The Big Iron Cloud

It’s Tuesday, August 28, 2012, and I’m having flashbacks to early the week of August 30, 2005.

Gulf Coast, I’ve got my fingers crossed for ya.

Seven years ago this week, I was flying up to NYC to cover IBM’s involvement in providing technology support for the U.S. Open.

When I left that Monday morning, all was well, but by the time I arrived at JFK, the levees had broken.

Here’s hoping NOLA built that $14 billion levee rebuild well!

Back here on the technology front, there’s some big news from Big Blue today, this time in the mainframe world.

IBM’s new zEnterprise EC12 mainframe computer, the result of a three-year, $1 billion R&D investment by IBM that includes new security and analytics technology to boost cloud computing performance, extending the mainframe’s leadership as the enterprise system for critical data.

IBM announced a new mainframe server, the zEnterprise EC12, one built around nearly 50 years of enterprise computing experience and which will help IBM customers take their analytics capabilities to the next level.

The IBM zEC12 offers 25 percent more performance per core, with over 100 configurable cores and 50 percent more total capacity than its predecessor.

This new system is the result of an investment of over $1 billion in IBM research and development by IBM, including in Poughkeepsie, NY and 17 other IBM labs around the world, and in partnership with some of IBM’s top clients.

Secure Transactions

This new mainframe is also one of the most secure enterprise systems ever, including built-in security features designed to meet the security and compliance requirements of a range of industries. It’s the only commercial server to achieve Common Criteria Evaluation Assurance Level 5+ security classification.

The zEC12’s state-of-the-art crytopgraphic co-processor called “Crypto Express4S” that provides privacy for transactions and sensitive data, and can be configured to provide support for high quality digital signatures (used with applications for Smart passports, national ID cards, and online legal proceedings).

Driving Business Insights

The zEC12 also advances performance for analytics, inceasing the performance of analytic workloads by 30 percent compared to its IBM predecessor.

And support for the IBM DB2 Analytics Accelerator that incorporates the Netezza data warehouse appliance into zEC12 enables clients to run complex business and operational analytics on the same platform.

Big Iron Cloud

The mainframe’s virtualization capabilities also make it well suited to supporting private cloud environments, where clients can consolidate thousands of distributed systems on to Linux on zEC12, lowering their IT operating costs associated with energy use, floor space, and even software licensing.

If you go here, you can learn more about the IBM zEC12 and can also contact an IBM rep or Business Partner to see how this bigger and better iron might be able to bolster your business results.