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Explosion of New Mainframe Software

I continue to marvel at how much new mainframe software is being introduced, and not just from IBM. Let's take a quick and necessarily incomplete tour:

• IBM Financial Transaction Manager: Provides new and enhanced, pre-built, ready-to-roll support for financial industry transactions and messaging via SWIFT, as one example.
• Tivoli System Automation Version 3.4: Extend automation throughout the zEnterprise and beyond, across many types of virtualized environments. A very important ingredient in successful cloud deployments now.
• WebSphere Operational Decision Management: Add business rules flexibility to your enterprise applications, regardless of programming language. Helps dramatically cut down on the amount of coding you need to do.
• WebSphere eXtreme Scale Version 8.5 and WebSphere Application Server Version 8.5: Exciting for their performance, support for the latest cutting edge Java Enterprise Edition standards, and the new lightweight Liberty Profile deployment option.
• Business Process Manager Version 8.0 and Business Monitor Version 8.0: New iPhone/iPad capabilities for viewing, managing, and participating in sophisticated, optimized business processes.
• CICS Transaction Server Version 5.1: Lots of improvements, including CICS's very own sophisticated, standards-based Web user interface environment (with JSPs, etc.), support for the WebSphere Liberty Profile, a big leap in Java performance and flexibility, pre-configured MQ DPL support for containers (no more 32K limit!), and lots more 64-bit support, among other features. A beta version of CICS TS 5.1 will be publicly available for download.
• CPLEX Optimizer: Lots of mathematical optimization routines, ready to use right from your core applications on your mainframe.
• Tivoli OMEGAMON XE Version 5.1: Wow, they dramatically enhanced the 3270 interface and made the graphical interface easier to deploy. I love the new interface!
• GT.M from FIS Global: This is a very high performance key-value "NoSQL" database, available as open source on PCs for developers but also now available on z/OS and Linux on z with full support from FIS. GT.M is the foundation for FIS PROFILE core banking applications (now available for z/OS as well), but it is also a very popular execution environment for applications written in the M programming language, also known as MUMPS. The healthcare industry is chock full of important MUMPS applications, including the open source VistA software created by the U.S. Veterans Administration. Thus GT.M provides a wonderful new option for consolidating and simplifying thousands of healthcare industry applications onto IBM zEnterprise, some of which are still running on old DEC VMS systems, many of which are mission-critical.

  by Timothy Sipples

  May 10, 2012 in Application Development, Cloud Computing, Innovation Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

STASH: A "Skunkworks" Project for Secure Clients?

Joe Clabby reports on a (formerly) secret project to use IBM mainframes for virtual hosting of secure desktop environments. It's a fascinating read.

IBM PureSystems: Simple Is Good

IBM officially unveils its new PureSystems today. With it, simplification takes a big step forward.

Enterprise applications and their interdependencies have become extremely complicated: hard to deploy, hard to manage, hard to scale, and impossible to secure. IBM is really working overtime to tame that complexity. Do take a close look.

Keep in mind that if you've got a zEnterprise server, with its Unified Resource Manager, you're already taming complexity like nothing else. For instance, IBM PureSystems initially support 4 operating environments across 2 processor architectures in harmony, which is a tremendous accomplishment. With zEnterprise you've got 8+ across 3+. (I'm using plus symbols because it depends on how you count, but 8 and 3 are the minimum counts.) In other words, IBM PureSystems are part of a continuum, and your zEnterprise server leads the way. It's extremely likely you'll want some of both in your data center.

So that's my instant reaction, with more comments to follow no doubt. What do you think? What are your most urgent issues?

New WebSphere Application Server Liberty Profile

A large and growing percentage of mainframes run Java^TM code. Even when you license only z/OS, you get Java at no additional charge. CICS Transaction Server, IMS, DB2, WebSphere MQ, Linux on zEnterprise — the list goes on and on — all support Java. If you want to write or run Java on the mainframe, there's nothing stopping you. Go for it!

I'm quite pleased to see that IBM has announced its beta program for WebSphere Application Server Version 8.5. One major new innovation is the WAS Liberty Profile which supports both z/OS and Linux on zEnterprise. The Liberty Profile for z/OS is tiny (by today's and yesterday's standards): the download is only 32 MB. It starts quickly and consumes very little memory. And you can download the beta version now to try yourself. Of course, anything that can run on the Liberty Profile can also run on WebSphere Application Server if/when you're ready. That's because the Liberty Profile is WAS, but with as-needed/where-needed function delivery, depending on your application's requirements. And yes, of course, you can access all the helpful JZOS methods from the Liberty Profile for z/OS.

