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Overview
What is IBM Z?
IBM Z is the company's mainframe enterprise server solution product line.
Recent Reviews
Awards
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Reviewer Pros & Cons
Solution Planning Senior Manager
Accenture DACH (Information Technology & Services, 10,001+ employees)
Senior Technical Specialist
More than 20 different businesses over 30 years (Information Technology & Services, 1001-5000 employees)
Product Details
- About
- Competitors
- Tech Details
- Downloadables
- FAQs
What is IBM Z?
The new IBM z15 delivers performance,
flexibility, availability, protection, and agility to drive
digital transformation. It has changed the footprint of IBM Z
with a 19” frame, that scales from one to four frames depending on the
configuration, enabling significant floor space reduction.
IBM z15 has the commercial data privacy and security enforcement solution, Data Privacy Passports, that provides off-platform access revocation. Choose who accesses data, and when and at what level to revoke their access. One hundred percent of data, at-rest and in-flight, is protected with no performance trade off or application changes. With Fibre Channel Endpoint Security working with the latest DS8900F, achieve total end-to-end protection and authentication.
IBM z15 provides flexibility, portability and choice for hybrid cloud deployment. Cloud-native development simplifies life for developers as they build new applications and modernize existing ones. IBM Z supports private and public cloud via Linux, Kubernetes and industry-standard tools. With the Red Hat OpenShift support, IBM z15 adds to the user's options for cloud integration.
Instant recovery reduces the impact of planned and unplanned downtime. All systems need downtime for maintenance, and security patching.
IBM z15 has the commercial data privacy and security enforcement solution, Data Privacy Passports, that provides off-platform access revocation. Choose who accesses data, and when and at what level to revoke their access. One hundred percent of data, at-rest and in-flight, is protected with no performance trade off or application changes. With Fibre Channel Endpoint Security working with the latest DS8900F, achieve total end-to-end protection and authentication.
IBM z15 provides flexibility, portability and choice for hybrid cloud deployment. Cloud-native development simplifies life for developers as they build new applications and modernize existing ones. IBM Z supports private and public cloud via Linux, Kubernetes and industry-standard tools. With the Red Hat OpenShift support, IBM z15 adds to the user's options for cloud integration.
Instant recovery reduces the impact of planned and unplanned downtime. All systems need downtime for maintenance, and security patching.
IBM Z Features
- Supported: Data Privacy Passports
- Supported: IBM Z Data Privacy for Diagnostics
- Supported: IBM Recovery Boost
- Supported: Integrated Accelerator for zEDC
- Supported: Quantum-Safe digital signing algorithms
IBM Z Competitors
IBM Z Technical Details
| Deployment Types | On-premise |
|---|---|
| Operating Systems | Linux, z/OS, z/VSE, z/TPF, z/VM |
| Mobile Application | No |
IBM Z Downloadables
Frequently Asked Questions
IBM Z is the company's mainframe enterprise server solution product line.
Dell PowerEdge M and ClearPath Forward Libra are common alternatives for IBM Z.
Reviewers rate Support Rating highest, with a score of 9.1.
The most common users of IBM Z are from Enterprises (1,001+ employees).
Comparisons
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Reviews and Ratings
(134)Attribute Ratings
Reviews
(1-24 of 24)Companies can't remove reviews or game the system. Here's why
October 10, 2023
IBM Z is an excellent option for reliable consolidation of a sprawling compute environment
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.
- 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
- Low cost training/education platforms needed for small companies/individuals
September 26, 2023
Best way to process huge data.
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.
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.
- Fault Tolerance
- High Availability
- Totally Agnostic
- Perform Large Scale Transaction Processing
- 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
September 18, 2023
z/OS - nothing better
We have two computers at our production site and one at our DR site. All computers run z/OS. One system runs a payroll application, and the other runs a provident Fund Application. Both systems provide services to external customers. The computers are connected to an IBM DS9810F storage system and an IBM TS7770 virtual tape system.
- Massive I/O
- Support many users concurrently
- Very little downtime required.
- It's hard finding new people with the required knowledge.
- It seems expensive.
September 10, 2023
Worth it product by IBM.
IBM Z is used in our organization for large data requirements as it is very versatile and has the capacity to store large amounts of data. We have freedom of choice with the type of data we store and there are scalability options that are inherent with this product from IBM.
- Provided efficient storage for all the data needs.
- Very versatile with old firmware as this has a hybrid open platform.
- This has familiar dev tools for the developers which requires less turnaround time.
