IBM Pioneers Mainframes with Integrated Windows Applications Support

Mainframes, particularly IBM ones, aren't known for their ability to allow Windows applications to run on them, but Big Blue has changed all that, or will do so on December 16, 2011, through its zEnterprise Systems.

What the company did was, as an “an industry first,“ integrate Microsoft Windows Applications into mainframe environments (as we already mentioned here in fact).

This means that, in addition to z/OS, Linux and AIX, clients can use Windows environments to more freely pursue innovative research projects.

The z196 or z114 zEnterprise systems will possess this “capability of consolidating and centralizing management of Windows applications on x86-based IBM System x servers,” starting on December 16 this year (2011).

The key to all this is the so-called hybrid computing approach that has disparate workloads spread across multiple systems but still managed in a single environment.

“The new heterogeneous virtual IT infrastructure will give us greater flexibility and scalability. On our existing servers, the various applications operate independently on diverse platforms, based upon the one-server-one application model,” said Huub Meertens, head of the Support Engineering Section at EUROCONTROL, the European air traffic management organization in the Netherlands.

Perhaps one of the greatest benefits is the newfound ability of zEnterprise System to better cope with how disparate technologies added over time (to run specific applications) tend to get jumbled (they need separate staff and software and, thus, can't easily communicate with each other in real time).

Since it should, ultimately, be easier to handle this aspect, clients won't be faced with the same costs and hiking management complexity.

“The combination of IBM System z with Intel servers in an ensemble configuration turns out to be the best solution for modernization of our IT infrastructure. Given our complex IT infrastructure with high safety and security requirements, reliability, scalability and management at a competitive price are very important. It is for these reasons that EUROCONTROL has opted for the IBM zEnterprise with zBX environment.”

If one wants to read about more physical benefits to data centers and such, IBM also made a solar-power array (read about it here).