I expect this new WebSphere Liberty Profile will be extremely attractive to mainframe customers and to mainframe software developers. (Did I mention it's tiny?) Please go give it a try today and let IBM know what you think.

5 Predictions for the Next 5 Years

In keeping with the season of resolutions and predictions, IBM has gazed into its crystal ball to forecast five innovations that will alter the technology landscape within five years. So let's spend some time considering a couple of these predictions and their impact on mainframe computing.

#2: You will never need a password again. Technically that's no problem whatsoever if you have a mainframe and hasn't been for many years. IBM has done a very good job preserving and extending the mainframe's leadership, positioning the mainframe as the definitive Enterprise Security Hub (or ESH if you like). For example, credit and debit card systems are already getting a lot smarter thanks in large part to the mainframe's security innovations. In an ever more interconnected era (see below) when security is becoming ever more important, more businesses and governments are turning to mainframe-based solutions. The only question in my view is whether mainframe professionals will lead or follow this trend. I vote for the former.

#4: The digital divide will cease to exist. Universal mobile access to computing is going to favor the mainframe. First, there's going to be a direct effect on transaction volumes in existing banking systems, to pick an example. I'm hearing lots of reports that's precisely what's happening, even with only a fraction of the world using smartphones at this point. Second, there will be heightened security requirements (see above). Third, the greater the audience depending on mobile access for services, the greater the cost of service interruptions, thus favoring more resilient systems and solutions. Fourth, the greater the demand, the greater the need for massively scalable systems, i.e. mainframes. That's due to the need for bigger central systems of record as well as worsening data center resource problems in procuring enough space, power, and cooling. The world's telcos, for example, are now seriously rethinking their entire infrastructure which is becoming too costly and unsupportable, after a couple decades of largely unrestrained build-out.

#5: Junk mail will become priority mail. I'm not so sure about e-mail, but the central point here is that transactions are becoming more complex, with more and more heavy information analytics associated with core business processes in order to tailor services much more precisely to customers. That's going to drive the need for massively scalable systems with tight integration. Sound familiar? IBM is right at the vanguard of that trend, with the DB2 Analytics Accelerator as a preeminent example. That technology alone is making whole new analysis-heavy applications possible that were simply never possible before.

What's your forecast? My immediate forecast (or at least wish) is for all of our readers to have a safe, healthy, prosperous, and happy new year.

Japan's NTT Data Is Rock Solid with zEnterprise

NTT Data is the largest system integrator in Japan. In this video a couple of NTT Data's professionals discuss the new banking solution they're building for the Bank of Japan and the exceptional attributes of zEnterprise, z/OS, and WebSphere middleware products on z/OS.

Introducing the zEnterprise 114 (Updated)

It's new mainframe day! IBM has announced the zEnterprise 114, a particularly clever mainframe package which replaces the System z10 BC. The z114 is the little brother to last year's z196 super-mainframe, but keep in mind the z114 is in every way a real mainframe. A single z114 can handle more processing than IBM's fully configured top-of-the-line mainframe from just a few years ago. In no particular order, here's a list of the z114's improvements that I particularly like:

