November 21, 2008
According to a press release from CA earlier this week, total installed IBM mainframe capacity has jumped rather spectacularly from 4.5 million MIPS in 2001 to 14 million MIPS today worldwide. In fact, the z10 series of mainframe processors has proven extremely popular as evidenced by the fact that in its first 130 days of availability it reached 720,000 MIPS.
This won’t be a statistically correct survey but I’m curious what types of enterprises have z10s installed or on order. Please pop me a quick response. Thank you!
Mainframes Rule in Banking and Retailing
November 14, 2008
The world economy is in a definite state of flux and uncertainty today and nowhere is that more evident than in the banking and retail industries. With the tremendous turmoil in the banking industry today it’s not easy to tell who the players are without a scorecard due to the recent mergers and acquisitions. And such uncertainty is also taking its toll on consumer confidence to the point that retail sales are slowing leading up to the usually robust Christmas season.
One thing is certain, however, and that is which computer systems the largest banks and retailers rely on. According to a recently concluded study by IDC, the top 50 banks in the world now have IBM mainframes installed. That same study also stated that 22 of the top 25 US retailers also depend on the reliability and availability provided by their IBM mainframes.
Inaugural MainframeZone Blog Post
November 6, 2008
Welcome to the first edition of the MainframeZone Blog!
After observing the mainframe world for almost 30 years and now publishing two independent magazines targeted exclusively to mainframe users (Mainframe Executive and z/Journal), I am finding that these are exciting days for the IBM mainframe. This MainframeZone Blog will cover a plethora (my homage to a favorite movie, Three Amigos) of mainframe topics – there are already several terrific mainframe bloggers and I will be referencing the more interesting posts regularly. In this blog I will also be chatting about a potpourri of other things that I find interesting and amusing.
Since I am fortunate that our four kids and their family all live here in the Dallas area, my wife Martha and I are blessed to be able to spend a lot of time with them and our amazing 11 grandkids, I will no doubt talk about them fairly often. So you’ll get an idea who they are I am including a recent picture.
Right now it’s the “perfect storm” for IBM mainframe computer systems due to the confluence of such events as; high energy costs, consolidation via Linux on System z, performance of the z10, the move back toward centralization of IT, emergence of SOA, traditional mainframe strengths, etc. The z10 EC announced in Feb. 2008 provided a considerable boost as demonstrated by the whopping 49 percent increase of aggregate MIPS shipments in the just announced Q3 results.
· Sam Palmisano, IBM’s Chairman and CEO delivered a very interesting talk this morning at the Council on Foreign Relations titled, “A Smarter Planet: The Next Leadership Agenda”. It is a must-read!
· IBM just recently announced the z10 Business Class (BC), a very powerful system for smaller users. Well-known mainframe blogger Timothy Sipples posted a quick and interesting overview of the z10 BC announcement. Also, check out the cool video on the System z10 BC.
· This past Monday, IBM, Sun Microsystems, and Sine Nomine Associates (SNA) announced the availability of operating system prototype code based on OpenSolaris Operating System, running on an IBM System z mainframe, to the global OpenSolaris community. The prototype was completed by SNA with equipment and financial assistance provided by IBM and technical assistance provided by Sun. The download is available to the OpenSolaris community at this link.
