New Mainframe Courtesy of I.B.M.
The mainframe, the aged yet surprisingly resilient survivor of computing, is getting a face-lift. A model called the I.B.M. z10, which is being introduced Tuesday, is far faster and has three times the data-juggling memory of its three-year-old predecessor, the z9.
But the significance of the new machine, analysts say, is that it is a big step in a broad campaign by I.B.M. to make the mainframe computer a high-performance, energy-efficient engine for running all kinds of nonmainframe software.
The goal, according to I.B.M. executives and analysts, is to recast the mainframe as a nimble supercomputer in corporate and government data centers, running Web-based programs, Linux, advanced data mining and business intelligence software.
To do that, I.B.M. has refined its mainframe hardware and come up with new software tools, as part of a five-year, $1.5-billion overhaul.
“The mainframe’s ability to survive is only as good as its ability to innovate and compete for these new computing workloads of the future,” an analyst at Forrester Research, Brad Day, said. “And I.B.M. is starting to succeed at that.”