• For the first time that I can remember, and certainly for the first time since 64-bit z/Architecture debuted, all of IBM's mainframe models feature flexible, modular processor configurations. That is, you can order a z114 with either one or two processor "drawers" installed. I love that flexibility, particularly because it means that IBM has found a very smart way to lower the costs of entry into the mainframe world, so more businesses and governments can buy their first mainframe and enjoy its benefits. You can order an M05 hardware model and then, when/if you need more than 5 configurable cores, you can upgrade to an M10. (And you can still continue upgrading to z196 machines when/if needed.)
• Processor power and capacity are, of course, improved. That wasn't at all a problem with the System z10 BC, but it's always nice to see more performance in the smaller mainframe package. Uniprocessor performance is up 18%, for example. Clock speed is up to 3.8 GHz, which is a rather high-end number. Maximum z/OS capacity per z114 machine is up well past 3,000 MIPS, not including specialty engines.
• Coupling facility capacity is up a lot, too. If you need a dedicated coupling facility machine, the z114 is more likely to meet or exceed requirements.
• The z114 supports more memory than the z10 BC, but most of that increase is allocated to memory protection in the form of RAIM (Redundant Array of Independent Memory). Yes, the "little" mainframe gets exactly the same mainframe-unique memory protection that its big brother got last year — and which no other server has.
• Likewise, the z114 M10 provides a mandatory minimum of two spare cores, just like its big brother. The M10 also offers processor drawer redundancy. In the incredibly unlikely event a drawer or a core fails, the system stays up and running. If that capability is valuable, you can order the M10. For the rest of us (which is most of us), the M05 is perfectly fine and still better than its predecessors. Adding or replacing a processor drawer requires a planned outage, at least for now. Considering that everyone did perfectly well without that feature for decades, until the System z9 EC in late 2005, I think IBM can be forgiven for not getting that bit of work done just yet. (I think it's a moot issue anyway if you have a physical Sysplex.)
• You can run the z114 on high-voltage DC power or on AC, with or without a raised floor, and with top or bottom cable exit. In other words, you can put a z114 pretty much anywhere, including inside a mobile data center.
• Yes, you can add the zEnterprise BladeCenter Extension (zBX) to your z114. You can run the IBM Smart Analytics Optimizer, DataPower blades, all the other blade features — all centrally managed by the z114.
• You can order z114 machines now, and you can take delivery in September. Model upgrades from System z9 BC and z10 BC machines are available at the same time.
• IBM introduced "Advanced Entry Workload License Charges" (AEWLC) to go with the new z114, aimed specifically at smaller mainframe customers running single, standalone machines (with or without internal Sysplex clusters). Otherwise, AWLC is available for physical z114 Sysplexes, so that's good, too. AEWLC, AWLC, and IWP represent the technology dividends: you can enjoy the same performance and throughput for a substantially lower software license charge, or you can enjoy substantially more performance and throughput for the same software license charge compared to the System z10 BC. All I hear about is that everybody else everywhere else is increasing software license charges and maintenance charges. For well over a decade IBM has been slashing software prices on its mainframes, so you get way more bang for the buck (or euro or yen). I really hope people understand this stuff by now.

All goodness. Nice job, IBM.

UPDATE: IBM has issued a press release highlighting the new z114 mainframe. Indeed, IBM says that the z114 has a U.S. "starting price of under $75,000." That's the lowest price ever for an IBM mainframe and a big 25% reduction from the previous entry price. Also, according to Timothy Prickett Morgan at The Register, on an equal performance comparison IFLs (Linux processors) on the z114 are priced 37.5% lower. There are big price reductions across the board, though, for both hardware and software. It's clear IBM is determined to convince many new customers to buy their first mainframes.

IBM Centennial Film: "They Were There"

IBM produced this 30 minute film as part of its centennial year (2011). The film includes some interesting stories about the System/360, Sabre (airline reservations), and the Apollo space program, among others. Enjoy.

"Watson": Mankind's Triumph

This past week I was glued to television's Jeopardy quiz show. IBM's Watson computer was one of the contestants and played against Jeopardy's two leading human champions.

Watson won, quite handily. In the process, so did mankind. IBM researchers have successfully moved computing several gigantic steps forward into more natural, more contextual, and more "human scale" problem solving. Computing has just moved much closer to us and to our needs. This new "information concierge" will be incredibly useful in fields as diverse as medical diagnostics, customer service, and scientific research, among others. Watson-like follow-ons will draw upon the vast and fast-growing amount of information that mainframes manage. I can already imagine how tightly-coupled "Watson engines" would be able to answer naturally phrased questions and solve tough business problems, even providing frequently updated answers in near real-time.

As I watched Watson in action, I remembered the 1957 film Desk Set, starring Katherine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy. Here's an excerpt from that film in which the new EMERAC computer provides a quick and accurate answer to a tough question:

Even Watson would have some difficulty answering that particular question in quite that way. Hollywood's vision of the future was well ahead of its time, although Watson finally closes much of the gap. Also, as the film later revealed, EMERAC couldn't replace humans. Even EMERAC's owners, the Federal Broadcasting Network, didn't think it could. Transformative technologies like Watson (and like the telephone) seem to promote even more growth and human activity.

Even so, late night comedian Conan O'Brien poked some fun at Watson in this video:

Even without his baseball bat, Conan's sidekick Andy Richter has nothing to worry about. In fact, maybe Watson could help Conan's writing team improve the quality and popular appeal of their jokes. It might take a few more years, but if today's Watson can sift through terabytes of information to identify useful patterns and interrelationships, perhaps tomorrow's Watson can be taught how to look for better puns and for more original jokes, nominating candidates for Conan's monologue. Granted, IBM probably has more immediate applications in mind, but who knows?

