Z Systems

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System z9 type 2094
System z9 type 2094, with open front doors and folded out support element
System z9 type 2094, back side
System z9 type 2094, back open
System z9 logo
zSeries 800 type 2066

z Systems (formerly zSeries or System z ) is the current mainframe architecture from IBM . Compared to the previous architecture S / 390 is such system is characterized mainly by the 64-bit - addressing of. Older programs that still run with 31-bit or 24-bit addressing are also still supported.

In the system design of the IBM z Systems, all components are completely redundant so that the models are particularly fail-safe and reliable. The "Z" in z Systems is sometimes interpreted as " Z ero downtime".

The IBM z14 model is able to run different operating systems in parallel with a maximum of 85 logical partitions ( LPARs ). Due to the unique system design, the IBM mainframe computers are still considered to be particularly scalable, particularly secure and with high throughput. In addition to the high virtualization rates, a high utilization of the system averaging 90–100% is not unusual.

The IBM mainframe computers have no built-in hard drives , but are FICON -called Fiber Channel adapter with storage servers or SAN connected. In older systems it was also possible to connect storage systems via ESCON (predecessor of FICON).

history

The history of IBM mainframes began on April 7, 1964 when IBM introduced the System / 360 . Since then, the focus has been expanded and supplemented several times. Starting from traditional workloads (many transactions, OLTP databases, batch and quality of service , QoS), Linux workloads ( WebSphere , Analytics and Oracle) and finally also the Java workload for mainframe users opened up in 2001 . Ten years later, the mainframe system was prepared for topics such as cloud, mobile and operational analytics.

On June 30, 1970, it was replaced by the S / 370 system . With the System 370 / XA, 31-bit addressing was introduced in 1981; the 32nd bit of the 4-byte data word was reserved as a control bit . Since then it has been used, among other things, to differentiate between 24- and 31-bit addressing. In 1972, IBM introduced the first virtualization product. IBM has been using the 370 / ESA architecture since 1988.

In September 1990 the System / 390 was introduced as the successor to the S / 370. A total of six hardware generations were released.

Models

z900, z800, z990 and z890

The first zSeries computers were the z900 (2000) and z800 (2002) systems. These were almost completely new developments compared to the S / 390, as 64-bit processors with 64-bit addressing were used in the system for the first time. The S / 390 series was replaced by System Z (the name at the time) - the competitors (Hitachi and Siemens, who had developed S / 390-compatible systems) could no longer develop a 64-bit system, and IBM-Z was again unrivaled . This was followed by the z990 (2003) and z890 systems .

The Linux operating system was ported to the IBM mainframe in 2001 through the commitment of the IBM Germany Research & Development laboratory in Böblingen .

z9

System z9 EC was announced in July 2005 , and System z9 BC was announced in April 2006 . Since then there has been a BC and an EC model per series: BC, like Business Class , includes the smaller systems, EC, for Enterprise Class , on the other hand, covers the upper performance range.

z10

On February 26th, 2008, the z10 EC system was announced with a capacity of around 1500 servers on x86 basis. The z10 BC system followed on October 21, 2008, with the performance of up to 232 x86 servers in an 83% smaller area and up to 93% lower energy consumption.

z196

On July 22, 2010, the first next-generation model, the zEnterprise 196 (z196), was announced. The system offered the possibility of integrating resources from IBM System z, Power and System x into a complete system. The z196 had a total of 96 processor cores with a clock frequency of 5.2 GHz. This enabled a performance improvement of 60 percent per core and increased the total capacity for workloads based on z / OS , z / VM and Linux on z Systems by 60 percent compared to the previous model z10 EC.

z114

The following year, on July 12, 2011, the next BC model, the IBM zEnterprise 114 (z114), was announced.

zEC12 and e.g.C12

On August 28, 2012, a new generation was announced with the IBM zEnterprise EC12 (zEC12). The IBM zEnterprise BC12 (e.g. C12) was announced on July 23, 2013.

IBM z13

On January 14, 2015, the Enterprise Class IBM z13 (z13) was announced. The new system is designed to integrate the data and transactions on the mainframe.

Compared to the previous model zEnterprise EC12, the IBM z13 offers a performance increase of 40%, three times as much main memory (up to 10 TB), more LPARs (85 instead of the previous 60) and more I / O channels. By increasing the main memory, mainframe users can reduce their latency times for OLTP workloads, response times through fewer I / O waiting times and batch times.

