IBM is developing an add-on processor for its z9
mainframe designed to free-up computing capacity and lower software
costs for business intelligence, enterprise resource planning and
customer relationship management systems.
The zIIP is a high-speed engine that extends IBM's specialised
processor family for the mainframe. It follows on from the IFL for
Linux announced in 2001 and the zAAP announced in 2004. Both of
these engines can help users expand the use of the mainframe for
new workloads, while helping to reduce costs, IBM said.
DB2 for z/OS version 8 will be the first IBM software able to
take advantage of the zIIP. IBM said the processor should improve
query processing of business intelligence, ERP or CRM
network-connected applications.
Rob Hailstone, director European service oriented architecture
and application platforms at analyst company IDC, said, "If your
transaction processing throughput is going up and you are facing
the prospect of a major hardware upgrade, offloading the database
processing makes a lot of sense.
"When you have a multimillion-pound hardware investment,
spending $125,000 [£70,000] on an extra processor is a small price
to pay."
However, Hailstone urged users to assess whether data management
was best run on a mainframe.
IBM intends to launch the zIIP processor along with the software
it requires later this year. To install the processor, users will
require IBM System z9 109, z/OS 1.6 or later, and DB2 for z/OS
V8.
Improvements in next version of DB2
The next version of DB2 for z/OS will be formally unveiled later
this year. Version 8 of IBM's flagship mainframe database offers
XML and IBM Websphere and Java integration for service oriented
architecture connections.
IBM said DB2 for z/OS version 8 would also provide what it
described as a Trusted Security Context. This is designed to give
users with database roles better auditing capabilities and improved
encryption for security.
Other improvements include fast table replacement, partition by
growth and other optimised features for application
development.
IBM said it had also improved the SQL language in DB2 with
native SQL stored procedures, default databases and table
spaces.