InformationWeek: The Business Value of Technology

October 9, 2000

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IBM Unveils High-End Mainframe, Rebrands Servers

Tighter integration, shared technology, and Linux support promised for all four server lines

By Martin J. Garvey

More on servers:

Network Computing: Historic Advances: Scientific Clustering Paves the Way (10/2/00) TechWeb: Oracle Unveils Oracle 9i As Expected (10/2/00) Computer Reseller News: Mainframes Take Step Into High-End Server Space (9/25/00)

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ecades ago, IBM ruled the data center. It now sees E-business as the way to take charge again. The computer giant last week launched its latest effort to regain control of business computing with a new high-end mainframe that it says can replace hundreds of small servers made by competitors. For companies that don't want to depend on a mainframe, IBM rebranded all its servers as "eServers" and promised tighter integration among the machines.

The new System/390 mainframe, called the zSeries 900, is more powerful and offers more flexible software pricing than its predecessors, says Gartner Group analyst John Phelps. "IBM is positioning these systems to be the premium E-business machines," he says.

A 16-way machine can process about 2,500 millions of instructions per second, compared with the 2,000 Mips handled by earlier mainframes. It uses 64-bit processors for the first time, letting customers quickly move memory-intensive applications around the system without having to check them through external storage. New intelligent resource-director software lets customers dynamically move capacity around to handle high-priority workloads. The 900 series can also process input/output at a rate of 24 Gbytes per second compared with 8 Gbytes per second on the G6 mainframe.

Jeff Nick, chief technical strategist for IBM's enterprise server group, says a mainframe combined with the Linux open-source operating system eliminates the need to buy Windows or Unix servers and pay extra to build and run a network to link them.

Some IT managers agree. MetaHost.net Technologies Inc., an application service provider in Vancouver, British Columbia, has 20 IBM Netfinity Windows NT servers. Three months ago, the company calculated the cost per user per month to house and maintain various kinds of servers, says president Mike Rogers. The analysis indicated that a Sun Solaris or IBM Windows NT server cost $20, while Linux on the mainframe cost about $1.

"We thought of going to Sun, rack-mounting the servers, and having thousands of boxes on the floor," Rogers says. "My data center would have to be so big, the economics of doing that were stunning."

Instead, he bought an S/390 Group 5 model 9673 mainframe three months ago and is running hundreds of virtual Linux computers on the system. Each Linux "image" acts like a separate application server. "Now I can get a client online in 15 minutes," Rogers says. "That's compared with the three to five days it takes to order a server, get it in, have someone install and test the operating system, and implement the system to get a client online."

It's those kinds of benefits that should help boost sales for the next several years. International Data Corp. estimates that the number of mainframe Mips shipped will jump from 2.5 million this year to 16 million in 2003; mainframes are measured by processing power, or Mips. The good news for IT managers is that prices will keep falling at around 40% a year. "For IBM to keep mainframe revenue flat or slightly declined, they need to ship at or near 80%" compounded annual growth, says IDC analyst Vernon Turner. "Linux and the new workloads will help."

New software pricing may also lend a hand. A basic 900 will be priced around $750,000, plus a monthly license fee for software. The new mainframe operating system will include a workload license manager that lets customers pay for software such as DB2 and CICS by the month, based on usage. In the past, a customer might pay for 500 Mips of processing per month even if only 250 Mips of processing were needed some months. Users will continue to pay a flat fee for VM and VSE mainframe operating system software.

Dan Kaberon, manager of computer resource management at Hewitt Associates, a health and welfare benefits outsourcing company in Lincolnshire, Ill., likes the idea of the 900 system's 64-bit memory. "The current crop of mainframes are pretty constrained, with 2 Gbytes of main memory for each copy of 390," Kaberon says. The applications Hewitt provides are memory-intensive. Kaberon says 64-bit memory will let him service clients more easily. "At one level, the current technology leads to more complicated systems management," he says. "We have machines we have to break into multiple partitions just to get enough addressable memory to service our clients."

Of course, many IT managers--and some IBM divisions--prefer Unix and NT servers to mainframes. For these users, IBM rebranded its entire server line and updated some of the machines. In addition to the zSeries of mainframes, AS/400s are now called the iSeries; RS/6000s are the pSeries; and the Netfinity and NUMA-Q Intel-based lines are now the xSeries.

IBM says all lines will have tighter integration and will share technology. For example, the company will take logical partitioning from the mainframe, which lets customers run secure multiple applications on a single system, and add it to the other lines. IBM is already shipping some iSeries machines with enhanced performance, and advanced memory and I/O technology.

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