IBM's Birthday: "100x100"

As I mentioned previously, IBM is celebrating its 100th birthday this year. Here's a new and well-crafted video from IBM which cleverly illustrates just how far we've come and what's coming next:

I hope I'm doing as well as the first speaker in the video when I'm 100 years old!

One of the major changes at IBM that isn't too obvious in the video is the company's transition to software as its major profit generator. Software now accounts for almost half of IBM's total profit. The video mentions some notable software milestones (FORTRAN and relational databases, for example), but it would have been impossible to cover everything within 13 minutes.

A Trio of New Videos

Happy Thanksgiving to our readers in the United States!

YouTube has some interesting new mainframe-related videos posted. For example, here's a look at EFiS AG, a financial services company in Germany that's enjoying the greater efficiency and security of System z:

Next up, here's a video about Garanti, in Turkey, and their use of just two System z machines to handle their entire core business and support their fast growth with ever-greater efficiency:

Finally, here's a very short video history of the mainframe and its evolution from the System/360:

The World's Fastest Microprocessor

IBM's zEnterprise z196 contains the world's fastest microprocessor. Yes, you read that correctly: the mainframe contains the fastest cores in the world. Welcome to a new world.

The dirty little secret in microprocessor design is that engineers are increasingly slamming into brick walls. It's getting more and more difficult (and expensive) to continue to enhance processor speed. Intel many years ago gave up on clock speed improvements, stabilizing at 3-point-something Gigahertz. The IBM z196 microprocessor runs at a record 5.2 GHz. (That's continuous clock speed and with all cores active, not some sort of "burst" mode.) A faster clock speed is still quite important — let's not kid ourselves — but there are also several other improvements in the z196 processor. One of them is out-of-order execution, something that IBM figured out how to do while enhancing reliability. IBM also made great improvements in cache sizes and architecture.

Fastest means fastest: the z196 cores are presently the fastest cores in the world. Let's be very clear here: if you double the number of cores you don't double performance. If you're performing one task, adding cores won't help. Sure, mainframes are expressly designed to juggle multiple concurrent workloads, but each task dispatched to a z196 core, even a computationally intense one, can now run faster than it would on any alternative core. This engineering accomplishment only adds to the mainframe's already impressive throughput performance.

Watch some IBM engineers discuss the z196's performance:

First Major Press Stories on IBM's New Mainframe

Not too many details yet, but there are now stories in The New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and other major outlets. From the Journal:

Martin Kennedy, a managing director at Citigroup who oversees the company's 50 mainframes, says the new machine could help it roll out applications more quickly. "If the promise holds true, we can get some real value out of this," said Mr. Kennedy, who plans to upgrade all of its machines to the new system over the next year or two.

Much more information will be coming, I'm sure. Stay tuned.

UPDATE #1: It looks like there's some sort of press embargo that has been lifted, because the media are starting to carry more details. Here are some examples:

• Computerworld Australia has photos of the new zEnterprise System.
• IT News Australia: "IBM Takes Mainframe Back to the Future"
• Reuters: "IBM Launches Faster and More Cost-Efficient Mainframe"
• eWeek Europe: "IBM Launches 5000 MIPS Hybrid Mainframe" [They're only off by an order of magnitude.]
• ZDNet: "IBM Unveils Hybrid Mainframe"
• Forbes: "IBM's New Mainframes Take On Dell, HP"

UPDATE #2: I have added some more press articles to the list above. Also, as Patrick Loftus points out in the comments, IBM has just posted several "redbooks" (technical manuals) for the new zEnterprise System:

• IBM zEnterprise System Technical Guide
• IBM zEnterprise System Technical Introduction
• IBM System z Connectivity Handbook
• IBM System z BladeCenter Extension Model 001
• IBM zEnterprise System: Smart Infrastructure for Today's Heterogenous Business Applications

I'm going to be busy reading.

UPDATE #3: IBM has now issued an official press release: "IBM Unveils zEnterprise System, Ushers in Era of Smarter Data Centers." Here's one section (emphasis mine):

From a performance standpoint, the zEnterprise System is the most powerful IBM system ever. The core server in the zEnterprise System--called zEnterprise 196--contains 96 of the world's fastest, most powerful microprocessors running at 5.2Ghz, capable of executing more than 50 billion instructions per second.

