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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?

Oracle's Hardware Sales Down Sharply Again

Three months ago, Oracle reported financial results for the company's second financial quarter. Its hardware sales declined 14% year over year, to $953 million. Oracle predicted that hardware sales would fall again anywhere from 4% to 14% in the next quarter (at constant currency).

Actually they fell 16% year over year, to $869 million. Quarter to quarter they fell about 9%.

For perspective, Oracle claims that their nascent Exadata/Exalogic/Exalytics business is fast growing, but that only means the far larger Oracle/Sun Solaris business is collapsing even faster. Also, the earnings report reveals that "hardware systems support" (a.k.a. hardware maintenance) declined only 3% (constant currency, year over year). So Oracle's remaining customers are caught in the perfect storm of a cratering Oracle/Sun Solaris business combined with escalating maintenance prices. Fabulous.

Of course I realize that hardware sales can be cyclical, but Oracle's hardware problems are deeply structural. Oracle introduced servers with the new SPARC T4 processors in September, 2011, which took the SPARC CPU up to 3.0 GHz. This past quarter should have been a terrific one, or at least a decent one, given that Oracle/Sun model cycle. Instead it was awful again.

I predict that Stuart Alsop now has the opportunity to correctly predict when the last Oracle/Sun Solaris server will be unplugged.

Strange Happenings in the PC Market

Welcome to 2012, faithful Mainframe Blog readers. The year 2011 is history, and now the results are starting to trickle in. Late last year IBM made some predictions about the next five years. I'd like to spend a little more time analyzing prediction #4 and its relevance to mainframe computing. There are two additional pieces of information available to me after writing that post. One is Gartner's report on 4th quarter PC sales, and the other is some careful observation of my family, particularly my sister, during the Christmas holiday.

First let's consider Gartner's report: PC unit sales fell 1.4% globally in the fourth quarter, and U.S. sales dropped 5.9%. HP's PC sales fell 16.2%. Note that these figures do not include Apple's iPad. If you also take out sales of Apple's Macintosh desktops and laptops, total U.S. PC sales (of Windows PCs) fell by 8.6%. (Apple's Mac sales grew 20.7%.)

Those are startling figures, but they are in perfect agreement with IBM's prediction. If the PC were the only way (or at least the "best" way) to access our increasingly digital world, we would expect the so-called "digital divide" to persist for a generation or more. Instead what's happening is that smartphones and tablets are rapidly becoming the most prominent access devices, while the importance of (and sales of) the PC are diminishing.

And I also observed my sister. She has an iPad and an iPhone. I'm not sure if she has a PC, and I don't think she cares whether she does. And for most of the Christmas holiday period and no doubt beyond she was glued to that iPad. She had everything she needed and more to support both the business and fun aspects of her life. And clearly she found the iPad nearly effortless to operate and worry-free. It's hard to break an iPad, in either software or hardware terms. She, and millions of other people like her, across all countries and social strata, are finding non-PC mobile devices much more suited to their lifestyles and needs. And this change is occurring very quickly.

Thinking as an architect, I was also struck by how much she was able to do in such a short time. The intensity of her iPad use was quite impressive and not, it seemed, a temporary phenomenon. As I mentioned previously, the infrastructure required to support the information delivery and transactional requirements of all these cloud-managed mobile devices is going to be astonishing. And it'll be mainframes of one stripe or another that'll do most of the heavy lifting.

I'm very bullish on the future of the mainframe as we begin this new year and enter the post-PC world. Be sure to keep stopping by in the coming weeks and months as we continue to explore the growing world of mainframe computing.

Happy New Year!

Mainframe Mobile Apps

IBM has introduced mobile apps which provide mainframe-related information. The apps are available for iPhone/iPad/iPod touch, Android, and Blackberry.

HP Lays an Ostrich Egg During Turkey Week

One of the fundamental rules of public relations is that if you want to make an announcement that you don't want to be noticed, do it just before a big holiday. That probably helps explain why HP picked the Tuesday before the big Thanksgiving holiday in the U.S. to announce its "Project Odyssey."

I have to applaud HP on picking an exceptionally appropriate name. Odysseus means "trouble" in Greek, and his journey took ten long years after defeat in war. During his journey none of his fellow travelers survived. Sounds like a perfect name for the latest plot twist in the Itanium Meltdown, doesn't it?