- While migrating to cloud there is a slight disruption in network.
- The User Interface can be improved which would make the product more intuitive.
- Detailed documentation with the product guide related to migration will be much appreciated.
September 24, 2022
Mainframe Support Technical Leader.
Core banking processing of billions of transactions and batch jobs each day to address all kinds of banking operations originating from different parts of the company. Thanks to IBM Z’s high availability features, the platform is the main backend for all mobile transactions that represent more than 80% of all of the bank's workload. Another key feature is security. IBM Z’s security features like RACF can build multiple levels of security, protecting all data and access!
- High availability and resilience.
- Security
- Compatibility ( old code can run along new code with conflicts).
- Cloud integration.
- Business models.
- Web interfaces.
September 17, 2022
A great software design for hybrid cloud, it has great security, keeps our files very safe.
It is trustable and grants high availability, which is very appropriate for managing different conversion processes like inventory and billing. Server trustability and can accumulate huge amounts of data. At first, it is challenging to learn, and we see that it is a high-priced platform; the command line interface should be upgraded, which makes it user-friendly and it is beneficial.
- Its efficiency and performance, It is trustable.
- IBM Z frame series mainframe system is like a skilled in the industry, protected, and it can do anything, almost distribute a lot of benefits in various sections.
- It has an affinity with a lot of modern technology as well.
- Difficult to learn at first.
- high prices.
- The Command line interface should be upgraded.
September 08, 2022
Precise Solution for System Automation and Application Support.
IBM Z delivers on digital transformation, where it delivers high performance and perfect protection, among others, to increase the validity of the business functionality. Besides, IBM Z focuses on data privacy, where reputable security is deployed, and access measures are deployed for correct individuals. The program has excellent flexibility, which allows both on-premise and cloud usage, which increases the convenience of the users.
- IBM Z has a perfect data privacy, which allows normal business functionality.
- Besides, flexibility of the tool increases swift functionality in digital transformation.
- Finally, the endpoint security is well articulated by IBM Z.
- IBM Z has complexity issue, where it burdens new users.
- IBM Z is pricey, and this challenges business users who are financially discouraged.
- Finally, IBM Z has poor recovery measures, where data privacy can be a challenge.
February 06, 2022
Excellent tool to handle large transactions and provide details data analytics for data storage and data warehousing.
Used across various functions 1. To handle various billing transactions 2. To handle data storage and data warehousing analytics 3. To handle run various automated batch processing.
- Very useful in handling different types of transactional processes like billing, inventory, etc.
- Provides detailed data analytics when data is stored or data is warehoused.
- Effectively used to run different types of data batch processing.
- Initial integration difficulties can be improved.
- Documentation can be drafted for migration strategy with some examples.
- Lack of awareness of the tool can be improved by conducting webinars.
January 17, 2020
The powerhouse of the world economy
The IBM z/OS is being intensively used to run batch processes of enterprise-level applications for various in-house projects. We actively make use of a whole array of IBM z/OS middleware services ranging from DB2 relational database management systems to the CICS transaction processing servers. Additionally, various other suites of technology are interfaced with the z/OS for additional services access.
- Batch processing.
- Server reliability.
- Legacy interface can be a bit hard to get around in the beginning.
- Difficult to replicate work environment at home for practice.
August 06, 2019
IBM Z Review of Actual Experiences by Destiny Corporation
IBM Z is used across many functions of the organizations we support. It handles transactional processes such as billing, CRM, claims, and other types of data entry functions. In addition, it is used for advanced analytics when the data is stored in databases and data warehouses that support this style of processing. It is also an extremely secure platform as both Z and Z Linux are not standard targets for hackers. Even their design offers no single admin user ID. As Donna Dillenberger of IBM Research said in a recent presentation 'We know better'.
- Transactional processing, including data entry across multiple departments
- Reporting on massive amounts of data, due to its scale and size of processing capabilities
- Analytics on data as there are various accelerators for both IBM's databases and others such as Oracle
- Security is another major benefit to this platform as it contains a non-open systems design
- It would be good if IBM could demonstrate more use cases for Z to potential clients
- A migration strategy from Open Systems to Z would be helpful
- Any additional marketing to could explain the benefits of Z/Linux, especially now that RedHat is in the mix.
May 24, 2019
IBM Z - Fast, Reliable and Secure.
IBM Z is used throughout the mainframe department. It addresses the availability, reliability and performance need for this ever-changing IT technology.
