IBM's new zEnterprise 196 mainframe is a leviathan

From InfoWorld: Every new IBM mainframe says something about the times we live in, and today's latest mainframe release is no different. The zEnterprise system, as it is now called, has become a cross-platform management system, a sovereign of other systems.

IBM has given its new mainframe, announced today, the ability to manage Power and x86 IBM blade systems from the mainframe consol. The system, which can have as many as 96 processors, will support up to 114 blades with eight cores.

IBM officials characterize the zEnterprise system as their most significant change to the mainframe platform in at least two decades, and it is being coupled with some the other products to take advantage of it.

In terms of hardware capability alone, the zEnterprise 196 -- that's IBM's name for just the server itself -- includes a 5.2-GHz quad processor and up to 3TB of memory. That's double the memory of the preceding system, the z10, which had a 4.4-GHz quad processor.

IBM's mainframe has always been a system with a larger focus that seemingly shifts from release to release.

With the arrival of the z9 in 2005, for instance, the emphasis was on security and encryption, a leading concern post 9/11. The z10 in 2008, which IBM called a "business supercomputer," moved from a single core to quad processor and was aimed at CPU-intensive applications and server consolidation. The goal there: reduce data center footprints and energy needs.

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