Highlights
- Optimization of cost, density, and flexibility with a 19-inch frame.
- Enhanced infrastructure resilience with new IBM System Recovery Boost.
- Support for data flow within and between data centers via new adapters.
- Broad application compression availability with new co-processors.
- Integration of z/OS and Linux on Z collocation workloads.
Introduction
In today's rapidly evolving digital landscape, organizations must embrace agility, adopt new technologies, and deliver enhanced customer experiences while maintaining robust security, data privacy, and 24/7 availability. The IBM z15 platform is engineered to meet these demands, providing the performance, flexibility, availability, protection, and agility required for digital transformation. By leveraging IBM z15 technology as the foundation of their infrastructure, businesses can optimize digital service delivery, accelerate innovation, and ultimately drive improved profitability.
Simple High-Speed Processing
The new 12-core processor chip, utilizing 14nm silicon-on-insulator technology, operates at 5.2 GHz, delivering enhanced performance and capacity across a wide range of workloads. The IBM z15 Model T01 offers up to 190 configurable cores, with core capacity options including Max34, Max71, Max108, Max145, and Max190. The IBM z15 T01 supports up to 40 TB of Redundant Array of Independent Memory (RAIM). IBM Virtual Flash Memory (VFM) is integrated with RAIM to provide high availability and performance, significantly reducing critical paging latency for key workloads. VFM offers up to 6 TB of fine-grained ordering options.
IBM z15 features an on-chip compression co-processor with new file compression capabilities. The Integrated Accelerator for zEDC reduces data storage and communication costs, increases data transfer speeds, and improves throughput without impacting response times. This accelerator is the successor to the IBM zEnterprise Data Compress (zEDC) Express adapter found on previous Z servers.
Design Flexibility
The IBM z15 significantly reduces its footprint compared to previous IBM Z models. Utilizing a 19-inch frame, configurations can flexibly scale from 1 to 4 frames, allowing customers to substantially reduce floor space requirements. Key design changes include:
- Central Processing Complex (CPC) drawer design allows for long-distance coupling to the PCIe+ I/O drawer.
- The frame design eliminates the need for fixed placement of PCIe+ I/O drawers.
- I/O and power cables can be routed from the top or bottom, supporting both raised and non-raised floor installations.
- All cables are routed from the rear of the frame using a new cable management bracket.
Power options include the Intelligent Power Distribution Unit (iPDU) and the Bulk Power Assembly (BPA). Panels are designed with acoustics in mind and optimize airflow. The frame requires 3-phase power. iPDU power can improve energy efficiency and reduce overall energy costs. BPA is selected for configurations requiring internal battery features (IBF), customer-based water cooling systems, or balanced power.
The 19-inch frame technology supports the ASHRAE A3 operating class, which helps conserve heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) costs in a wider range of future operating environments. Ordering the IBM Z Hardware Management Appliance with IBM z15 provides hardware management console (HMC) and SE functions within the 19-inch frame, eliminating the need for a separate external HMC.
Image of the IBM z15 server, a sleek, modern mainframe system.
Delivering Confidence: IT Resilience
IT resilience, whether on-premises or in the cloud, means adapting to planned and unplanned situations while maintaining service and operations. This translates to:
- Minimal data loss.
- Applications remain operational during disruptions.
- Hardware, middleware, and workloads remain available.
- Service interruptions are minimized.
IBM Recovery Boost is a new feature in IBM z15 that enables faster workload recovery, reducing downtime and its impact. It restores normal service operations for both planned and unplanned outages, meeting Service Level Agreements (SLAs). For planned outages, it accelerates system shutdown. For unplanned outages, it speeds up system restart (Initial Program Load - IPL), middleware and workload resumption, system recovery, and subsequent workload execution. During these critical periods, IBM Recovery Boost maximizes processing power by running available processor capacity in parallel. It allows sub-capacity general processors to run at full capacity and accelerates and parallelizes IBM GDPS reconfiguration actions.
Crucially, IBM z15 customers can utilize this rapid recovery capability without any increase in IBM's monthly licensing charges (MLC) or software fees, and without impacting their Million Service Unit (MSU) usage. This enhances operational agility, reduces downtime, and provides peace of mind. IBM Recovery Boost is supported on z/OS 2.4, z/OS 2.3 (with service), and z/VM 7.1.
Enhanced Data Security
IBM introduced pervasive encryption with IBM z14, a user-friendly approach that encrypts data in transit and at rest across a wide scope. This simplifies encryption and reduces the costs associated with data protection and compliance. It allows enterprises to protect critical assets without impacting transaction throughput or response times. IBM z15 extends this data protection capability across the entire enterprise, aiming to protect data across distributed and hybrid cloud environments.
The new IBM Data Privacy Passports offering, used with IBM z15, is designed to enhance enterprise-wide security and privacy. This data-centric security solution protects data as it moves from its source and spreads across the enterprise, strengthening data governance. IBM Data Privacy Passports provides policy-based, granular data privacy controls throughout the data lifecycle. This ensures that only authorized applications and users can access specific subsets of data. This solution enables data protection across hybrid environments, public clouds, and data shared with third parties.
