IBM unveiled two new miniaturized mainframes, which are easier to integrate into public or private cloud environments and cloud datacenters.
The new models — IBM z14 Model ZR1 and IBM LinuxONE Rockhopper II, will make mainframe a more adequate fit for the modern data centers.
IBM z14 Model ZR1 is based on IBM z14 mainframe technology, and features a 19-inch single-frame case design. This design, IBM said, will allow easy placement into modern datacenter rack of the same kind which are used to frame regular servers.
Z14 ZR1 is an improved version of the earlier Z13 mainframe. It offers 10% more throughput, and 8 terabytes of memory (two times more than the Z13 mainframe).
Many enterprises in financial sector rely on IBM Z-series systems. The ZR1 systems can be a lot more useful for financial sector, allowing them to process up to 850 million encrypted transactions every day.
The other mainframe system, IBM LinuxONE Rockhopper II, has been designed to offer a cloud platform with high availability, encryption and performance at scale. These features are packaged through an enterprise Linux server that easily fits in datacenter.
LinuxONE brings industry-leading security to Linux environments, using IBM Secure Service Container (SSC) technology. The application can be made ready for SSC deployment just by integrating it into Docker container. The developers can manage these applications using Docker and Kubernetes tools.
LinuxONE provides enough computational power to test up to 330,000 Docker containers, allowing developers to “compose high-performance applications and embrace a microservices architecture without latency or scale constraints.”
IBM said that the mainframe is a stable, secure and mature environment for IT initiatives, including the proliferation of blockchains.
“For instance, 87 percent of all credit card transactions and nearly $8 trillion in payments a year are processed on mainframes,” wrote IBM in a blog post. “Furthermore, the platform manages 29 billion ATM transactions each year, equivalent to nearly $5 billion per day. If you’re traveling by plane you can thank a mainframe, as they are also responsible for processing four billion passenger flights each year.”
Also read: IBM enables developers to build & run Kubernetes containers on bare metal cloud
Moreover, the z14 ZR1 and LinuxONE increases the capacity, performance, memory and cache across all aspects of the system.