In addition, IBM is introducing Simultaneous Multithreading (SMT) and Single Instruction, Multiple Data (SIMD) instructions with this model series . There is a new card for hardware cryptography . In addition to the news about the z13 hardware, the announcement in January 2015 also included a preview of the new z / OS operating system.

On February 16, 2016, IBM announced the new z13s entry-level mainframe. The new computer model is similar to the Rockhopper model introduced shortly before.

IBM z14

In July 2017, the successor model IBM z14 was announced. The central processor has ten CPU cores that IBM clocks at 5.2 GHz. Each of them has a 128 KByte L1I / L1D cache, 2 MByte L2 instruction and 4 MByte L2 data cache, plus a shared 128 MByte L3 cache, consisting of embedded DRAM. The CP chip consists of 6.1 billion transistors and is 696 mm² in size. Five or six processor chips are connected on a slot in two clusters to a system control chip with a 672 MB L4 cache. The SC chip is also 696 mm² in size and contains 9.7 billion transistors. Both chips are manufactured at GlobalFoundries in a 14 nm SOI process. The memory DIMMs are also located on the slot, with five DIMMs connected to each CP chip.

In April 2018, IBM announced the IBM z14 Model ZR1 and IBM LinuxONE Rockhopper II. The new systems are based on a single-frame design in the 19-inch industry standard, which is intended to enable easy installation in data centers.

IBM z15

The IBM z15 model was announced in September 2019. The IBM z15 system has up to 190 configurable processor cores and up to 40 TB main memory.

The z15 Model T02 was announced in April 2020.

IBM LinuxONE

On August 17, 2015 the Linux systems LinuxONE were announced. These machines only run with GNU / Linux as the operating system. The larger LinuxONE Emperor model is based on the z13 system. Emperor is the English name for emperor penguins . The smaller model is called LinuxONE Rockhopper and was initially based on the system zBC12. Rockhopper is the English name for rockhopper penguins .

On January 26, 2016, IBM announced new machines and new functions for the LinuxONE systems. The Rockhopper model is now based on the z13s system and has the model number 2965. “The new Rockhopper can have up to 20 4.3 GHz cores and supports 4 TB main memory, compared to the maximum 12 4.2 GHz cores of the previous version with 500 GB main memory. The new Emperor retains the 141 5.0 GHz cores and 10 TB of main memory of its predecessor, but receives 667 Integrated Assist processors for high availability and I / O-intensive work, instead of the 640 special I / O processors of the old Vogel. “The Emperor model has a maximum of 141 cores and 10 TB main memory.

LinuxONE III

The LinuxONE III model is offered in configurations with 1-4 19 "racks.

In April 2020 the z15 Model LT2 was announced.

architecture

The development of the IBM mainframe architecture led from S / 360 and S / 370 through many intermediate steps, the functions of the previous systems were always retained and expanded. When moving from ESA / 390 to today's z Systems architecture, the following extensions were made:

  • General and control registers are 64 bits long
  • There is a 64-bit, a 31-bit and a 24-bit addressing mode ( big-endian format )
  • Tables for the dynamic translation of 64-bit addresses are extended by 3 levels

A major difference between ESA / 390 and the z-Systems architecture is that z / OS can no longer use expanded storage in 64-bit mode . This was introduced together with the S / 370 -XA architecture because the addressability was then limited to 2 GB. Back then, this was a cheap way to expand main memory.

Depending on the model, the available main memory can be 64 GB (z9 BC), 512 GB (z9 EC), 1.5 TB (z10 EC), 3 TB (z196, zEC12) or 10 TB (z13).

A special feature of the z-Systems architecture is that the processor performance can be used without loss of performance in permanent operation up to 100% continuous load. The effects of decreasing performance with higher requirements known from other architectures are not present in this architecture.

The processor performance (capacity setting) of the respective systems can be configured and ordered very granularly and is therefore precisely tailored to the requirements of the customer. For example, the zEnterprise BC12 model has 156 capacity settings and the zEnterpise EC12 model has several hundred capacity settings. The capacity setting limits the performance of the respective processors. Should an increase in performance be necessary, the capacity setting can be adjusted without additional hardware changes. This is usually done while the systems are running, so that no interruption of operations is necessary.

