IBM continues to fine-tune its mainframe to maintain it engaging to enterprise customers taken with preserving the Huge Iron of their cloud and AI-application improvement plans.
The corporate launched a brand new model of the mainframe working system—z/OS V2.5—that features beefed-up help for containers, AI, and safety.
In response to IBM, functions are on the coronary heart of transactional and batch workloads operating on z/OS. Essentially, creating new functions whereas modernizing present functions is a part of the digital transformation occurring in lots of enterprises.
Rearchitecting for the cloud ought to embrace containerization of main software elements in one thing like Docker, which may then be managed by an open sourced Kubernetes orchestration framework for optimization of assets and effectivity. We anticipate that containerization will finally be the defacto normal for working workloads within the cloud, and never simply the wrapped up monolithic app implementations introduced over from consumer server implementations.
New options within the OS embrace Cloud Provisioning and Administration for z/OS that lets prospects provision a brand new z/OS system from scratch.
“Historically, the method of deploying a brand new z/OS system in an IBM Z LPAR [logical partition] has been a posh and arduous course of that requires the talent of an skilled system programmer,” IBM acknowledged. “Because of this, some purchasers may delay creating new z/OS techniques, which might impression their DevOps agility and processes.”
In z/OS V2.5, Cloud Provisioning and Administration supplies a set of templates designed to make it simpler to provision and deprovision z/OS techniques. By deciding on a z/OS provisioning template from the IBM Cloud Provisioning software program providers catalog, an early tenure system programmer can provision a brand new occasion of z/OS in in lower than one hour, in contrast with the days or perhaps weeks it has taken previously.
IBM stated z/OS V2.5 is the premise for future help of an open-source Open Container Initiative runtime and Kubernetes container orchestration for IBM z/OS functions and workloads. This help is meant to let companies develop a container-based cloud-native technique for mission-critical z/OS functions.
On the safety aspect, IBM stated z/OS V2.5 options convey a variety of enhancements together with authentication, authorization, system integrity and encryption. For instance, they system helps sequential basic-format and large-format SMS-managed information units to let prospects encrypt information with out software modifications.
The brand new software program employs Predictive Failure Evaluation (PFA), Runtime Diagnostics, Workload Supervisor (WLM), and JES2 to assist detect anomalous conduct in close to real-time, letting prospects proactively tackle potential issues, IBM acknowledged.
z/OS V2.5 additionally lets software builders use new hash utilities to keep up information integrity in recordsdata, new Transport Layer Safety help when utilizing the z/OS shopper Net Enablement Toolkit and enhancements to higher management the operations of Z {hardware}, IBM acknowledged.
Additionally in in z/OS V2.5, the Communications Server now extends z Encryption Readiness Know-how or zERT to implement community encryption requirements by means of policy-based guidelines that describe totally different ranges of cryptographic safety together with actions to take when TCP connections match these guidelines, IBM acknowledged.
zERT guidelines and actions are processed by the Communications Server Coverage Agent and are enforced by the TCP/IP stack. This allows quick notification by means of messages, auditing by means of SMF data, and even automated termination of connections when questionable or unacceptable cryptographic safety is used, IBM acknowledged.
Lastly, IBM stated that to speed up the adoption of AI on IBM Z, a shopper can deploy prebuilt container pictures for well-liked machine-learning frameworks resembling Tensorflow, out there by means of the IBM Z and LinuxONE Container Picture Repository. Clients can, for instance, use machine-learning fashions on IBM z/OS by means of IBM Watson Machine Studying for z/OS (IBM WMLz) 2.3, which has been upgraded to help extra sorts of machine-learning fashions.
“As well as, the newest launch is designed to simply import deep-learning fashions in ONNX format and deploy them into an optimized scoring service operating in zCX—enabling deep-learning inferencing workloads with IBM WMLz 2.3 to be zIIP eligible,” IBM acknowledged.
“IBM z/OS V2.5 brings new safety and resiliency capabilities to the platform and allows purchasers to infuse AI in real-time into each enterprise transaction—imperatives that grew to become extra pressing throughout the pandemic, stated Ross Mauri, normal supervisor of IBM Z in an announcement.
IBM is seeking to proceed its total cloud progress. In its latest Q2 monetary name it stated its cloud income over the past yr throughout software program, providers, and infrastructure is now $27 billion, which is up at a double-digit charge.
“This quarter, monetary providers proceed to drive IBM Z, given capability necessities to handle strong market volatility,” IBM acknowledged. “With safety high of thoughts, purchases had been additionally pushed by purchasers on the lookout for capabilities resembling pervasive encryption and hyper defend to safe mission-critical functions and information, each on-premises and within the cloud.”
