In a recent Mainline blog, 2020 – The Year for Private Cloud on IBM Z, Red Hat OpenShift and IBM Cloud Paks for IBM Z’s private cloud were introduced. The beauty of the IBM Cloud Paks is the simplicity that Red Hat OpenShift with Kubernetes under the covers offers to your cloud applications for any hardware servers, on any private, public, or hybrid cloud. The same product runs on the IBM Z mainframe or x86. There is no conversion of your cloud applications and the IBM licensing ports to any hardware server. So, a Virtual Processor Core (VPC) priced on an x86 server is the same as an IBM Z Integrated Facility for Linux (IFL) core.
Why choose IBM Z for your private cloud? To answer this question, let’s take a look at the IBM Z server.
6 Reasons to Choose IBM Z for your Private Cloud
1. Availability
How does 99.9999% availability sound? That is the IBM Z hardware availability statistic. Mean time to failure is measured in decades. No server in the industry offers comparable reliability. As a result, your systems administrators are more productive without battling failing servers.
2. Performance
Performance is also a key factor with IBM Z’s 5.2GHz core. When Mainline sizes workloads, the core speed effects the consolidation ratios, therefore an x86 core does not equal the enormous capacity of the IBM Z core. In addition to the cores, the architecture of this server has a large impact. Hundreds of dedicated cores are included in this server to handle input/output plus additional specialized cores for system functions. These additional cores offload work from your purchased cores, leaving more capacity for your cloud applications.
3. Throughput
IBM has quoted that the IBM Z server sees 4.2 times the throughput compared to x86 servers. Features such as Simultaneous Multi-Threading (SMT) capabilities and the additional cores previously introduced improve the efficiency, driving more workload on each core. Mainline can provide performance comparison using statistics on your older IBM Z extrapolated to the newest z15 technology, demonstrating the throughput improvements for your Linux and cloud-native workload.
4. Total Cost of Ownership
When Mainline sizes the Linux workload we use an IBM algorithm that correlates IBM Z IFL cores to x86 cores. Through this tool, we see the results of the high consolidation ratio from x86 to an IBM Z core. This is also the reason why the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) is so attractive for IBM Z. IBM Z servers require fewer cores (IFLs) than other x86 servers to run the same workload. As I mentioned, the price for a VPC on x86 is identical to the IBM Z VPC price. Since the capacity on the IBM Z core and its underlying architecture offers 4.2 times more throughput, the IBM Z results in a lower TCO for your private cloud.
5. Security
Security is of critical importance to all CIOs in today’s infrastructure environment. IBM Z is the most secure server in the industry. No other server comes close. This server has EAL5+ certification on its logical LPARS, which is equivalent to physically separate servers. IBM Z is certified for FIPS 140-2 Level 4 and is tamper proof, even from systems administrators. IBM has announced the Hyper Protect Virtual Server (HPVS) that utilizes the IBM Secure Service Container (SSC) technology. HPVS and SSC use the FIPS 140-2 Level 4 security technology as their foundation. This level of security is exclusive on IBM Z.
6. Scalability
Scalability of this server peaks at 190 cores with 40 TB of memory to support Linux workload. IBM quotes the ability to run 2.4 million Docker containers on a single IBM Z server. That is scaling high!
Making the IBM Z Transition Easy: IBM Cloud Paks
With all these IBM Z best-in-the-industry characteristics, this server is ideal for your cloud-native applications using IBM Cloud Paks. Same software, same VPC price, better TCO. Mainline can assist you in understanding the Total Cost of Ownership for your workload. We can also help you plan the migration of your applications from virtual servers to the IBM Cloud Pak using container and cloud services technology, all enabled through the Red Hat OpenShift framework.
We are now ready to talk about making the platform easy to install and maintain. Be on the lookout for my next blog, where I will discuss IBM Cloud Paks and why they make your IBM Z server easy!
More Information
To learn more about IBM Z solutions please contact your Mainline Account Executive directly, or click here to contact us with any questions.
You may be interested in:
Blog: 2020 – The Year for Private Cloud on IBM Z
Blog: Part 2: Enterprise Integration Strategy Roadmap
Blog: Pervasive Encryption: Linux on Z and Data at Rest
Blog: Making LinuxONE Easy – IBM Hyper Protect for Virtual Servers