Another development feature is the channel subsystem . The transmission speed rose from 4.5 MB / s to 17 MB / s for the ESCON channels to over 800 MB / s for the fiber optic channels ( FICON Express 8).

The CPU

The systems of the IBM z system provide one or more processors based on a CISC processor architecture . The physically installed processors can be configured as different processor types: as regular ( general purpose ) processors (CP), as special processors for certain tasks of the z / OS operating system (ZAAP, or ZIIP), as processor for Linux and its virtualization with z / VM (IFL) or as a coupling facility of a parallel sysplex. The system also reserves some processors for input / output functions (Service Assist Processor: SAP) and as reserve processors (Spare), which transparently take over the task of the defective CPU in the event of CPU damage. The assist processors ZAAP and ZIIP are only available for certain workloads such as B. Java , DB2 or XML are available. All processor types are identical in terms of their hardware, but are limited to the execution of certain workloads by their microcode or by the operating system.

The performance of mainframe processors has also continued to develop throughout the history of mainframe servers. This applies to the design of the modules as well as the number of cores and the clock frequency. For example, a z900 still had a frequency of 770 MHz, a z990 1.2 GHz, and a z9 EC 1.7 GHz. With the z10 EC came a jump to 4.4 GHz, with the z196 to 5.2 GHz and with the zEC12 finally to 5.5 GHz. The current model IBM z 13 has 5.0 GHz, but this does not mean that this model is less powerful, since many components in the architecture of the mainframe together make up the performance.

The following hardware features are available to the programmer on a machine from z Systems:

  • 16 general purpose registers
  • 16 floating point registers
  • 16 access registers
  • 16 control registers
  • 1 floating point control register
  • 1 program status word

Mainframe generations

The IBM mainframe computers have already been further developed over several generations. In the following tables, the performance classification according to IBM is differentiated into business and enterprise classes.

LinuxONE

model Type Models Processors announcement comment
LinuxONE III 8562 LT2 April 14, 2020 corresponds to T02
LinuxONE III 8561 LT1 September 12, 2019 corresponds to T01
Rockhopper II 3907 LR1 Max. 30th April 10, 2018 based on z14
Emperor II 3906 LM1, LM2, LM3, LM4, LM5 Max. 170 12th September 2017 based on z14
Emperor 2964 L30, L63, L96, LC9, LE1 Max. 141 January 26, 2016
Rockhopper 2965 L10, L20 (1 drawer), L20 (2 drawer) Max. 20th January 26, 2016 based on z13s
Emperor 2964 Max. 141 17th August 2015 based on z13
Rockhopper 2828 L06, L13 Max. 20th 17th August 2015 based on e.g.C12

Enterprise class

model Type Models Processors Main memory announcement comment
z15 8561 T01 Max. 190 Max. 40 TB September 12, 2019 Successor to the z14, 1-4 19 "racks
z14 3906 M01, M02, M03, M04, M05 Max. 196 Max. 32 TB 17th July 2017 Successor to the z13
z13 2964 N30, N63, N96, NC9, NE1 Max. 141 Max. 10 TB January 14, 2015 Successor to the zEC12
zEnterprise EC12 (zEC12) 2827 H20, H43, H66, H89, HA1 Max. 101 August 28, 2012 Successor to the z196
zEnterprise 196 (z196) 2817 M15, M32, M49, M66, M80 Max. 96 July 22, 2010 Successor to the z10 EC
System z10 Enterprise Class (z10 EC) 2097 E12, E26, E40, E56 and E64 Max. 64 February 26, 2008 Successor to the z9
System z9 Enterprise Class (z9 EC) 2094 S08, S18, S28, S38 and S54 Max. 54 July 27, 2005 originally z9-109
eServer zSeries 990 (z990) 2084 A08, B16, C24 and D32 Max. 32 May 13, 2003 Successor to the larger models of the z900
eServer zSeries 900 (z900) 2064 101, 102, 103, 104, 105, 106, 107, 108, 109, 1C1, 1C2, 1C3, 1C4, 1C5, 1C6, 1C7, 1C8, 1C9, 110, 111, 112, 113, 114, 115, 116,
2C1, 2C2, 2C3, 2C4, 2C5, 2C6, 2C9, 210, 211, 212, 213, 214, 215, 216
Max. 16 October 3, 2000

