Last month I was honored and thrilled to be a part of IBM InterConnect 2015 as a client speaker; a member of Global WebSphere Community; a co-leader of Chicago North-West Integration and Cloud Computing WebSphere User Group; and an IBM customer working for the largest customer-owned health insurer in the U.S. with more than 14.5 million members. 

This year IBM merged its Pulse Impact and Innovate events into a single conference that drew around 21000 IT professionals. The week’s main focuses were around mobile the API economy and a new class of hybrid cloud innovations that extend open standards capabilities for the enterprise and analytics.

This article gives you a z Systems perspective of new announcements and what “a new way to think” means to the customers who have major investment in the IBM mainframe.

This article is split into four parts covering the following topics: 

Part 1

• The New z13: Redefining Digital Business Through Integration of Cloud Mobile and Analytics
• Mobile for the Enterprise: Mobile Analytics Bluemix and More for z 

Part 2

• Hybrid Cloud with z Systems - API Management and Secure Gateway service in Bluemix
• Custom patterns for Linux on z Systems Utilize Chef
• IBM Big Data Analytics and Hadoop for Linux on z Systems

Part 3

• Why You Should Rethink Java on z

• WebSphere Liberty on z/OS
• CICS Transaction Server & Transaction Gateway announcements
• z/OS Connect running on WebSphere or CICS liberty
• z Systems Solution Center activities at InterConnect

InterConnect had more than 150 outstanding  z Systems sessions covering key technologies including  z13 WebSphere Linux on z Systems Java performance hybrid cloud mobile analytics API management MobileFirst Bluemix and mobile and cloud solutions that apply to CICS TS CICS TG WMQ DB2 and big data. All of these sessions offered a wealth of best practices technical tips expert guidance and strategies to help drive value to your business.

The New z13: Redefining Digital Business through Integration of Cloud Mobile and Analytics

One of the best sessions that I attended at the conference was a keynote session: “The New z13: Redefining Digital Business Through Integration of Cloud Mobile and Analytics” with Michael Perera (IBM) Glenn Bowden (WestPac Bank) Ross Mauri (IBM) Beth Smith (IBM) Jeff Kohan (Aetna) and Ronald Peri (Radixx Solutions International).

The session’s main emphasis was on how business is driven today–the API Economy the economics of mainframe hybrid cloud and how using custom patterns for Lunix on z Systems can accelerate time to market. Watch the replay here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhBbMet50FI&sns=em.

IBM z Systems General Manager Ross Mauri emphasized that customer experience is the new measure of success especially for mobile or web-driven applications. Customers today are looking for personalization sub-second response time high availability trust integration and scalability. Forty percent of people who have an unsatisfactory mobile experience will leave you for the competition. Whenever a mobile user makes a purchase it can create a cascade of events on the back end of the computing environment. The z13 still has focus on operational excellence and is designed to handle billions of transactions for the mobile and “new app” economy with the highest availability scalability and best performance.

Here are a few facts about the new z13 mainframe that can help your business embrace the new era of self-service we live in:

• It’s the first system able to process 2.5 billion transactions a day – that’s equivalent to 100 Cyber Mondays every day of the year. 
• It features the world’s fastest microprocessor two times faster than the most common server processors with 300 percent more memory 100 percent more bandwidth and vector processing analytics to speed mobile transactions.
• Transactions are persistent protected and auditable from end to end adding assurance as mobile transactions grow.
• It is the first system to make practical real-time encryption of all mobile transactions at any scale. 
• The z13 is the first mainframe system with embedded analytics providing real-time insights on all transactions. The real-time analytics can help prevent fraud as it is occurring allowing financial institutions to halt a transaction before the consumer is impacted.
• It can lower the cost of running cloud.  z Systems cloud on a z13 will have a 32 percent lower total cost of ownership over three years than an x86 cloud and a 60 percent lower total cost of ownership over three years than a public cloud.

The z13 on display behind me at the keynote session.

Economics of the mainframe are more compelling now than ever as you can see in the chart below.

A number of customers appeared on stage at InterConnect to talk about their experience with the economics of mainframe. Ron Peri President of Radixx International had a very compelling story to tell explaining that one hour of down time costs Radixx International airline $1 million.

His company successfully moved from 400 servers on a private cloud to the IBM mainframe resulting in a 35 percent cost reduction in total cost of ownership and a marked improvement in availability and scalability. The move greatly reduced manual system management and used only a 10th of the space. Radixx International has moved all of their systems of record databases data warehouse all APIs and WMQ from 172 x86 cores to 10 z System cores greatly reducing the license cost.  

Michael Perera VP of System z Software IBM talked about mainframe economics z Systems Hybrid Cloud Connect Test Drive Bluemix services integration and “z Systems being the most performant Java platform in the world.”

Perera talked about z Systems operational efficiency utilizing custom patterns for Linux on z Systems reducing deployment time by 80 percent. Finally Perera explained how easy it is to take application based on z system and augment it with Bluemix services in real time to create a new application.  

Michael Perera (IBM) talking about hybrid cloud at the keynote session.

Mobile for the Enterprise: Mobile Analytics Bluemix and More for z 

Session ASZ-3235– “Connecting to Your Mainframe Systems of Record from IBM Bluemix” presented by Alan Little IBM Distinguished Engineer covered how to call existing applications and get to data on the mainframe platforms in CICS WebSphere and IMS and how to access data on that business-critical system.

Little discussed how cloud integration API management secure connector and z/OS Connection technologies come together to allow you to connect the mobile and cloud worlds with your mainframe. IBM MobileFirst Reference Architecture as a model to show how IBM MobileFirst Platform for on-premises and BlueMix for cloud enable reliable secure and flexible mobile applications for enterprise systems.

If you are new to Bluemix it is an open-standard cloud-based platform for building managing and running engaging Omni-channel applications (web mobile new smart devices).

Bluemix provides:

• Instant environments - The developer can choose any language runtime or bring your own. Zero to production in one command.
• APIs and services - A catalog of IBM third party and open source API services allow the developer to stitch an application together in minutes.
• On-premises integration - Build hybrid environments. Connect to on-premises assets (e.g. database mainframe) plus other public and private clouds.
• DevOps - Development monitoring deployment and logging tools allow the developer to run the entire application.
• Layered security - IBM secures the platform and infrastructure and provides you with the tools to secure your apps.

This chart gives a good overview of what is needed to make composable business a reality.

WebSphere Linux Cloud on System z

Another great session was ASZ-3034: “Build a WebSphere Linux Cloud on System z: From Roll-Your-Own to Pre-Integrated” presented by Stephen Kinder BlueMix Runtime Sr. Architect IBM; and Tom Seelbach WebSphere Architect and Advocate IBM. The two talked about benefits of implementing cloud-based on WebSphere and Linux on z System ( zLinux)  and evolution of successful server consolidation to zLinux Private Cloud.

 

Factors that make z Systems a cost effective platform for private cloud computing include:

• Consolidation of many workloads drives system utilization to very high levels virtually eliminating any wasted or idle resources.
• CPU Pooling in z/VM allows for creation of a pool of CPU resources available to groups of virtual servers; allows for better management of resources and cost management across the whole pool.
• z13 with Simultaneous Multi-threading means each Linux core can provide more capacity at the same cost.