Tips on Selecting an IBM System z Mainframe

By the end of 2010, IBM will deliver the zBX with support for IBM POWER7 blades running AIX. The mainframe vendor is also debuting the IBM Smart Analytics Optimizer to accelerate the performance of complex analytic workloads.

Mainframes are supposed to be passe. Yet despite a price tag that can head into the millions, they still represent healthy chunk of the top end of the server marketplace. According to IDC, about they account for 32 percent of the high-end of the pie.

IBM, of course, owns almost all of the mainframe market under its flagship System z brand. Far from being a stagnant area of the market, IBM (NYSE: IBM) invests heavy R&D dollars into this line.

Earlier this year, it released the zEnterprise mainframe server along with a new systems design that allows workloads on mainframe, POWER7 and System x servers to share resources and be managed as a single, virtualized system.

“This new model is the most powerful and energy-efficient mainframe ever,” said Greg Lotko, vice president, IBM System z, “It is the most significant systems architecture in the last 20 years.”

Read the rest at Serverwatch.