business class

model Type Models Processors Main memory announcement comment
z15 8562 T02 Max. 65 Max. 16 TB April 14, 2020 19 "rack, single frame, successor to the z14 ZR1
z14 3907 ZR1 Max. 30th Max. 8 TB April 10, 2018 19 "rack, single frame, successor to the z13s
z13s 2965 N10, N20 (1 drawer), N20 (2 drawers) Max. 20th Max. 4 TB February 16, 2016 Successor to the zBC12 and z114, based on z13
zEnterprise BC12 (e.g. C12) 2828 H06, H13 Max. 13 23rd July 2013 Successor to the z114
zEnterprise 114 (z114) 2818 M05, M10 Max. 14th July 12, 2011 Successor to the z10 BC
System z10 Business Class (z10 BC) 2098 E10 Max. 5 October 21, 2008 Successor to the z9
System z9 Business Class (z9 BC) 2096 R07 and S07 Max. 7th April 27, 2006 Successor to the z890
eServer zSeries 890 (z890) 2086 A04 Max. 4th April 7, 2004 Successor to the z800 and the smaller models of the z900
eServer zSeries 800 (z800) 2066 0E1, 0A1, 0B1, 0C1, 0X2, 001, 0A2, 002, 003, 004 Max. 4th February 19, 2002

software

The operating systems z / OS, z / VM, z / VSE , z / TPF and Linux are usually used on IBM mainframes .

The architecture is also characterized by its own terminology, for example the boot process is referred to as IPL (Initial Program Load). Restarting the entire server (switching it on) is also called POR ( Power On Reset ).

In addition to the operating system and the virtualization software, middleware ( CICS , WebSphere etc.) runs on the IBM mainframes, as well as software such as databases ( DB2 , IMS , Oracle), programming languages ​​(COBOL, Assembler, PL / I, Java, C), Job Flow (JES2, JES3), Transaction Servers (CICS / TS, IMS / DC, WebSphere ), Monitoring Tools (PFA, RTD, zAware) and others. Other IBM Software on z Systems are, for example, SPSS , Rational , Tivoli and Cognos .

Virtualization

The virtualization possibilities of the IBM mainframe architecture, which have matured over the decades, are considered mature and stable. Even today, architecture has a considerable technological lead over other platforms. Operating systems can be operated on the platform in the following modes:

  • Native mode : all available hardware resources are used (this mode is no longer offered directly for customer systems with zSeries hardware)
  • LPAR mode : Hardware resources are divided into "logical partitions" (up to 85 LPAR systems are currently possible here). The CPUs are virtualized here.
  • VM Mode : Hardware resources are "virtualized" using hypervisor systems such as z / VM and Linux with a kernel-based virtual machine (KVM - Statement of Direction as of January 2015)

The common operating systems for applications such as B. z / OS and Linux support virtualization options such as:

  • Dynamic addition and removal of CPUs : CPUs can be added and removed without restarting the operating system
  • Dynamic addition and removal of RAM : RAM can be added and removed using various mechanisms without restarting the operating system
  • Dynamic adding and removing of disk storage : Direct Access Storage Device disks or SCSI / FibreChannel disks can be added and removed dynamically
  • Virtualized Ethernet adapters: Real network cards can be made available in many different virtualization modes on up to 1500 virtual network adapters per card for virtual systems. Using the z / VM hypervisor, very complex network or VLAN structures can be set up within the system.
  • Cryptographic subsystems : Hardware to support cryptography is also available in virtualized form
  • Virtual punch card reader / punch : Systems can send data to each other via virtual punch card reading or punching systems.

Emulators

With Hercules one is emulator available, which allows an IBM mainframe system under Windows , Mac OS X to emulate or Linux. However, IBM does not license the use of mainframe operating systems on a Hercules emulation computer.

FLEX-ES was available as a commercial emulation platform until the end of 2006 . The product enabled the operation of many S / 390 operating systems on one Intel computer. In contrast to Hercules, IBM licensed many S / 390 operating systems for use under FLEX-ES.

As a commercial product there is zPDT (IBM System z® Personal Development Tool) on which the S / 390 operating systems are offered again.

IBM mainframe and the next generation

The IBM Academic Initiative is a program that is being carried out at 1,000 schools and universities in 67 countries around the world. Furthermore, since 2005 there has been a worldwide competition called Master the Mainframe for students who are interested in small projects with and around the IBM mainframe. The Global Skill Initiative was founded for the topic of training and further education and offers public and private training via training partners.

See also

Web links

Commons : System z  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

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