I can summarize HP's announcement thusly:

1. There's nothing we can do to save HP-UX, OpenVMS, or NonStop. We might have another unexciting Itanium chip or two in the pipeline, but who cares? Our turkeys are cooked without software vendor support.
2. Unfortunately our lawyers aren't giving us high odds of prevailing over Oracle in court. If by some miracle we did, it wouldn't help our customers. We'd just collect some cash.
3. You'll be able to stick obsolete-but-repurchased Itanium blade servers into the same chassis that also hold Intel X86 blades running Windows and/or Linux. This plan is so exciting that we're announcing it when nobody will notice. (And didn't we already announce that?)
4. Yes, we know blades are horizontally scalable, not vertically scalable. Yes, we know many NonStop customers aren't thrilled with blade architectures for availability reasons. Did we mention we're getting out of the high-end server business? Did we mention we couldn't afford the R&D a decade ago to be a credible high-end server vendor, never mind now? We just wanted to be a box pusher and let Intel worry about the CPU and everybody else worry about the software. It seemed like a brilliant idea at the time, at least to our accountants.
5. We'll strip the HP-UX corpse of any interesting bits and make those available for Linux and/or Windows. No, we don't have any idea what those bits might be.
6. There are no new versions of HP-UX, OpenVMS, or NonStop Kernel to announce. Are we being clear enough yet?
7. Isn't it cute that Microsoft said something nice in our press release? Of course they would: they abandoned Itanium before Oracle did. Of course they'll sign their name to our Itanium retirement party book. Ditto Red Hat.
8. In an announcement like this one normally we'd boast about all the new Itanium customers, our revenue growth, etc., etc. Of course, we can't do that when the opposite is true. We couldn't even persuade a real customer to say anything nice about this announcement. We got tired of hearing "F**k you!" every time we asked a customer for a quote.

zEnterprise and SAP: Perfect Together

I've seen some past criticism that IBM doesn't publish benchmarks for its mainframes. That's another "mainframe myth." IBM does publish benchmarks from time-to-time. Here's the latest example: a new world record for SAP core banking performance and scalability.

Benchmarks aren't useful at all unless they resemble some projected reality, in total. They're simply tools to try to understand how a system will behave when you put it to real, productive work. Unfortunately every business (and government agency) is unique, and when you're looking at a thoroughly mixed workload environment (IBM's zEnterprise), running a couple off-the-shelf tests isn't going to help much.

That said, this SAP benchmark is at least a better attempt, because it's trying to simulate what a real bank would do during the day, night, and across multiple channels and business functions. And the zEnterprise results are extremely impressive, even measuring SAP by itself. (IBM mainframes can and do of course run lots of applications on the same footprints.)

It's tough to benchmark "run most of my entire business" scenarios. But it's not necessarily impossible. I've worked with a lot of customers who pack up, go visit a benchmark center, and figure out how big their systems should be, how they should (or should not) architect their applications, etc. That's the best way to gain confidence about how well particular infrastructure(s) will support future business demands. (They can also test quality of service issues, such as how quickly they can fail over to a second data center, how much if any interruption there would be when upgrading software versions, and so on.)

Alternatively, if you've already got a mainframe, you're probably benchmarking all the time, perhaps without knowing it. You probably already know that your mainframe can handle the next merger or acquisition, and the next five applications, and then some. Maybe that'll require adding some capacity, maybe not, but the IBM mainframe inherently yields lots of performance-related data so you already know that you can deliver a quality outcome. After all, the easiest benchmark is the one you don't have to run. There are also affordable Capacity On Demand (COD) options for running special high-capacity tests on your own machine(s) — or to save your business if the programmers delivered some poor performing code that they can't fix right away.

Of course, if you have 150 million bank accounts, and you want to run SAP core banking, just go buy a couple zEnterprise machines from IBM (and a zBX or two). You've now got that benchmark, too.

Google Acquiring Motorola Mobility: Hardware Matters

Google announced a friendly takeover of Motorola Mobility less than a day ago as I write this. No fewer than seven law firms have already announced civil lawsuits against Google and Motorola Mobility in relation to the acquisition, which only reminds us that anyone can complain about anything, with or without legal merit. Instead of lawsuits I'll offer some quick analysis, similar to my previous HP Itanium meltdown analysis.

Mobile competition is turning out to be much more interesting than the PC-related battles of the 1980s and 1990s. Most of our planet's inhabitants don't have PCs or PC-like devices, most probably never will, and it's even possible that PC penetration will diminish over time. These trends are disturbing to some incumbent vendors, notably Microsoft. The one-two punch of the Internet followed by mobile computing have upended the technology world, with some potential winners and losers starting to emerge.

