Big Blue Revamps Mainframe Strategy

While many businesses are embracing blades and other low-cost servers to handle their information workloads, IBM believes that the tried-and-true mainframe still can play an important role in the enterprise. Big Blue is rolling out new software and tools for creating Web services applications for such machines.

Over the years, mainframes have provided the power and reliability that banks and other large organizations need to run high-volume activities such as business intelligence, data collection, and transaction applications.

Now, said IBM engineer Jim Rhyne, mainframes are finding new life as the hubs for service-oriented architectures (SOAs), most notably in the growing field of e-commerce.

Mainframe WebSphere

IBM is making its WebSphere Process Server, WebSphere Enterprise Service Bus, and other development software available for creating applications designed for the company's mainframes, including the latest business-class System z machines.

WebSphere Process Server for System z, for example, can help link mainframe data to business tasks via an SOA. "The idea is to take that stack and deploy it on the mainframe for better application management and quality of service," Rhyne said.

With the new initiative, Big Blue is hoping to generate interest in the System z platform among the software-development community by providing tools for creating mainframe applications using Java, VisualBasic, COBOL, and other programming languages.

In addition, the company is rolling out the Tivoli Federated Identity Manager for System z, a software tool designed to help secure transactions in SOA and Web services environments with System z's encryption and intrusion-detection features.

Server Consolidation

Big Blue also is pushing the mainframe model as a way to consolidate servers. "We can provide the consolidation of hundreds of smaller servers using a fraction of the power," said Rhyne, "and the mainframe also can provide resource virtualization capabilities for handling several tasks simultaneously."

To help companies develop new mainframe applications, IBM has launched a service that offers sessions with IBM I.T. architects. As part of the service, IBM creates a customized online environment where companies can develop and test their applications on System z machines before rolling them out.

yahoo.com/