Technical Overview

The z9 BC is designed specifically as a midrange mainframe and offers 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 z9 EC.

The IBM z9 BC is designed to help enable your businesses to be resilient in the unpredictable on demand world. With two models and a wide range of capacity settings, the newest member of the IBM System z9 family delivers significantly improved granularity and enriched functions over its predecessor, the IBM eServer(TM) zSeries(R) z890. The Model S07 can provide up to twice the memory, and more specialty engines as compared with the z890. Also introduced is the System z9 Integrated Information Processor (zIIP).

The IBM zIIP is the latest customer-inspired specialty engine for the IBM System z9 family. Following on the success of the widely accepted Integrated Facility for Linux (IFL) and System z9 Application Assist Processor (zAAP), the zIIP is designed to help improve resource optimization and lower the cost of eligible workloads, enhancing the role of the mainframe as the data hub of the enterprise.

The z9 BC offers four FICON Express4 features that support auto-negotiated speeds of 1, 2, and 4 Gbps. One of the FICON Express4 features is a 2-port card that provides attractive entry pricing to FICON technology adoption and is offered exclusively on the z9 BC.

All FICON Express4 and FICON Express2 features support the Modified Indirect Data Address Word (MIDAW) facility. MIDAW is a system architecture with software exploitation that is designed to help improve channel utilization and throughput, and potentially reduce I/O response times. The number of FICON Express4 and FICON Express2 concurrent I/O operations that may be active simultaneously has been increased from 32 to 64 per channel as compared to the z890.

IBM has a broad range of disk, tape and SAN products that are ready to support FICON Express4. IBM TotalStorage DS8000 series and IBM TotalStorage DS6000 series disk systems, part of IBM’s System Storage portfolio, support the MIDAW facility to help enable the potential throughput and response time benefits that the MIDAW facility can bring.

Integrated clear key encryption security features on the z9 BC include support for Advanced Encryption Standard, Secure Hash Algorithm-256, and integrated Pseudo Random Number Generation. Performing these functions in hardware can contribute to improved performance.

Application of the z9 BC advanced virtualization technologies creates a solid foundation for flexible integration of business and information management.

Innovations on the z9 BC can help to ensure you have a security-rich platform, can help maximize your resources and their utilization, and can help provide you the ability to integrate applications and data across the infrastructure. The z9 BC is designed to be a flagship component of your data serving environment.

IBM System z9 BC (z9 BC) – the next step in the transformation The z9 BC continues the transformation of the mainframe, building upon the structure introduced on z9 EC in support of z/Architecture(TM), reliability, availability, scalability, and virtualization. The z9 BC expands upon key attributes of the platform – reliability, availability, scalability, and virtualization – to help ensure you have a resilient infrastructure designed to satisfy the requirements of on demand business. With a low entry point, more engines, increased performance and total system capacity on the z9 BC as compared to a z890, you have an opportunity to continue to consolidate diverse applications on a single platform at the right capacity.

The z9 BC is designed to provide:

• Reduction in the impact of planned and unplanned server outages:
  • Enhanced driver maintenance
  • Dynamic oscillator switchover
  • Concurrent MBA fanout card hot-plug
  • Redundant I/O Interconnect
  • Program directed re-IPL
• Uniprocessor performance improvement up to 37% (based on LSPR mixed workload average) as compared to the z890.
• System z9 Integrated Information Processor (zIIP)
• Up to 3 CPs, 6 specialty engines (IFL, ICF, zAAP, and zIIP), 1 standard SAP, 3 optional SAPs on Model R07
• Up to 4 CPs, 7 specialty engines (IFL, ICF, zAAP, and zIIP), 1 standard SAP, 3 optional SAPs on Model S07
• Largest number of capacity settings (73) of any IBM Midrange to date
• Available memory from 8 GB up to 64 GB offered in 8 GB increments
• Increased host bus bandwidth between memory and I/O:
  • Up to 16 Self-Timed Interconnects (STIs), 2.7 GB each for I/O, a 35% increase in STI speed compared to z890s 2.0 GB STI bus
• Multiple Subchannel Sets (MSS) which is designed to allow improved device connectivity for Parallel Access Volumes (PAVs)
• FICON Express4 supporting 4 Gbps link data rate with:
  • Connectivity to existing and future 1, 2, and 4 Gbps servers, switches , directors, and devices
  • Improved performance
  • Enhanced availability with Small Form Factor Pluggable (SFP) optics
• Increased number of concurrent I/O operations that may be active simultaneously for FICON Express4 and FICON Express2, from 32 to 64 per channel, as compared to z890.
• Up to 112 FICON Express4 channels on Model S07; a 40% increase compared to z890
• When using the Modified Indirect Data Address Word (MIDAW) facility, improved performance over native FICON channels for programs that process data sets exploiting striping and compression (such as DB2, VSAM, PDSE, HFS, and zFS) by reducing channel, director, and control unit overhead
• Availability enhancements for FICON
• Increased connectivity for Crypto, FICON, and OSA in one I/O cage
• Additional LAN connectivity option with introduction of OSA-Express2 1000BASE-T Ethernet
• OSA-Express2 OSN (OSA for NCP), providing Channel Data Link Control (CDLC) protocol support on the z9 BC for the IBM Communication Controller for Linux on System z (CCL) allowing system administrators to configure, manage, and operate their CCL Network Control Programs (NCPs) in the same manner as their ESCON-attached 374x NCPs
• Remote Keyload for ATMs
• Configurable Crypto Express2
• Capacity BackUp for zAAP, IFL, ICF, zIIP, and CP sub-capacity settings