Apple is clearly a winner. Michael Dell famously recommended that Apple's management liquidate the company and give the proceeds to shareholders. Fortunately Apple rejected that free advice. Apple has recently surpassed Exxon Mobil as the world's most valuable publicly traded company, depending on which trading day you check. Apple is now over ten times more valuable than Dell. Most of that shareholder value derives from the tremendous success of the iPhone which has spawned the largest and most popular mobile application ecosystem that now rivals the PC. Later this year, Apple is cutting the cord for good: iPhones, iPads, and iPod touches with iOS 5 will no longer require a PC or Mac for keeping in sync and for updating their operating systems. Inevitably that means many people who don't yet have PCs won't buy them, and people who do have PCs will use them less and less. Mobile computing is just more...mobile. (One of the PC's few remaining distinguishing characteristics, the full-sized keyboard, doesn't offer much advantage for Asian languages such as Chinese and Japanese. And if you really want a full-size keyboard you can add one to your iPad or iPhone via Bluetooth.)

Apple is one of the best examples of the newly rediscovered maxim that "hardware matters." Like Exxon Mobil, which is a vertically integrated energy supplier, Apple is the ultimate vertically integrated mobile computing supplier. (IBM mainframes represent the ultimate expression in vertically integrated hardware and software in the business server marketplace. IBM i systems represent another excellent example.) Google has emerged as the other serious participant in mobile computing with its Android operating system and its related application ecosystem. In effect, in the shift to the mobile world Google replaced Microsoft as the dominant client software provider. I think Microsoft has already lost that fight, and the company's partnership with fast-fading Nokia won't work. Microsoft is to mobile computing what Digital Research was to microcomputers in the early 1980s — an odd irony.

In making this acquisition, Google has acknowledged that, as with mainframes, "hardware matters." Oracle has also come to that realization, but I think Oracle could have solved their problem at much lower cost than its acquisition of Sun. Oracle didn't need Sun to build Exadata-type products. I think Oracle was just petrified that IBM would acquire Sun and reacted accordingly. IBM wisely walked away, leaving Oracle with the carcass — and angry Sun customers. Google mostly solves an immediate problem: the attempted intellectual property-based attacks against Android. Google dramatically beefed up its patent portfolio thanks to a big patent purchase from IBM, and now Google picks up Motorola Mobility and its rich patent portfolio in mobile communications. That's smart when faced with the ongoing stupidity that is the patent system.

But Google has also come to realize that hardware and software integration matter, to deliver a smooth, trouble-free customer experience. Google is one of the few companies, even in the technology sector, that's just crazy enough to build its own servers to support its unique in-house software. Google's purpose-built software has co-evolved with its hardware over time. Likewise, Google should be able to take Android to new levels of ease-of-use and function thanks to Motorola Mobility, its most loyal Android partner.

It'll now be interesting to see what Samsung, LG, ZTE, HTC, Sony-Ericsson, and other mobile device manufacturers do. So far they have simply followed the fads, meaning that they've built a lot of Android devices, quite successfully. I don't view any of them as credible software companies. (No, Samsung's Baidu really doesn't count, except perhaps as insurance for Samsung.) Google has proven to be a good partner in many competitive situations. Despite competing in the Web browser arena (with Chrome), Google continues to fund the bulk of the Mozilla Foundation's budget in return for preferential search engine placement in Firefox. Likewise, despite some tension, Google and Apple maintain their partnership in search and in mapping. Google says that they will continue to improve Android and supply new Android versions on a business-as-usual basis. I believe Google, because Google's business model is and will remain based on maximizing eyeballs, i.e. based on advertising revenue. In the early U.S. television industry, NBC's parent, RCA, manufactured televisions, but NBC was also very happy to have viewers tune in using their DuMont and Philco sets. Google's business model is quite similar, and that'll continue.

So, fundamentally, Google's move is about protecting the Android ecosystem from attack and "getting their feet wet" in developing practical Android innovations that they will also readily share with other device makers to maximize their advertising revenue. I'm not the first to say it, but if you want to develop better software you should also build hardware. I think Google made a very smart move here, and I think Motorola Mobility's talents will accrue to the benefit of Android and of all Android partners. Those Android improvements will help widen the gap between Android and, in particular, Windows Phone and Blackberry, both of which seem to be fading fast. Rival handset makers might get a bit nervous, but I think they'll stick with Android and sell a lot of new, much improved devices. They'll also still be free to innovate atop Android if they wish, and they'll have a more powerful partner in terms of fending off IP-related FUD. Google is paying about $12.5 billion for Motorola Mobility which seems like a much better value than Microsoft's $8.5 billion for Skype.