"The world's fastest, most powerful microprocessors." Wow. IBM has also posted a battery of official announcement letters:

• The zEnterprise System — A New Dimension in Computing
• IBM zEnterprise BladeCenter Extension (zBX)
• Advanced Workload License Charges Offers Price/Performance for the IBM zEnterprise 196
• IBM z/OS V1.12 — Smart Technologies for a New Dimension in Computing
• IBM z/OS Management Facility V1.12
• IBM z/VM V6.1 — Enhancements for zEnterprise Virtualization
• Preview: IBM z/VSE Version 4 Release 3 offers more capacity and IBM zEnterprise exploitation
• IBM Enterprise PL/I for z/OS V4.1 Delivers Performance Improvements and Usability Enhancements
• IBM Smart Analytics Optimizer for DB2 for z/OS Enables a New Class of Business Intelligence and Data Warehousing Workloads for the IBM System z Platform
• IBM CICS Deployment Assistant for z/OS V1.1 Delivers Advanced Topology Visualization, and Automated Creation and Deployment of CICS Regions

IBM has got one heck of a significant set of announcements here.

New Mainframe Announcement This Week!

IBM's Chief Financial Officer Mark Loughridge discussed IBM's 2Q2010 earnings and said this:

In the third quarter, we'll have Power7 across our entire UNIX product line, and will introduce and ship our next generation mainframe solution. [....] This week IBM will announce the next generation of System z, the fastest and most scalable enterprise server in the industry. This server provides 40 percent more performance on a mix of workloads than the equivalent z10. Some workloads can achieve greater performance improvements such as Linux which has 60 percent better performance and 35 percent lower cost. This announcement is the foundation for IBM’s first System of Systems, which provides the capability to manage 10 times the virtual machines of VMWare by extending mainframe governance to our other industry leading technologies.

Previously IBM's CFO suggested "second half," which usually means the fourth quarter. Obviously IBM is going to beat those expectations.

Stay tuned to The Mainframe Blog.

Another New Mainframe Customer...and It's a Big One

BC Card, the largest credit card company in Korea, has announced that they have chosen IBM System z as their next generation IT infrastructure. The company has never had a mainframe before.

They have chosen System z10, z/OS, CICS Transaction Server, DB2 for z/OS, WebSphere Application Server for z/OS, and several other software products. They are also consolidating many distributed servers to System z10.

"We chose System z for its continuous operation, service quality made available through IBM's mainframe software solutions, and economic returns for the years ahead," said Jeongkyu Lee, Chief Information Officer at BC Card. "We're aiming to become Korea's premier Global Payment Service Provider. We see System z as a critical success factor for our business objectives and service level requirements for customers."

Congratulations to BC Card, and welcome to our community.

IBM Eating Its Own zAnalytics Cooking

Let's go right to IBM's press release:

IBM today announced the world's largest private cloud computing environment for business analytics, which will provide IBM sales teams and developers new levels of insight to better meet the needs of clients worldwide. The cloud will launch initially with more than a petabyte of data, the equivalent of more than 300 billion ATM transactions.

IBM also announced a new solution, the IBM Smart Analytics Cloud, for clients to build their own private cloud environments based on the same Cloud infrastructure that IBM is using internally....

"Blue Insight" will run on a System z10 mainframe computer with 48 processors (32 processors for production, 18 processors for development and test environments) and strong cryptography — capable of handling up to 10,000 secure transactions per second, with redundant backup support.

The steady drumbeat continues. It is quite obvious that IBM has a clear and strong vision (and reality) to promote System z for business intelligence applications. Is your organization understanding yet what IBM is delivering?

The Mainframe's Future is Analytically Cloud-y

I have blogged several times about IBM's renewed (and bigger) push into analytics and business intelligence, and so has James Governor recently. IBM has completely changed its strategy, pushing aggressively to build and to promote business intelligence-related solutions on System z, especially those concerning "operational business intelligence" where the mainframe has unique advantages. Customers have been pleading with IBM for years to take another look at BI on z, and IBM is stepping forward (finally) with some new and big ideas.

I remember talking with a CTO at a major financial services company years ago about his problems meeting his end users' requirements for more and better business reporting. There was (and is) an ever-growing need for more and more timely analytical information. He pointed out that his two mainframes literally ran almost the entire core business efficiently and cost-effectively, processing all the core transactions and data for his firm and scores of others. (Only two machines! This company also served several other financial institutions, offering common services. True cloud computing before the term was invented.) But, for reporting, it was no longer viable for his development team to write "yet another custom program." They wanted to take a more streamlined, standardized, end user-driven approach that could respond much more quickly to ad hoc business requirements.

