One key driver for ESCON/FICON and Fibre Channel Directors sales.
S/390 readied for role as super e-commerce server
By JOHN RIBEIRO
IDG News Service, 08/16/00
Positioned as a "super server" platform that
can consolidate all the servers an organization
needs to run an Internet-based business, IBM's
next-generation S/390 mainframe will extend self-
configuration and self-repair capabilities to
Linux virtual servers.
Scheduled for launch in the last quarter of
this year, the new mainframe will outperform
the current S/390 G6 by about 50% because it
packs more and faster processors than the G6,
according to Gururaj Rao, IBM fellow and S/390
chief engineer. The new mainframe is unlikely
to be called the S/390 G7 in line with IBM's
current naming scheme for the S/390 because of
the significant architectural changes in the
new mainframe, he adds.
IBM aims to extend mainframe availability and
reliability to e-business by supporting virtual
Linux servers natively on S/390 hardware. "From
an application development or a customer's
perspective, these are still distributed systems.
You can have a back-end OS/390 system with front-
end Linux-based application development and Web
application server environments, and you can
integrate them into a single S/390 hardware, and
they can communicate with each other taking
advantage of the low-latency, high-bandwidth
pipes on the hardware system itself," Rao says.
nwfusion.com
Mainframe+Open Systems Storage
1999 2004
EMC 48% (5.8 PB) 45% ( 65 PB)
IBM 21% (2.5 PB) 38% ( 55 PB)
Hitachi 26% (3.1 PB) 15% ( 22 PB)
Others 5% (0.6 PB) 2% ( 3 PB)
Total 100% (12 PB) 100% (145 PB)
PB = Petabytes
1 PB = 1,000 Terabytes
1 TB = 1,000 Gigabytes
Hardware costs:
1999 - $0.09/MB to $0.22/MB
2004 - $0.01/MB to $0.025/MB
Annual price decline = 30% to 40%
Storage Management costs = 2x to 10x hardware costs
Source: MetaGroup |
