Fact Sheet: IBM S/390 Servers Support Multiple, Diverse Workloads
IBM S/390 servers support the world's most successful businesses & organizations by offering industry – 07 May 1998
N/A (May 07, 1998) – : IBM enhanced the Treasure Series through the addition of the DecisionEdge solutions for the telecommunications, utility and banking industries. Additionally, S/390 now supports the Business Analysis Suite for SAP R/3, which helps customers quickly gain value from their SAP data in DB2 data warehouses through ad-hoc query and reporting tools.
S/390 is a cost-effective platform for business intelligence applications, because customers can leverage their existing S/390 computing strengths, data, skills and infrastructure. BI solutions can be implemented and harvested quickly for a high return on investment.
S/390 servers also offer industry-leading levels of scalability for BI workloads. Not only does S/390 have the capacity to accommodate large numbers of users and queries, but it also can grow incrementally to handle customers’ growing data warehouses. According to the Palo Alto Management Group, a leading BI consulting firm, in its Large Scale Database Solutions (Feb. 1997) report, the average data warehouse will grow 36 times in size over the next three years. S/390 servers and IBM S/390 Parallel Sysplex clustering technology can offer the capacity to query and manage such large information stores with ease.
The S/390 G5 Server’s higher performance can be extended to data mining, data warehousing and other business intelligence activities. Customers will have the flexibility to harness the S/390 G5 Server’s power for their large BI databases in either a single system configuration or in a Parallel Sysplex cluster. The S/390 G5 Server, along with parallel mining tools like IBM’s Intelligent Miner Version 2, will be able to process more gigabytes of data in less time to yield competitive marketing information.
To evaluate the S/390 G5 Server’s BI capabilities, IBM conducted a set of preliminary tests at the S/390 Teraplex Center in Poughkeepsie, N.Y. The test demonstrated that a 10-way S/390 G5 Server can run a parallel query of one terabyte of data (enough information to fill an 8.5 by 11-inch stack of paper 30 miles high) in 50 minutes. A scalability test of the data, using a complex query, was completed in 22 minutes by the S/390 G5 Server as compared to 44 minutes by an S/390 G4 Server, for a 100 percent performance improvement. When processed by two 10-way S/390 G5 servers clustered in a Parallel Sysplex configuration, the time was further reduced to 11 minutes.
IBM intends to extend DB2 Version 6 to OS/390 in June 1998, which will enhance customers’ data warehouse management abilities. It will offer support for Very Large Databases (VLDB), query performance improvements and faster response times for all warehouse sizes. DB2 Version 6 also will offer customers improved database management tuning, performance monitoring and capacity planning, as well as object-relational functionality and support for multimedia data, including text documents, images, audio and other complex objects.
Consolidation Series for S/390 — Many companies are beginning to simplify their IT organizations by consolidating workloads on the S/390 server and reducing their armies of smaller servers. The benefits of server consolidation can include simplified systems management, lower total IT costs, reduced IT outages and disruption, a more standard architecture and improved IT services.
In a 1998 International Technology Group study of organizations consolidating servers, the organizations moving from decentralized or distributed servers to centralized S/390 systems saw an average IT cost savings of 35.1 percent. LAN server consolidation on the S/390 platform resulted in even larger savings. According to the “Building Server Cooperatives” report (December 1997) by Forrester, a Cambridge, Mass.-based consultancy, many customers have also reported that server consolidation can improve IT’s responsiveness to business needs.
IBM S/390 is an ideal platform for consolidating server workloads. Its power, scale, flexibility and systems management capabilities permit new applications to be added at low incremental costs and with little or no increase in staff.
To assist customers with their IT streamlining efforts, IBM is making available the Consolidation Series of server consolidation solutions and services for S/390. It includes the S/390 LAN Server solution for consolidating LAN file servers on the S/390 platform. It also includes the new Business Integration Series for S/390. Based on IBM’s industry-leading MQSeries message queuing software, this product family helps customers manage and integrate critical applications and processes across platforms. IBM’s Business Integration with MQSeries includes three components: MQSeries, message-oriented middleware that enables diverse applications to communicate securely and reliably over a wide range of platforms; MQSeries Integrator, software that provides message formatting and intelligent, rules-based message routing between heterogeneous applications within and between enterprises, and; MQSeries Workflow, a workflow management system that automates business processes involving applications and staff to give enterprises more control of their business activities. The MQIntegrator for OS/390 will be available in July, and the MQSeries Workflow for OS/390 will be available in December.
Source: IBM