- Reliability - the IBM Z platform is very reliable and can handle millions of transactions without suffering performance.
- No comment
May 06, 2019
Z Review from Spring 2019 TechU
IBM Z is our enterprise system housing 90% of our data and does all of out back end processing. We execute 45 million CICS transactions and 24 million CICS transactions daily.
- Reliable - We have an SLA with our customers of 99% availability
- Scalable - IBM Z is the most scalable processors available. In January we had an unanticate 45% CICS transaction growth with on demand availablity we were quickly able to deal with this growth.
- Data Sharing and SYSPlex across LPARS with DB2 and IMS accommodates multiple jobs requiring simultaneous access and updates
- Improvements in CICS CPSM usability
- Reduce the cost - it is a very expensive platform with costs that are very easy see
- App dev improvements it is very difficult to implement lean processes on the platform
May 02, 2019
IBM Z and Storage Technology
IBM Z Mainframes are used to support z/OS and z/VM operating systems on a minute to minute basis.
These operating systems support critical applications and infrastructure to support front line business needs such as Claims Processing, Web Applications, DB2, CICS Transactions, and IMS Databases.
These operating systems support critical applications and infrastructure to support front line business needs such as Claims Processing, Web Applications, DB2, CICS Transactions, and IMS Databases.
- IBM Z Technology supports the critical Infrastructure needed for reliable Data Centers to support business needs.
- IBM Z Mainframe Technology is used worldwide for the amount of MIPS (Millions of Instructions Per Second) and processing power/data handled by this equipment.
- IBM Z Storage is Infrastructure that supports large amounts of critical data. (Direct Access Storage Devices, Virtual Tape Subsystems, and Physical back-end Tape)
- More access methods from a Management GUI Interface to help support on-site IBM SSR's perform job duties. IBM SSR's log into one or more IBM TSSC's (Management Interface for IBM personnel) to support Support Infrastructure needs such as: enabling AOS, offline of a back-end TS11** tape drive or Downloading VTD Exec's which could be critical fixes released from support seen in the field.
- More detailed/extensive lab testing before Ficon Host Adapters or ETH cards are released to new equipment sold in the field. We experienced multiple disruptive "Ficon Panics" within the recently purchased TS7760 Technology that had 16Gb Ficon cards behind a z14 mainframe with 16Gb Ficon cards. This turned out to be the following: shortage of data descriptors, block sizing, related to EEH or CAD code and we had an IBM TS7700 Architect come on-site and explain that a fix was made in the 8Gb Ficon cards that wasn't brought over into the 16GB Ficon cards. We've had to remove twenty 16Gb Ficon cards from seven TS7760's in our environment and replace with 8Gb Ficon cards until IBM Development release's VTD Exec's and CMVC fixes before another implementation plan.
May 02, 2019
IBM Z - Nice
As a credit union, we use IBM Z for all online transactions and batch processing, including on-line web interface and mobile transactions.
- On-line CICS transactions
- Batch processing
- More graphical user interface for newer Sysprogs
May 02, 2019
IBM Z Series
IBM Z is our backend for all processes.
- I/O
- Security
- Access
May 02, 2019
My take on some of Z
It is being used across the whole organization to run batch jobs and do development modeling and run analytics.
- Batch processing
- Backend processing
- Resource management
- Ease of installation of some products
- Automation
- Monitoring of some internal subsystems like DB2
May 01, 2019
The Mighty Power of Z Enterprise
IBM Z servers run our entire business. The servers are used to process all of our client insurance claims.
- Processing speed
- Reliability
- Environmentals
- Mainframe marketing
- Educational offerings at college level
May 01, 2019
Znation
IBM Z is being used in the Managed Services department within my company. It provides services for financial institutions, airlines etc..
- IBM Z has the best security for data
- It operates 24/7
- It has zero downtime
- Implement a powerful tool for GUI so users can do more
May 01, 2019
z/OS is still the best.
Our company runs our credit card, debit card, and store card systems primarily on IBM Z. We do all thing credit, debit and store card for our clients. It is about 60% of revenue.
- Transaction processing. Nothing better than DB2 and Information Management System (IMS).
- The best security in the business world.
- Best place to store data for retrieval.
- More GUI interfaces into z/OS.
May 01, 2019
Mike Barone Review
IBM Z is being used as a test environment. Our TEC center gets equipment from manufacturers to show clients how the technology works. It is strictly for a non-production environment, as detailed by IBM. We are not able to do our own production work on the system, just use it to show customers how it works.
