Armonk, N.Y. – Touting its energy efficiency, IBM Corp. has unveiled its System z10 mainframe. The Armonk, N.Y.-based company says the z10 was designed to increase data center efficiency by significantly improving performance and reducing power consumption, cooling costs and floor space requirements.
According to IBM, a single z10 is the equivalent of 1,500 x86 servers, but offers an 85% reduction in energy use. Additionally, despite standing over 8-feet tall and weighing 2.5 tons, the z10 occupies up to 85% less floor space than a comparable number of servers, the company says.
To achieve this, the z10 sports 64 quad-core processors running at a blistering 4.4GHz. This makes the z10 up to 50% faster than its predecessor, the z9, and offers up to 100% performance improvement for CPU intensive jobs, with up to 70% more capacity. In addition to the performance bump and energy savings, the company also claims data centers using the z10 can consolidate x86 software licenses at up to a 30-to-1 ratio.
The z10 also supports a broad range of workloads. In addition to Linux, XML, Java, WebSphere and increased workloads from service-oriented architecture implementations, IBM is working with Sun Microsystems and Sine Nomine Associates to pilot the Open Solaris operating system on System z, demonstrating the openness and flexibility of the mainframe.
In addition to the z10, IBM also announced it has invested $300 million in architects, technical skills, as well as design and benchmarking centers to help clients transform to a new enterprise data center. Qualified clients can receive free assessment services to prioritize and take action to implement a more efficient, shared and dynamic IT infrastructure.
Source: IBM
