize network communication by enabling use of Remote Direct Memory Access (RDMA) protocols over Converged Ethernet; the new OSA-Express5S generation of networking features; Coupling Facility Control Code (CFCC) Level 19; and FICON enhancements
There's a new high speed memory-to-memory adapter ("10GbE RoCE Express") which provides something analogous to HiperSocket connections but now between machines, to speed up data transmission and reduce networking overhead. This new adapter is available for both the zBC12 and zEC12.
LETS JUST STOP AND THINK ABOUT THIS FOR A MINUTE. HiperSockets between machines. Ahhhhh….purrrrr.
There's another new adapter for both models called the zEDC Express which accelerates data compression.
I don’t keep up on VM as much but it looks like 6.3 was announced and has some promising features:
http://www.vm.ibm.com/zvm630/
z/VM 6.3 now supports HiperDispatch for efficient CPU utilization, up to 1TB of real memory and a 4x increase in virtual servers per LPAR, enabling more virtual servers in a single footprint than any other platform. z/VM 6.3 is also enabled for OpenStack, providing a ubiquitous IaaS open cloud architecture. Hiperdispatch has been hugely successful for large sites, so I hope the VM people are excited by this.
There’s a huge list of User Group requirements met by the 2.1 release:
http://www-03.ibm.com/systems/z/os/zos/bkserv/user_group_reqs.html
The manuals are at: http://www-03.ibm.com/systems/z/os/zos/bkserv/
But of course the one to start with is the 494 page migration guide at http://www-05.ibm.com/e-business/linkweb/publications/servlet/pbi.wss?CTY=US&FNC=SRX&PBL=ga32-0889
There are new redbooks too: zBC12 Technical Guide
http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/redbooks.nsf/RedpieceAbstracts/sg248138.html?Open
System z Connectivity Handbook updated for BC12
http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/Redbooks.nsf/RedpieceAbstracts/sg245444.html?Open
Some info about the new Websphere Liberty profile, a scaled down WAS. http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/downloads/ws/waszosliberty/index.html
Here’s the status of ISV Product support of z/os 2.1 http://www-03.ibm.com/systems/z/solutions/isv/
With SHARE in 2 weeks, it’s likely they didn’t get any sessions ready…or did they?
SHARE 2.1 sessions:
SHARE EC12/BC12 sessions:
In case you didn't get enough links today, or you need a fun link rather than a technical one to waste some Friday afternoon time on, the Google pacman game is still accessible at http://www.google.com/doodles/30th-anniversary-of-pac-man
Till Next Time....
Mary Anne
z/OSsyGirl