isham research
IBM's first bought-in mainframe
IBM's new medium-sized zSeries mainframe - the z800 - is being built by Hitachi and uses a five-way MCM to deliver one to four processors for customer use. The uniprocessor and the 2-way are also available in slugged form - the uniprocessor at several levels.
IBM is supplying the processor chips, based on those used in its Freeway (z900) range. Since the new system is also being marketed under the Hitachi name in the Japanese VOS3 domestic market, IBM has had to restore the VOS3 functionality it deleted in the original G7 - a good opportunity to fix a few other bugs.
Performance is as yet unclear. In a less well cooled environment, processor chips cannot be run at the same clock speeds that can be used in better environments. A base processor speed around 185 MIPS yields perhaps 80 to 640 or so MIPS across the range in production.
Software charging will be an interesting issue. As a successor to the Multiprise 3000, the z800 needs some form of preferential software charging - where GOLC is defined for a software product, charges on Multiprise systems (and Amdahl's Omniflex) are roughly half those on other processors. The z800 has Coupling Links - there's even a stand-alone CF-only version - and a GOLC (or NALC) machine cannot currently be part of a Parallel Sysplex. With Coupling Links available the z800 would be very attractive as an offload engine for new workloads such as web serving in existing large accounts. Some solution permitting MSU consolidation in a Sysplex seems likely - possibly standard PSLC when aggregated, with a charging scheme using a similar algorithm but a greatly reduced (perhaps halved) 'Base' charge in stand-alone mode. Workload Level Charges start at a minimum of 45 MSUs, so seem inapplicable in almost all cases.
An MSU-based scheme would have the great advantage of simplicity - the current GOLC scheme is bad enough where products that have no GOLC definitions are priced by groups, but it becomes a nightmare when used fractionally in emulation situations. Adopting an MSU-based scheme would overcome these difficulties.
Linux-only versions were announced for Linuxworld, but the most interesting idea is that of a run-time z/OS, which should arrive in time for PartnerWorld in mid-February.