- Reliability.
- Security.
- Speed.
- Price.
- Interface.
- Ease of use.
April 30, 2019
IBM Z is the only way
My company uses IBM Z across the whole organization in the sense that most of our data is stored there. We have tons of applications that run on Z and we have developers who are trained on Z and support our business users.
- The processing power and speed that Z provides is unparalleled.
- The security of the data that resides on Z is unlike any other system.
- For application developers, Z can sometimes be hard to understand, especially for younger users.
- I'd like to see some type of built in support function for some of the products
February 22, 2019
Z enterprise stacks up against the competition
IBM Z Enterprise is being used across our whole organization and has solved business problems in many server issues that would require continuous maintenance support
- It handles large amounts of data easily
- No maintenance required to uphold
- Ease of deployment and use
- Access to multiple admin
- Giving permissions
- Space to fix issues
IBM Z Series Enterprise Servers provide the power and reliability needed for the largest organizations to drive large numbers of transactions and gain insight from their data. If you are looking for a platform with high availability that can scale on demand and deliver performance with optimal security, these things are second nature to mainframe computer systems and applications.
The mainframes I have worked on are typically used across the whole organization to address the enterprise business needs of the organization. They run multiple applications for multiple business lines.
The mainframes I have worked on are typically used across the whole organization to address the enterprise business needs of the organization. They run multiple applications for multiple business lines.
- Security is a specific strength of the Z platform. The IBM z14 provides Pervasive Encryption, making the platform one of the most secure hardware offerings available. Specialized cryptographic hardware is utilized to encrypt data and protect encryption keys, enabled through integration with a tamper-responding cryptographic HSM. The IBM z14 pervasively protects all application and database data, without interrupting business applications and operations, all the time, at any scale. True end-to-end data protection is provided for all in-flight network data and APIs. Imagine being able to protect all your data and applications without requiring IT or programmer action. With the z14 this becomes reality instead of imagination.
- IBM offers flexible pricing options to make it easier for customers to affordably adopt and utilize the Z enterprise servers for any type of workload that needs to be run. For example, with Container Pricing, customers can identify workload to containers and pay for them independently of any other workload at a reduced price. Container Pricing is an important breakthrough for mainframe customers because it offers competitive economics versus alternative platforms such as public clouds and on-premises x86 servers.
- The IBM z14 delivers high-end processing power and enhanced I/O capabilities. The latest model, the z14, offers increases in the performance of the individual PUs (processor units), increases in the number of PUs per system, a redesigned system cache, and an increase in the amount of memory possible.
- The system is capable of running more than 12 billion encrypted transactions per day on a single system. And the IBM z14 delivers industry leading scale to meet the needs of modern connected workloads. It can run a million Docker containers on single platform.
- The mainframe and z/OS have a long history of providing critical business value with transaction processing systems like CICS and IMS. And the transactions processed by these systems are often backed by DB2 and IMS databases. The applications and databases hosted on mainframe systems provide a rich tapestry of useful information that mobile users want to access.
- And mobile devices can connect to the System z platform consistently and effectively. With z/OS Connect the mainframe can use a single interface on z/OS that accepts standard mobile protocols and formats that can interact with multiple systems on the mainframe.
- The Z platform provides a superior platform for analytics & machine learning for continuous intelligence across the enterprise. The Machine Learning on Z platform, delivered in 2017, offers an agile machine learning solution that enables customers to convert enterprise data into opportunity. With machine learning on an IBM z14 you can optimize your decision processes by quickly training, deploying and continuously monitoring a high volume of high quality predictive behavioral models. The IBM z14 can also rapidly analyze large volumes of data with consistent response times by exploiting the additional memory and faster processors of the z14.
- Modern development techniqes and languages can be used, in addition to legacy systems. And Linux can be run on enterprise Z servers just as easily as z/OS.
- And the platform excels at traditional, transactional workloads, both online and in batch, using database systems, flat files, or VSAM.
- IBM needs to add more focus on simplifying mainframe usage and management.
- Most modern programmers interface with the Z using an IDE. However, performing many tasks, such as cataloging a data set or checking on a job status, can require switching to the ISPF interface. Users want to interface with a GUI, not a function-key, menu and character-based interface like ISPF. Anything that can simplify and modernize interfacing with the mainframe should be a high priority for IBM.
- The IBM Z platform is one of the most instrumented computing platforms in the world, so there are a lot of metrics that could be automatically analyzed and used to improve the performance and management of the mainframe environment.