At the time he asked IBM for a solution, and they said, no problem, install additional servers — probably hundreds, to meet regulatory requirements for financial data security — start with a big ETL (Extract/Transform/Load) each night, run your analytics (on stale data, no doubt), and then push some of the (stale) results back to your operational databases on the mainframe. And the CTO, to his credit, said (closely paraphrasing) "Are you bulls**tting me? Go back to the drawing board. You're no better than Oracle." And he wasn't the only CTO saying much the same, often quite forcefully.

So IBM went back to the drawing board, and how. IBM quickly realized that there's no other feasible way to solve many major analytical and business intelligence problems without placing those functions directly in and on the operational systems. And that quite often means mainframe hosting, of course. Ergo, IBM has invested heavily to imbue the mainframe with new BI-related capabilities: Cognos, SAFR, ILOG, dashboards, event-driven middleware, Smart Analytics Cloud for System z, etc. (More to come, I'm sure.) IBM has also introduced solution packages so customers can say, "I'll have one of those, please" and IBM can quickly present a complete proposal at a competitive price.

IBM is really onto something, I think. I am hearing from so many customers about their pressing, unsolved BI and analytical problems — and how if they can solve these problems they would gain tremendous competitive advantage. I'm also hearing from people who manage IT infrastructure who are frustrated with the current too-high cost deployment patterns for these solutions. A lot of them are seeing massive and growing server farms that run busy for only a couple hours per night, per week, or even per quarter. That sort of deployment is unsustainable from a cost point of view, so managers are certainly looking at virtualization and cloud computing. But one problem is security: the information these systems handle is often extremely sensitive, and only the mainframe (with its unique technologies and security certifications) is capable enough to virtualize many of these sensitive data workloads. I am also hearing increasing problems with the ETL step: it's getting more and more difficult to physically move data through the ETL stage(s) as operational data grows. Why not improve the efficiency of ETL by bringing data warehouses physically closest to operational databases? System z does that best. Better yet, how about avoiding ETL completely, at least for certain tasks?

I am seeing high and growing demand for System z-based BI solutions. Many customers already "get it." The global economic environment is causing many others to reconsider their architectural approaches, to incorporate the mainframe more strategically (and more directly) into their BI/analytic service delivery. I think IBM is quite smart to invest in this area, and I'm pleased to see IBM's new thinking and its results.

Random Mainframe News for Early July, 2009

The Mainframe Blog takes no summer (northern hemisphere) vacation, nor does mainframe-related news. Here are pointers to the recent mainframe stories and happenings that interest me and hopefully you as well.

Think Again

IBM is encouraging customers and policymakers to think more carefully about the choices they make in such diverse areas as electricity generation and distribution and....shipping frozen chickens and fresh carrots?!?! Yes indeed....

Our planet faces serious challenges. Information technology — yes, including mainframes — must rise to solve increasingly complex optimization problems. Sure, it's marketing, but the message is both serious and exciting for IT people like me. IT itself, poorly optimized, can negatively impact the planet. Certainly this blog has raised the point repeatedly that mainframes help slash data center energy costs like nothing else, and (some) IT people need to get past their prejudices and start implementing more mainframes and fewer servers averaging 5% busy. (And application and information architects need to stop sitting on the sidelines and actively help optimize data centers by making energy-sensitive architectural decisions. Infrastructure does matter a lot and must not be an afterthought.)

But it's not just about energy, and it's not only about the data center. For example, why does our planet still waste up to 50% of food? Why are we still supplying full power to vacant homes and offices? Why are over 40,000 Americans still dying every year in car accidents?

Let's solve some of these problems. We have the technology. What are we waiting for? What are you waiting for?

UPDATE: Ceres, a Boston-based coalition of investors, just released a study which evaluated 63 companies in the technology, consumer products, leisure, and drug sectors. They looked at corporate environmental policies, including focus on averting climate change. The #1 company? IBM. Tesco, Dell, Intel, Johnson & Johnson, and Nike round out the top 6.

Who do you trust? RFG? Yes. HP? No

In my last entry, I talked about the misleading information that HP provided regarding a consulting report to get off the mainframe. In that dialog, I also referenced the same consulting group giving pro-mainframe support and then asked rhetorically, who do you trust, RFG or RFG? I’ve worked closely with Robert Francis Group and I was wondering why they would have done this.

Well, it looks like RFG is a lot more trustworthy than HP who misused the consulting report. Today, RFG put out a press release in which their headline reiterated:

RFG Still Believes That the Mainframe Is One of the Best and Most Energy Efficient Platform Options. 

Well, it was certainly nice to see that and their explanation. Anyone hazard to guess when we might see a retraction or correction from HP?