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IBM Z

Score9.3 out of 10

134 Reviews and Ratings

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What is IBM Z?

IBM Z is the company's mainframe enterprise server solution product line.

Categories & Use Cases

Reviews

What users are saying about IBM Z.
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Secure the world and even more, with LinuxONE with every core

Incentivized
Florian SchwanzaraView profile
Solution Planning Senior Manager in Information Technology at Accenture DACH (10,001+ employees employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Whenever a Business Application needs to run highly available, secure, and performant to a large number of users, it is just a perfect fit for IBM Z. The out of the box virtualisation capabilities are far beyond of any other platform and make even single systems highly available. That helps to reduce costs because we do not need to invest in software solutions to make it HA. And for sure, this makes the handling much easier.

Pros

  • Virtualization for Scale-Out and Scale-Up in the same footprint
  • Security for different workloads: Large Confidential Computing and lightweight Secure Execution
  • Performance is a true game changer: extreme throughput powered by amazingly huge caches.
  • The one and only FIPS 140-2 Level 4 HSM on this planet
  • Quantum Safe Encryption NOW!
  • AI infusion to every transaction

Cons

  • the amount of different pricing metrics is a inhibitor
  • the ease of use is really getting better - but still DPM is not available for all workloads
  • different pricing schemes for users vs. providers is a pain

Most Important Features

  • Data compression with on-Chip Compression Accelerator
  • Security with CPACF and CryproExpress Cards
  • LinuxONE NVMe storage

Return on Investment

  • Low entry barrier with LinuxONE cloud instances made it possible to start even small
  • Unmatched cyber security possible with HyperProtect Crypto Service
  • TCO improvements by running on LinuxONE vs x86 or public cloud

Alternatives Considered

Azure Dedicated HSM and AWS CloudHSM

Other Software Used

Microsoft 365, macOS, Salesforce Starter

IBM Z is an excellent option for reliable consolidation of a sprawling compute environment

Incentivized
Ray ChabotView profile
Senior Technical Specialist in Professional Services at More than 20 different businesses over 30 years (1001-5000 employees employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Platform solves virtually all major technical issues with low latency, dynamic scaling and spike/surge handling, and hot sparing of all critical components. Compatibility with both 20+ year old applications and the most modern tech all on one platform makes it a great career path as well.

Pros

  • High speed transaction handling with nearly guaranteed integrity
  • Specialty processors for offload of CPU intensive activities like crypto, java
  • Fast DR recovery with a single consistency group
  • All facilities for extremely tight security are available
  • The high centralization lowers environmental costs significantly

Cons

  • Low cost training/education platforms needed for small companies/individuals

Most Important Features

  • High transaction throughput with great reliability
  • Keeping pace with of new technology -- hardware and software
  • Security that stays ahead of hackers and exploits

Return on Investment

  • Very low staffing requirements compared to highly distributed technology
  • High compute density allows for very low inter-service latency
  • Current form factor (i.e. 19" racks) makes data center placement easy

Alternatives Considered

AWS Auto Scaling

Best way to process huge data.

Incentivized
Sushil AryaView profile
Software consultant in Information Technology at A-IT Software Services Pte Ltd (10,001+ employees employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

IBM Z is used for transaction processing for credit cards.So every real-time transaction is captured and validates the transaction and everyday processing is done on the whole portfolio as part of night batch processing. New application are also boarded and regular real time service requests regarding the account are processed and response are sent.

Pros

  • Processing high tps in a shorter time.
  • Handled multiple users with same efficiency.
  • Minimum outage or downtime for real-time requests.
  • Batch processing execution is organized.

Cons

  • Batch optimisation.
  • Cost to company is high for IBM Z
  • Less resources available as per market demand.

Most Important Features

  • Security is intact.
  • Processing speed is fast.
  • Handled multiple users without impacting the efficiency.

Return on Investment

  • Operational cost is less as number of users can increased.
  • Increased the revenue as multiple applications can be run in Zos.
  • Overall cost of Z is more compare to open source.

Alternatives Considered

AWS Batch, Dell PowerFlex and OpenText Active Access

Other Software Used

Apache Kafka, Db2, Snowflake

IBM Z Mainframe - The Only Data Center Processor you'll need in todays world

Incentivized
Judy L. BerglundView profile
Sr Systems Engineer in Engineering at Dell EMC and Many Other Companies (10,001+ employees employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We current have IBM Z15 and are in the process of implementing IBM Z16. IBM Mainframes first and foremost provide not only the necessary uptime, fault tolerance, security, automation, high availability, etc. We currently utilize the IBM Z15 in a High Availability Scenario for many major applications. Utilizing one as primary and a secondary offsite at a secondary location. We also have the IBM Z carved out into LPAR's "Logical Partitions", which provide virtual environments for Test, Dev, etc. This is not new, LPAR's have been around for many many years on IBM mainframes, and another cool thing is we can create an LPAR and virtualize thousands of Servers in an isolated arena on the mainframe. We also use it has a test bed LPAR for AI along with Hybrid Cloud connectivity.

Pros

  • Fault Tolerance
  • High Availability
  • Totally Agnostic
  • Perform Large Scale Transaction Processing

Cons

  • Overall Cost - Mainframes are expensive but you get what you pay for
  • Software & Hardware Maintenance are pricey
  • Learning curve for employees. Many MF folks have retired or are looking to retire

Most Important Features

  • High Availability
  • High Scalability for a MIPS standpoint "Million Instructions Per Second" which equates to extremely high processing speed
  • Manage Terabytes of Data in Large Databases such as DB/2 or Oracle

Return on Investment

  • The IBM Mainframe will pay for itself in a short time frame, you will have TCO results quicker rather than later.
  • Provides 100% uptime.
  • Can mirror data to a secondary site and bring that site up and then perform maintenance at site A. Very important in today's world.
  • Extremely fast processing times.

Alternatives Considered

Broadcom Automic Automation

Other Software Used

Broadcom Automic Automation, Broadcom Unified Infrastructure Management, Cisco 5500 Series Network Convergence System (NCS 5500)

IBM Z review from a technician

Incentivized
Josef LeitnerView profile
Systemtechniker in Engineering at Raiffeisen Informatik (501-1000 employees employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Backend Server.

Pros

  • 24x365 UpTime
  • Transactional Work
  • JAVA Server

Cons

  • Software Cost of the Platform

Most Important Features

  • 24hx365 Uptime
  • Security

Other Software Used

BMC AMI Ops Monitoring, BMC AMI Strobe, IBM IMS

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