New generation of mainframes and an integrated accelerator for warehouse workloads

IBM today announced a new generation of its mainframe computers, labeled zEnterprise. Based on a hybrid architecture, zEnterprise BladeCenter Extensions (zBX), it allows to integrate and manage POWER7 blades or System x blades from within the mainframe infrastructure. (One of) the first to exploit the zBX feature is the IBM Smart Analytics Optimizer. The latter allows to significantly speed up analytic queries running on DB2 for z/OS. Queries that qualify a transparently routed to the accelerator and return in a fraction of the time.

A small step for mankind, but a good day for mainframe customer, especially those using DB2.