A key aspect of robust security solutions is controlling access to data shared with business partners and ecosystems. IBM Data Privacy for Diagnostics is a new z/OS feature that enhances dump protection for data shared with others. This mitigates the risk of inadvertently sharing sensitive data when sending diagnostic information to vendors, a significant concern for organizations needing to comply with regulations like GDPR. Data Privacy for Diagnostics allows organizations to make informed decisions when sharing diagnostic data, balancing the need for system diagnostics with compliance requirements. Sensitive data can be tagged within dumps without affecting dump capture time, allowing it to be protected and edited before being sent to third-party vendors.
Beyond these security benefits, the platform addresses the evolving technological landscape, including the growing capabilities of quantum computing. Within the next 10 to 20 years, quantum computing is expected to dramatically increase, potentially rendering current encryption algorithms insecure. Enterprises must adapt to this future.
Agility for Transformation
To drive transformation, organizations must adopt lean and agile development practices for rapid application development. This requires a secure and stable technology infrastructure that can seamlessly integrate workloads and scale with the enterprise. IBM z15 provides the necessary foundation.
DevOps for IBM Z, running on the IBM z15, offers a cost-effective toolset for maintaining and modernizing valuable applications on the Z platform and hybrid cloud environments. DevOps is a widely adopted methodology that defines the speed, security, and availability demanded by today's hybrid cloud economics.
Customer case studies demonstrate that the IBM Application Delivery Foundation for z Systems solution can improve developer productivity by over 15%. This is achieved by providing an integrated toolset for developing and maintaining z/OS applications.
To enhance IBM z/OS testing capabilities without increasing Monthly License Charge (MLC) costs, organizations can utilize the IBM Application Development and Test Solution, available through Tailored Fit Pricing for IBM Z. This offers the benefits of discounted DevOps tool packages, removing barriers to continuous integration and delivery.
IBM Z's open and integrated tooling allows developers to work with mainframe and distributed environments using the same tools and processes, leveraging frameworks like Zowe. This enables an end-to-end cross-platform delivery pipeline that integrates with various open-source and third-party tools such as Git, Jira, Jenkins, and SonarQube. This integration allows organizations to build pipelines tailored to their needs, combining open-source and enterprise tools on the highly secure IBM Z platform.
Enhanced Linux Support and Integration
IBM compilers enable leveraging the latest IBM z15 architecture for Java, Swift, and Node.js interoperability. This optimizes enterprise workloads without recompilation, reducing the need for central processing unit (CPU) cycles. The IBM z/OS Container Extensions (IBM zCX) feature allows developers to deploy z/OS Linux on Z Docker workloads, minimizing development barriers on the IBM Z platform while inheriting z/OS service quality benefits like high availability, integrated disaster recovery, scalability, workload management, and security.
The z15 offers an enhanced Linux implementation with innovations in cores, memory, and cache. It supports IBM Cloud Private on Linux on Z, providing a platform for modernizing, developing, and managing containerized applications. The new 19-inch frame opens new opportunities within the data center. The Linux platform can be deployed as a standalone server or alongside z/OS and z/VSE environments. This seamless integration of Linux workloads facilitates close collocation of data and applications, enabling fast internal communication and high availability.
High-Speed, Secure Data Access
To fully leverage data's power, organizations need to overcome rigid structures and ensure fast data connections for exceptional transaction throughput. The IBM z15 provides the following:
- A new 2-port FICON Express16SA adapter connects to switches, directors, and storage devices at up to 16 Gbps. It supports native FICON, High Performance FICON for IBM Z (zHPF), and Fibre Channel Protocol (FCP), reducing application latency and meeting increasing bandwidth demands.
- New OSA-Express7S adapter sets support the increased networking bandwidth demands driven by faster processors and Network Attached Storage devices.
- Support for IBM zHyperLink via short-distance direct IBM Z I/O adapters provides ultra-low latency connections to FICON storage systems. The IBM Washington Systems Center offers a zBNA tool to assist in evaluating this adapter's suitability.
- Direct memory placement on the z15 or Remote Direct Memory Access over Converged Ethernet (RoCE) Express enables host-to-host shared memory communication, avoiding the high processing costs associated with TCP/IP. This memory communication is available for both z/OS and Linux on Z.
- Support for IBM Internal Coupling Adapter Short Reach (ICA SR) 1.1 and Coupling Express LR (long range) has been enhanced with increased coupling link counts and Coupling Channel Path ID (CHPID) counts.
Internal Configuration Details
Internal configuration changes in the 19-inch frame affect I/O capacity based on the selected power type. With iPDU power, up to 12 PCIe+ I/O drawers can be installed. With BPA power, up to 11 PCIe+ I/O drawers can be installed.
Reasons to Recommend IBM z15
To succeed in today's market, organizations need an integrated infrastructure that uniquely combines performance, flexibility, availability, security, and agility to deploy new capabilities. The new IBM z15 delivers the power, speed, open access, and the highly available and secure environment that users demand. It achieves this while reducing operational expenses. Comprehensive cost analysis reveals that the IBM z15 helps reduce total cost of ownership and maximize a company's final profitability.
Detailed Information
For detailed specifications of the IBM z15, please visit: https://www.ibm.com/downloads/cas/2G07LRDV
IBM Global Financing offers various payment options to acquire the technology essential for business growth. IBM provides complete lifecycle management for IT products and services, from acquisition to disposal. For more information, visit: ibm.com/financing