It'll be interesting to see whether Microsoft buys Nokia now. That would be the obvious competitive response, and Microsoft certainly has the cash. It looks like Microsoft could pick up Nokia for about $30 billion. The trouble is, I don't know what Microsoft can do to establish Windows Phone as a significant mobile platform even with Nokia.

This post was updated with additional detail on Motorola, Skype, and Nokia acquisition prices.

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.

More Itanium Meltdown News: HP Sues Oracle

In the wake of Oracle's decision to cease all development of new Oracle software releases for Itanium-based servers, Hewlett-Packard has filed a lawsuit against Oracle. HP accuses Oracle of anti-competitive behavior. Oracle issued a statement which ends with this sentence: "Intel’s plans to end-of-life Itanium will be revealed in court now that HP has filed this utterly malicious and meritless lawsuit against Oracle."

I'm not a lawyer, but it's hard for me to imagine HP prevailing in a lawsuit. Even if Oracle is anti-competitive, what's the remedy? Would a court order Oracle to continue writing software for a particular platform? Which products, for how long, and would anyone want to buy products Oracle didn't want to create but which a court forced them to ship? In all the cases involving anti-competitive behavior that I recall, any legal remedies involved stopping a particular activity, disclosing information, and/or a financial settlement. None of those remedies are going to solve customer problems in this situation. Also, Oracle will no doubt point out that they continue to develop software for IBM platforms (AIX and Linux on System z), for Linux running on HP servers, and for Microsoft Windows running on HP servers. Furthermore, Oracle would argue that they were only following Red Hat and Microsoft in abandoning HP's Itanium servers. In other words, the market has spoken, and no vendor should be required to support a fading UNIX platform longer than they wish — and, besides, Oracle has done more to sustain Itanium than anyone. Moreover, history is littered with fading UNIX platforms for which vendors no longer develop new software: Silicon Graphics, NCR, SCO, NeXT, Data General, Wang, etc. HP has discontinued development and/or support for many operating systems, too. Are any Tru64 or MPE/iX customers happy with HP?

There were a few HP customers that were lobbying Oracle to reverse or at least modify its March announcement. The odds of that happening were always low, but the lawsuit (and Oracle's response) have dropped the odds to zero. Oracle isn't coming back to Itanium.

I suspect HP knows they cannot prevail in court, but sometimes it still makes business sense to file. As I mentioned previously, most Oracle-HP customers, now that they are forced to choose sides, will choose Oracle. Software trumps hardware, quite simply. However, some percentage of customers find alternatives to Oracle. HP probably hopes that this lawsuit will encourage more of those customers to side with HP. We'll see.

For prior analysis of the Itanium Meltdown, including recommended solutions and strategies for Oracle-HP customers, please see here, here, and here.

Reports of Oracle's New Hardware Maintenance Terms

I have been reading in the trade press that Sun customers are not happy with Oracle's acquisition because they're seeing sharp increases in support costs. Now I'm getting more details from readers detailing the problems. For example, Sun's hardware maintenance was available but selectable per machine, as with nearly every hardware vendor's practice (including IBM's). That is, you could choose specific machines for 24 hour coverage, for business hours coverage, and for zero coverage. That makes sense: some machines are more critical than others, and you could pay for whatever maintenance coverage you need per machine serial number.

In contrast, Oracle thinks that hardware maintenance should be like software maintenance: all or nothing. If you want 24 hour coverage, you have to buy it for every Oracle (Sun) machine you own in your entire organization. And the maintenance price per machine isn't any lower. If anything, it's higher after Oracle's acquisition of Sun. Maintenance price increases might be more tolerable if Oracle had better support than Sun, but that's certainly not true.

Oracle's strategy seems to be to extract as much revenue as possible from Sun customers as they exit the platform. I suppose that's one way to run a business, but, fortunately, Sun customers have alternatives, including IBM Power and zEnterprise servers.

Hey, Gartner: You Blew It

Analyst Joe Clabby wrote an insightful article last year criticizing Gartner for its frequent advice to many customers to move their applications and databases off mainframes and onto other, more "modern platforms." He posed a few simple questions to Gartner, including this one in particular: what platform is more modern than the IBM mainframe?

As far as I know, Gartner never responded directly to Clabby's article. But I'm quite sure that at least some of Gartner's analysts recommended migrating mainframe applications and databases to HP Itanium servers running Oracle middleware on HP-UX. (You can see my previous analysis of the HP Itanium meltdown here and here.)

So now I've got this new question: shouldn't those same Gartner analysts apologize for giving such profoundly bad advice to their customers?

My congratulations to Joe Clabby for vastly outperforming Gartner in IT analysis and forecasting. Clabby simply got it right, and Gartner got it oh-so-wrong. More precisely, many (but not all) of Gartner's analysts blew it.

