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Happy New Mainframe Day! Introducing the zEnterprise EC12
Good morning in the Americas, and happy New Mainframe Day! Today IBM is announcing the zEnterprise EC12. You can order one (or more) today, and they start shipping in about three weeks. (IBM is just like Apple that way: no vaporware.) And the world's flagship enterprise server is practically perfect in every way.
I'm still reading through the wealth of information that IBM has revealed today. Every major general press outlet is reporting on this announcement. Here are my quick takeaways:
- Another giant leap higher in processor clock speed, and another world record. Wow, I am in awe. IBM people tell me they expect to maintain industry clock speed leadership "indefinitely."
- Hexacore architecture with about double the number of transistors per die compared to the z196. That's a wonderfully nice increase — but it amazes me that IBM's engineers figured out how to run and cool 6 cores per die at mainframe service levels and at such incredible, continuous speeds.
- About 25% performance improvement per core and 50% performance capacity improvement per server. Those are big jumps. Has anybody else noticed that's with only an amazingly short 25 month product cycle since the z196 debuted?
- Cache is up big, although the cache mix across levels is slightly different. Where you "spend" your cache real estate matters, so apparently IBM found a better arrangement for spending that much bigger cache budget.
- New "server class memory," i.e. directly addressable flash storage, another industry first-and-only. Including this server class memory you can have about 9.4 TB of directly addressable memory per machine -- all redundantly protected (RAIM), another industry first-and-only. Right out of the gate z/OS exploits this storage class memory for things like paging, memory dumps, etc. for faster problem determination and recovery. More exploitation to come, of course.
- New processor instructions and loads of new software that exploits those new, faster instructions, with a particular emphasis on information analytics.
- zEnterprise is IBM's first and most advanced hybrid computing server, and now IBM has upgraded the zBX to a Model 003 along with the zEC12.
- A new "zAware" option (which I need to read more about).
- Up to 101 customer configurable cores per server, up from 80. (N.B. There are scores or even hundreds of other processor cores inside such a zEnterprise server, even excluding the zBX option. Be careful if you count and compare.)
- IBM held the line on space/power/cooling requirements. Bravo. They've also added a new, even more redundant/more reliable cooling system.
I will probably post some updates a bit later but, in the meantime, let's read on together.
UPDATE #1: I've corrected the total memory figure above. Computerworld has an interesting story about the new zEC12, including these additional highlights:
- The storage class flash memory is encrypted, presumably because conceivably someone could physically get to it (unlike zEnterprise DRAM). IBM does think of these things. Moreover, IBM zEnterprise CTO Jeff Frey explains that IBM plans DB2 and Java exploitation of this new storage class memory. One example: in the not-too-distant future DB2 will be able to keep extremely large databases in directly addressable nonvolatile memory. Now that would be very interesting and useful.
- As usual, some workloads do better than others when IBM increases the performance of its mainframe, although all should do very well. Some of the ones that should do particularly well are big multithreaded Java applications, compute-intensive C/C++ code, DB2 (especially in analytics), and SAP.
- While IBM's z114 (and predecessors) have had the option to install without a raised data center floor, now that's available for the big zEC12 too. Eliminating the raised floor makes it easier to install a zEC12 in a crate, I would point out, so you can have interesting portable data centers.
The IBM announcement also mentions the fact that the zEC12 is the first commercial server to include processor instructions supporting transactional memory, not counting IBM's unique supercomputer for Lawrence Livermore Laboratory. Now, I have a bone to pick here: the computer science engineers (presumably) haven't given this feature a good name. The word "memory" is misleading, in my view. But so they've decreed, so that's the name. The new transactional (blank) instructions make it easier and faster to program with concurrency control. And that's a very good thing.
UPDATE #2: Mainframe Watch Belgium has much more information, including these highlights:
- IBM has introduced 2GB page sizes and supporting instructions in the zEC12, which are great for DB2 and Java, in particular. So now that's 4K, 1MB, and 2GB page sizes. Considering that we've had only 4K forever, and 1MB debuted only recently (in the System z10 in 2008), this is amazingly rapid evolution.
- IBM is going to eliminate zAAPs in favor of zIIPs. Initially with the zEC12 IBM will provide z/OS PTFs (enhancements) for running all zAAP-eligible workloads on zIIPs, even when zAAPs are installed. But the zEC12 is the last machine to support zAAPs. Translation: your capacity planning just got simpler. I expected this at some point, but I didn't it expect it yet. It's great news.
- There's a significant software technology dividend across IBM software. Or, said another way, you can do more with less money. Nothing wrong with that.
- The machine looks really spiffy, even artistic. No, it's not pink or purple, but perhaps IBM will entertain even that request if you want.
UPDATE #3: IBM's Nick Sardino takes us on a guided tour of the new zEnterprise EC12:
| by Timothy Sipples | August 28, 2012 in Future, Innovation, Systems Technology Permalink |
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