IBM Systems Magazine, Mainframe - May/June 2018 - 18

This new IBM Z offering can
run 240 concurrent databases
executing a total of 58 billion
database transactions per day.
The z14 ZR1 can be used by
cloud service providers in very
small-capacity increments. It
can help provider clients start
small and then grow as their
businesses do. This system scales
quite well and can accommodate
a company's 100-fold growth
with plenty of room left for future
computing demands. Running
330,000 Docker containers at
once, and up to 8 TB of memory,
it can handle any workloads and
scale to meet business peaks.
"When you talk about where
the industry is going, where
developers are going in terms of
moving to Docker, Kubernetesbased application deployments
and MongoDB data stores, the
idea of scaling can be a challenge
with typical Linux commodity
hardware base. The z14 ZR1
allows you to flex and respond to
changing demands much more
rapidly and at a better cost than
other architectural approaches.
That's been a major design focus
for IBM Z," Tarquinio says.

Built With Security
in Mind
"Hundreds of differences exist
between the z14 ZR1 and its
predecessors," Mauri says, with
the total being greater than the
sum of their parts. "At a basic
level, this system is faster and
has more capacity, but that's just
the beginning of the story. It has
significantly more memory (up
to 8 TB) because more workloads
involve analytics and you want
to run them in as much memory
as much as you can for speed of
execution. Then you add in the
size and capability of the I/O
subsystem, the new links that
connect the system to storage, and
you're talking big differences."

"We innovate throughout
the stack, more so than
anyone else in the industry.
As a result, we can design
and tune everything in the
stack to work in harmony,
like an orchestra.
That's one of our
advantages."
-Ross Mauri, general manager
of IBM Z and LinuxONE

On top of that, many of these new
features require no application
changes, so clients can benefit
right away.
One of these differences is the
IBM Secure Service Container,
which is used for the secure
deployment of virtual software
appliances. This makes the z14
the most secure Linux platform
for hosting modern, cloud-native,
container-based applications
as part of IBM's overall Docker
container strategy.
"The Secure Service Container
is a virtual appliance that enables
end-to-end encryption of code and
data in the container. It allows
them to lock down the application
and data and make them immune
to malware, ransomware, insider
threats and the scraping of cryptokeys," Mauri says.
The Secure Service Container
is complementary with IBM Z
pervasive encryption. As designed
and implemented, IBM's
pervasive encryption allows
for the encryption of data, both
at-rest and in-flight, at speeds
faster than end-to-end encryption
tools on x86-up to 2.8x faster.
This speed difference is in
large part due to having crypto
engines built into the latest IBM Z

18 // MAY/JUNE 2018 ibmsystemsmag.com

&

The new models
boast up to

850
million
encrypted
transactions a
day

microprocessors. This design,
standard on all IBM z14 models,
ensures that overall system
performance won't be lessened
to a noticeable degree by using
encrypted data.
"Pervasive encryption won't
change your service-level
agreements. There may be a slight
increase in compute resource
consumption, but it's so small
that, when coupled with the new
performance levels on the z14,
you'll never see it, especially when
compared to older generation
systems. This is important,
because many of our clients are in
some of the most heavily regulated
industries or operate under the
European Union's General Data
Protection Regulation (GDPR) and
need to be protected by rock-solid
security," Tarquinio explains.
The IBM Z14 ZR1 can encrypt
10 GB of data a second, so every
transaction, every database
interaction can run encrypted
with no transaction interruptions.
That's based on CPU innovations
including cryptographic
acceleration on every core, larger
memory and a faster and more
scalable I/O subsystem. The new
models boast up to 850 million
encrypted transactions a day.
http://www.ibmsystemsmag.com
IBM Systems Magazine, Mainframe - May/June 2018

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