UPDATE: This video speaks to the Gartner analysts who blew it:

IBM Helping HP Itanium Customers and Application Vendors

Previously I offered my thoughts on Oracle's announcement that it is terminating all its development for HP Itanium platforms. This announcement has understandably caused great anxiety and concern within HP's enterprise server community.

I checked to see what IBM is doing to help Itanium customers left in the lurch. HP Itanium platforms run HP's UNIX (HP-UX), OpenVMS, and the NonStop Kernel (formerly from Tandem). Oracle's announcement is a serious blow to these customers, and understandably they are looking for exit strategies. IBM is ready to help with a uniquely complete menu of options. Here are some links to explore many (but not all) of those options:

• IBM Database Migration Toolkit. This toolkit helps you migrate from Oracle Database to DB2 or Informix for any operating system, including HP-UX.
• IBM Migration Assistant for Oracle Tuxedo. This tool helps you move Oracle Tuxedo applications to TXSeries and/or CICS for any operating system, including HP-UX. NonStop customers running Tuxedo should also find this tool helpful, and in that case CICS would be recommended to maintain or improve the applications' mission-critical attributes.
• IBM WebSphere Application Server Migration Toolkit. This toolkit helps you move applications from Oracle WebLogic Application Server to WebSphere Application Server for any operating system, including HP-UX. NonStop customers running WebLogic should also find this tool useful, and in that case WebSphere Application Server for z/OS would be a recommended destination platform. This toolkit also helps Red Hat JBoss customers move their applications to WebSphere Application Server. (Red Hat also discontinued support for HP Itanium platforms.)
• IBM Migration Factory. This is IBM's Web landing page for server migrations, for example from Itanium/HP-UX to Power servers running AIX. IBM's HP-specific landing page is here.

Those are some of the more popular migration paths, but there are many others, including for VMS and for NonStop. For example, this vendor advertises a NonStop TAL to C/C++ conversion tool. The resulting C/C++ code can then be compiled using an ANSI-compliant C/C++ compiler, such as the compilers for z/OS, AIX, and Linux.

I would advise HP Itanium customers to use time wisely. Start planning now and execute very soon. Consider all options and (probably) choose more than one, in combination, to address your full range of needs.

HP Itanium's Ignominious Demise (Updated)

I thought I'd let the dust settle a bit before commenting on recent news concerning the fate of HP's Itanium servers. I've worked with some organizations that have purchased a lot of Itanium servers, and I know they're all very distressed with software vendor abandonment of HP's flagship platforms.

First, a brief review of history. In the 1990s, HP still designed its own CPUs for its high-end servers, notably the PA-RISC architecture for its UNIX servers running HP-UX. However, HP's homegrown CPUs were rapidly becoming uncompetitive as other vendors (including IBM) could sustain bigger CPU R&D investments. HP had also acquired responsibility for former DEC platforms (specifically servers running the VMS operating system) and the Tandem NonStop platform (which some analysts classify as a mainframe environment), among others. In an effort to cut costs, HP decided to end support for some operating systems completely, deliver minimal new function for others ("maintenance mode" only), and consolidate its operating systems onto a single CPU, with most of the design and fabrication outsourced to share costs. Thus HP struck a partnership with Intel to jointly create the Itanium CPU. The forecasts were rosy, and Itanium would allegedly take over the world. In particular, Intel agreed that its X86 architecture would remain forever 32-bit only, while Itanium would be anointed as its sole 64-bit architecture, with a new instruction set. For migration purposes, Intel and HP agreed to equip the Itanium CPU with a 32-bit X86 compatibility mode. And (HP promised), while its customers could experience some disruption moving their applications from other CPUs to the new CPUs, that would be a one-time problem and (HP claimed) worth the effort and expense.

That was the plan. But almost nothing went according to plan. Itanium was always late and slow. AMD created and shipped the X86-64 instruction set (called AMD64) in its CPUs, forcing Intel's hand in doing exactly the same thing. All but a few tiny vendors stopped shipping Itanium CPUs, leaving HP as the only company shipping Itanium CPUs in large numbers. And IBM kept gaining high-end server marketshare from HP, becoming far and away the #1 UNIX server vendor. IBM also nurtured the mainframe's renaissance.

