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3 Technology Enablement
When it comes to z/VSE one side of the business driver coin is the advances in technology that
come with the new processors and z/VSE 4.1. The advances in technology translate into
improved application delivery, the integration of existing applications to the web, and secured
extension of data visibility to new applications.
3.1 System z9
The latest in the mainframe family of processors are the System z9 Business Class (z9 BC) and
Enterprise Class (z9 EC) series.
The z9 BC is designed as a midrange mainframe and promises extensive growth options and
excellent price/performance for those customers requiring a lower-capacity entry point and more
granular growth options than offered with the System z9 Enterprise Class. There are two models:
R07and S07, each capable of running from 1 to 7 processors. The full range of speciality engines
(IFL, CF, ZIIP and ZAAP) and an extensive range of cryptographic assists are available.
The z9 EC is designed as a large mainframe solution that is highly scalable and has greater
cryptographic capabilities and a higher capacity entry point than the z9 BC. It also supports the
full range of speciality engines. Five models are available: S08, S18, S28, S38 and S54, which
provides from 1-54 n-way processors.
Impact: The z9 provides a range of processors with improved performance with enough
granularity for users to choose an entry level appropriate to their needs and to grow when
required. The speciality engines enable collaborative processing with the introduction of Linux.
The cryptographic facilities enable rapid security services to be implemented which are needed
when extending z/VSE to the network.
3.2 z/VSE 4.1
Version 4.1 of z/VSE was announced on January 9, 2007 and made generally available on March
16. There are some significant features described in the announcement that may have both
technical and financial implications to a VSE-based IT operation.
3.2.1 z/Architecture
z/VSE works in z/Architecture mode only and thus requires a processor capable of operating in
this mode. It exploits z/Architecture's ability to address 64-bit real storage although it only uses
31-bit virtual addresses. Candidates for exploiting this feature include "data-in-memory"
techniques such as CICS Shared Data Tables, VSE Virtual Disk, or more and larger buffer pools.
z/VSE is supported on the IBM System z9 EC and z9 BC servers as well as the IBM eServer
zSeries z990, z890, z900 and z800 servers.
Impact: Selected system functions of z/VSE are able to exploit 64-bit real addressing which
means the below 2GB requirements for these functions is relieved and the space available for
IBM-2007-04569-E-01
©2007 Sine Nomine Associates
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