IBM has introduced a new zEnterprise EC12 mainframe server which the company claims can beat off competition from low cost PC-based servers.
The company’s new zEnterprise EC12 mainframe computer has been developed with a $1bn R&D investment over the last three-years which offers 25% more powerful processing cores than earlier models to boost cloud computing performance.
The new enterprise system claims to offer enhanced security and support for operational analytics that can help clients shift through large volumes of raw data.
IBM zEnterprise EC12 comes with built-in security features, operational analytics and near real-time workload monitoring and analysis and 50% increased total system capacity than its predecessor.
The new release builds on IBM System z platform’s security and privacy features to help protect data at rest or in flight.
zEC12 includes a tamper-resistant cryptographic co-processor called Crypto Express4S that provides privacy for transactions and sensitive data and meet the security requirements of different industries and geographies.
IBM’s new mainframe claims to improve performance for analytics, increasing performance of analytic workloads by 30% compared to its IBM predecessor. The mainframe’s virtualisation capabilities will help it in supporting private cloud environments.
In addition, support for the IBM DB2 Analytics Accelerator that incorporates the Netezza data warehouse appliance into zEC12 enables clients to run complex business analytics and operational analytics on the same platform.
zEC12 enables clients to run traditional IT and private cloud applications on one system and also includes internal solid state technology with Flash Express, a new memory technology that can help improve the performance of data intensive applications or workloads.
IBM’s new zEnterprise EC12 mainframe server incorporates transactional memory technology to enhance the speed of IBM Blue Gene/Q-based "Sequoia" supercomputer at Lawrence Livermore National Lab.