Even so, for many years HP managed to keep a respectable Itanium business going, with HP-UX emerging as the #2 UNIX platform as Sun collapsed in the 2000s. But then some other shoes dropped. Microsoft stopped developing software for Itanium, eliminating Windows Server and SQL Server from the platform. Red Hat stopped shipping new versions of its Linux distribution, which also meant that Red Hat's JBoss application server left the platform. Those software vendor announcements were bad but probably not fatal. But then HP's Board of Directors fired the company's CEO, Mark Hurd. Hurd, a personal friend of Oracle CEO Larry Ellison, quickly joined Oracle. Oracle, fresh from its acquisition of Sun (and the #3 UNIX server vendor), which as recently as 2006 had been HP's (and HP-UX's) strongest and most profitable software vendor, announced in late March that there would be no new versions of any Oracle software products for Itanium. Oracle Database 11gR2 would be the last — although HP customers are free to pay Oracle a perpetual stream of support fees for 11gR2 if they wish.

Needless to say, HP (and to a lesser extent, Intel) were stunned. But nobody buys servers only to fill racks in data centers. Companies and governments buy servers to run applications and databases. HP's biggest and most popular Itanium-compatible software product — its only big "anchor tenant" — has now hung up the "going out of business" sign and is closing its doors. Ironically, IBM is now Itanium's largest software vendor, by far. Also last month (in case the message wasn't clear enough), Oracle shipped the latest Oracle Database 11gR2 for Linux on IBM System z.

Let me state my assessment plainly: Oracle's announcement is Itanium's death sentence. It's also brutal but highly effective business strategy for Oracle in its competition with HP. Oracle will probably lose some HP customers who are (rightly, in my opinion) concerned about doing business with a vendor that abandoned them, but Oracle is betting, correctly, that most of its customers, when forced to choose sides, will choose Oracle's software over HP's hardware. To paraphrase a former U.S. presidential advisor, "It's the software, stupid."

For Intel it's a short-term annoyance but nothing more. This week Intel proceeded with its latest Xeon announcement and paid mere lip service to Itanium, at best. Intel would be quite happy to save R&D expenses and focus exclusively on X86 and, in particular, try to expand into mobile device markets and do battle with ARM. However, Intel would prefer not to anger its biggest OEM (HP) and might face some financial penalties acting on its own, so Oracle's announcement is in some ways a nice alternative.

And then there's IBM, which is extremely well positioned with its Power, System z, and software offerings, to attract and win the many soon-to-be-former HP customers. IBM can assist HP Itanium customers in any manner they wish: in straight-up migration from the #2 UNIX platform to the #1 (and growing) UNIX platform, in enterprise consolidation (through Power and/or System z) for additional cost savings and operational benefits, and/or in tactical or strategic migrations from Oracle software products to IBM software products, such as Oracle Database to DB2 (even on HP-UX), immediately or over time. Oracle's announcement also helps validate IBM's entire business strategy over the past decade-plus (and invalidate HP's): "It's the software, stupid."

As for HP, I think their new CEO has many challenges. There are some strong technical reasons (big endian v. little endian) why HP will find it very difficult to move HP-UX and other Itanium operating systems to Intel/AMD X86-64, and even once that's done (if it can be done) Oracle's software is still not going to support HP-UX. I suspect HP will just have to muddle through the Itanium meltdown and, as Intel improves X86-64, move toward an Itanium emulation solution for any remaining VMS, NonStop, and HP-UX customers. That'll provide application compatibility but not performance. Alternatively, HP might want to call IBM to inquire about a move to Power and/or System z CPUs which would be technically more suitable for HP's operating systems and which could at least be partitioned and virtualized to run other operating systems with continuing access to new business software from many vendors. Otherwise, I think HP is fated to devolve into much more of a Dell-like commodity X86-64 server (and PC) vendor, of course with lower profit margins. I don't know how HP builds a software business essentially from scratch. HP's business software portfolio is very limited, and there aren't too many affordable software vendors available for acquisition. Some analysts have suggested that HP should buy EnterpriseDB and try to migrate Oracle Database customers there, but I don't think that strategy could possibly work. In short: well played, Larry.

UPDATE #1: Expanding on the "HP on IBM" idea for a moment, IBM acquired Transitive, the company that produced Apple's superb Rosetta technology which helped Apple (ironically) move from PowerPC to Intel CPUs while maintaining compatibility with binary PowerPC applications. That technology works very well, and IBM Transitive would be the best in the world in helping HP's customers transition from Itanium to Power and/or System z CPUs while maintaining binary compatibility. Also, technically IBM and HP could do something very similar to what Apple did and place that CPU emulation within the same operating system instance. That would be highly desirable for HP-UX Itanium binaries specifically, which could then run as-is within AIX. (VMS and NonStop are probably too "alien" and would need to run in separate LPARs or virtual machines, but those two operating systems don't run inside HP-UX today, so that's fine.) Of course, HP would have to contact IBM, strike a deal, and collaborate. Given that IBM is now HP Itanium's largest software vendor, and that IBM possesses the best set of technologies to help HP customers migrate (whether HP collaborates or not), I think HP's CEO probably ought to give his counterpart at IBM a call if he hasn't already. It's better for HP to save some revenue, profit, and customer relationships. There's ample precedent for that sort of partnership between (former?) server rivals. For example, Hitachi is a major IBM Power and AIX OEM, and Hitachi and IBM also collaborated on the z800 mainframe.

