Mainframe > Business Strategy > Executive perspective

Opportunities Abound With Linux on System z

With age comes knowledge.

In two years, the mainframe will celebrate 50 years of market success, which began with the introduction of the IBM System 360 in 1964. In that time, we’ve learned some important lessons—the most important of which comes down to pure engineering. IBM has invested billions of dollars in research and development over the years in order to advance our clients’ competitive advantage.

In my 24 years at IBM, I’ve seen many changes in mainframe computing. One of the most significant and transformative technical imple-mentations was the introduction of Linux* on System z*.

Linux on System z opened doors and created a roadmap of possibilities that led us to today’s mainframe, the zEnterprise* System. It’s so much more than that, though—the zEnterprise System is a hybrid system which, in the BladeCenter* Extension environment, can run Power* blades on AIX* and System x* blades running Linux or Windows*.

zEnterprise technology gives our clients the ability to do far more for far less than ever before. Take the European Organization for the Safety of Air Navigation, or Eurocontrol, for example. Located in the Netherlands, Eurocontrol is reducing costs through the implementation of a zEnterprise technology-based heterogeneous virtual environment.

Responsible for air traffic safety above 24,500 feet in the Benelux, northwest Germany and the North Sea areas, Eurocontrol monitors flight data 24-7. It needed a better view of real-time operations from an efficient infrastructure with high availability.

Eurocontrol and IBM are consolidating part of its server environment into a Linux on zEnterprise solution with IBM System x and Power Systems* blades. The consoli-dation results in major savings on:

• Energy, replacing a farm of servers to lower cooling costs
• IT management, using one centralized management console frees up staff to focus on other services
• Software, using the Integrated Facility for Linux to reduce the number of software licenses and related costs

The organization told us the zEnterprise System is helping it reach its consolidation objective to do more with less.

The mainframe has proven it can change with—and sometimes ahead of—the times. We’ve seen it with the introduction of Parallel Sysplex*, z/Architecture*, Linux and, most recently, hybrid computing.

Which brings us to the value we provide today. The zEnterprise System delivers clients, like Eurocontrol, one integrated solution—developed from the microprocessors up through middleware—along with decades of experience, built-in expertise and innovation.

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