Lizette,
I'll need to add support for Ed's point of view...I just completed a
webinar about zIIP processing this morning and we had four times as many
attendees as we have ever had before (well over a hundred). The interest
from customers and potential customers was intense and lots of questions
were asked. Even with our significant announcements, they wanted more
zIIP capability as soon as possible.
I can see Trever Eddolls point of view, that there isn't all that much
out there yet. My analogy is that it's something like HDTV. You see it,
you like it, you want more. But it takes time to develop, test, and
implement, as writing code in Enclave SRB mode is not easy, as I'm sure
Ed can attest to. Over the next twelve months, I think you'll see
significant vendor offerings to enable customers to offload significant
amounts of processing to zIIP processors.
I think this is very healthy for the platform. For IBM, it's almost like
printing money, because the processors, for the most part, are on the z9
and z10 chips already, unused, just waiting to be enabled. IBM has a
special program, the Specialty Engine Loaner Program (SLEP), in which
you can have one of these unused processors enabled as a zIIP or zAAP
processor for free for three months, at which time you can elect to
purchase or not purchase. zIIP processors run full-speed (never
knee-capped), and are masked off for I/O interrupts, a huge benefit on
the new z10 processors for cache reasons. Of course, the icing on the
cake is that there are no software license fees for zIIP processors.
Incidentally, to improve the cost savings model, IBM or third-party
leasing can rent the zIIP processors at a very modest fee per month so
you can benefit financially almost immediately.
Tom Harper
IMS Utilities Development Team
Neon Enterprise Software, Inc
Sugar Land, TX
-Original Message-
From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On
Behalf Of Edward Jaffe
Sent: Wednesday, May 21, 2008 1:48 PM
To: IBM-MAIN@BAMA.UA.EDU
Subject: Re: TechTarget - Mainframe Specialty Processors (zIIP zAAP)
Lizette Koehler wrote:
Mainframe specialty processors: Do they really save money?
http://serverspecs.blogs.techtarget.com/2008/05/20/mainframe-specialty-p
rocessors-do-they-really-save-money/?track=NL-576ad=641476asrc=EM_NLN_
3694452uid=1706837
Very strange. From where I sit, it seems like specialty engines are
going supernova. The tenor of the article seems to suggest otherwise.
For example, Mr Fontecchio says, Selling rhe zAAP for Java and the zIIP
for data applications hasn't been easy. In fact, IBM says specialty
engine sales are up 85% year-over-year. I honestly don't know how easy
the sales effort was, but that's pretty impressive growth -- no matter
what business you're in!
A quote from Trevor Eddolls seems to suggest that there isn't much
software exploitation. It seems to me that zAAP exploitation by Java and
XML, and zIIP exploitation by DB2 and IPSEC, is dependent on what
applications the customer deploys on z. I'm certainly no expert on what
other software companies are doing. But, I *do* know what my friend Tom
Harper has been up to at Neon Enterprise Software. Rather than just ...
looking to offer customers the opportunity of running their software on
zIIP ..., as indicated by the article, they are actually doing it.
SyncSort wasn't mentioned. But, I know it has been supporting zIIP since
January, a number of CA utilities have been supporting zIIP since
mid-2007, and all of the internally-developed products here at Phoenix
Software -- including (E)JES -- have been redirecting *significant*
portions of their work to zIIP since October 2007. (We're trying to do
our part.)
There are likely numerous other ISVs doing this [I don't mean to
purposely leave anyone out -- please post a follow-up to list additional
examples] and, considering the zIIP-redirect interface was only made
available to ISVs around year-end 2006, I would call this fairly
significant exploitation -- with much more on the way...
The article is correct in its assertion that specialty engine savings
take time to accumulate. No question about that. You need to first buy
the zIIP or zAAP and then incrementally save over time on software
charges. It's kinda' like buying a new, more fuel-efficient, car to save
money on gas. It will take you quite a while to break even.
--
Edward E Jaffe
Phoenix Software International, Inc
5200 W Century Blvd, Suite 800
Los Angeles, CA 90045
310-338-0400 x318
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.phoenixsoftware.com/
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