UPDATE #2: Oracle's announcement also severely and negatively impacts HP's remaining VMS and NonStop customers. Oracle owns Rdb, the DEC-created database engine that's probably the most popular database for VMS systems. Oracle also owns Tuxedo, probably the most popular transaction manager for NonStop systems. Oracle is halting development for these middleware products, too. VMS and NonStop customers typically have very demanding quality of service (QoS) requirements, including application stability and longevity, so my recommendation would be (in most cases) that they plan for and execute a migration to IBM System z. That won't necessarily be easy, but it's the best available option given Oracle's actions.

Is Government Part of Your Business Continuity Strategy?

Last year, Wired reported on the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation's raid on data centers in Texas. There have since been several developments in the story, including grand jury indictments and pending criminal trials for the alleged offenses. Nonetheless, apparently the data centers were co-location facilities, meaning that they housed the servers and equipment for multiple legitimate businesses. That didn't matter: those businesses were shut down when the FBI carted out the equipment. Undoubtedly some of those businesses never recovered.

This raid (and others like it) raises some interesting new questions about business continuity planning, disaster recovery, the possible pitfalls of co-location, and the whole idea of public "cloud" hosting. I am seeing evidence that many businesses are already considering these issues in their IT strategies, and I think more businesses should. Here are my recommendations:

1. Remember that businesses must act ethically and legally, and they must have business controls in place to assure that their employees and assets are not being used for illegal purposes. Mainframes and their justifiably famous security controls and audit trails certainly have advantages in helping businesses conduct themselves properly, but they are merely tools which require competent management.
2. Civil liberties tend to get debated after the fact, and slowly. But government confiscation of IT assets can occur in any country, and typically there are several agencies that can act without warning. I have heard of one case where tax authorities in an Asian country unplugged and carted away a mainframe (and other assets) in a dispute. Obviously that was an IT disaster. Understand and plan for these risks.
3. Assess which business functions are critical to the company's survival and which IT assets support those business functions, end-to-end. Then protect those end-to-end assets from multiple hazards. That means not placing any of those IT components in a single public cloud or at a single co-location facility. Could a government grab a cloud provider's servers if any one of its tenants is suspected of illegal activity? Yes, apparently so. Your risk in a public cloud or co-location facility is basically the sum total of the risks each tenant brings to the facility.
4. Consider keeping critical assets in two or more government jurisdictions. Many businesses have already taken this step, quietly of course and for multiple reasons.
5. Use encryption smartly, and manage keys well. With mainframes that means taking advantage of encryption features in storage devices (like IBM TS1120/TS1130 tape drive encryption and DS8000 series disk encryption), in networking (for example, enabling TLS/SSL with CryptoExpress and/or CP Assist), in DB2, etc.
6. Try to educate government authorities on business and technology issues, and keep them informed. In the Wired story, the FBI trusted AT&T and Verizon because those companies had sufficiently strong business controls that enabled them to alert the FBI to possible criminal activity. However, keeping government informed does not mean compromising your customers' privacy without due process.

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.

Sun Exits High-End CPU Design

The New York Times reports that Sun has canceled its chronically delayed next generation SPARC CPU, codenamed "Rock":

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/06/15/sun-is-said-to-cancel-big-chip-project

The enterprise-class server processor chip business is extremely competitive and capital-intensive. The tough global economy is forcing some tough business decisions. I expect that IBM, in particular, will disproportionately benefit from this decision and should gain additional marketshare with its POWER and System z products.

But when I first heard this news I did not think about the market implications, the effect on IBM, what happens to Intel, etc. I immediately thought about the employment implications of this announcement. This cancellation is a major blow to the relatively small processor engineering community, and too many talented engineers are presumably losing their jobs. Whatever one might say about Sun now, the company has (and had) some of the best engineers for so many years. That part of the story needs to be reported, too.

UPDATE: IBM reacted quickly to the Itanium (HP) and SPARC (Sun) processor roadmap failures and broken promises, improving its offerings to encourage more migrations to IBM System z and POWER servers. Here's one example: http://www.ibm.com/systems/migratetoibm/systems/z. And another: http://www.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/27613.wss.

UPDATE 2: Back at the end of April, Marketwatch reported (from a Japanese newspaper source) that Fujitsu is scrapping plans to develop next generation semiconductor technology on its own. The story refers to semiconductor fabrication but also (disturbingly) says that Fujitsu is cutting "other technologies that were in the development pipeline." Which ones? In contrast, IBM has state-of-the-art semiconductor factories and leads semiconductor design (and process) research and development.

Paving the On Ramp to the Super Highway Mainframe!

For you friends of the mainframe, you know that its the "super highway" of computing. But a lot of people believe it has a dirt road for an onramp! IBM Rational has been paving that road with a number of offerings to modernize your current mainframe programming environment, but to also simplify new workload deployments as well. There are a couple of web casts targeted toward financial customers in the month of February.

First is on Feb 12 - Overcoming IT Challenges and meeting business objectives in the banking industry.  Here's a link to register for that webcast.
 http://www.ibm.com/software/info/feb12

Then on Feb 25th and 26th, there will be a webcast entitled: Faster payback for the banking industry using application development solutions from IBM.
These are broadcast at different times to meet worldwide needs. Register for those webcasts at:  http://www.ibm.com/software/info/feb25 

And for your expeditionary planning, Rational will be hosting it's annual Software Development Conference in Orlando, FL, USA from May 31-June 4, 2009.

Top 10 reasons not to miss this year’s IBM Rational Software Conference!
    1.    Over 400 sessions in 18 tracks
    2.    Interact with over 4,000 of your industry peers 
    3.    Keynotes with industry-leading experts
    4.    IBM Expo featuring key IBM Business Partners and the IBM Solution Center
    5.    IBM Rational Labs (see possible future capabilities in our products!)
    6.    3 and 5 hour Technical Workshops 
    7.    Free Certification testing
    8.    Executive Summit 2009
    9.    Interactive Birds-of-a-Feather Sessions
    10. Unlimited networking opportunities
And just as important in this cost conscious environment, register today with discount code SZ09 and get $100 off the registration fee.
Register at http://www.ibm.com/rational/rsdc

Dynamic Infrastructure + Mainframe = Smart Planet

The electronic age has changed the world remarkably in a single generation. Communication is now instantaneous, across the globe, making it smaller and flatter. And now, with information at our finger tips, with so many electronic devices, the world is getting smarter as well. IBM recently introduced its initiatives for a Smart Planet. Today, IBM brought more offerings toward that objective through the announcement of its Dynamic Infrastructure.

The Dynamic Infrastructure is intended to make the best use of the computing resources available to solve any type of problem that we can foresee. Its objective is to improve service toward satisfying a problem, while reducing costs and managing risks. Problems today can be much more complex than they were in the past. They are no longer single threaded transactions that might have been quickly solved. Many problems today might be a series of transactions, across a workflow with dependencies from pre-existing information that might have occurred just moment ago. This form of coordination requires rapid response and coordination. To that end, the role of a mainframe has evolved to be an important element of this dynamic infrastructure, in collaboration with other systems to meet business problem objectives.

Businesses have learned the hard way that, yes indeed, they can throw technology at a problem. Hundreds of individual servers can be strung together to create a complex workflow from which a series of problems can be solved. But in many cases, these processors may be under utilized, require massive power and by the sheer redundancy necessary to meet the business problems goals, there will be replication of information and data across the infrastructure which can add security risk and complexity in managing risk.

The goals of the Dynamic Infrastructure are to improve the service of the overall heterogeneous computing infrastructure and to manage this community toward common goals. In addition, costs for computing and risks must be reduced at the same time. This is where the ever evolving mainframe can be of tremendous value. The mainframe’s heritage includes meeting strict service level agreements for business resilience, security, utilization, storage management and business process integration. The goal of IBM’s System z is to extend these strengths into other computing architectures when they are used in collaboration with the mainframe. As a result, a heterogeneous computing infrastructure, made up of IBM’s Power and Modular and storage systems, in conjunction with System z will be enabled to tackle business problems in creative ways. The use of management software and middleware from IBM's Tivoli division, as well as the experience of IBM’s Global Technology Services personnel, will further improve the capabilities to a business to improve service, reduce costs and manage risks.

And examples of Dynamic Infrastructure are already evident where organizations see tremendous value. From managing traffic more efficiently to providing a more resiliently financial trading environment to meet customer demands, businesses are seeing operational savings that are yielding savings and benefits to their consumers as well. In essence, it’s yielding a Smarter Planet for all of us to benefit.