Small, cheap, and powerful!

The birth of a new baby is always exciting, and on 6 February, IBM announced a new mainframe. It’s the IBM LinuxOne 4 Express, so it’s using Linux as its operating system rather than z/OS, and inside the pre-configured rack system is a 5.2GHz Telum processor – the same as runs in the Z16 mainframes.

All those sites that are running multiple Linux servers with multiple staff looking after them, might want to think again about what they are doing because, as I said, the new mainframe isn’t some massive box that needs lots of floor space to house, it’s rack-mounted. And the cost of one of these small but powerful boxes starts at $135,000, which is a very reasonable price in the world of mainframes.

And for those sites that are currently running multiple Linux boxes, IBM is suggesting that moving their Linux workloads from x86 servers to an IBM LinuxONE 4 Express box can save them over 52% on their total cost of ownership over five years. Consolidating the workloads on the new mainframe and off distributed systems gives users the benefits of a highly reliable environment with very small amounts of downtime. It also helps customers to simplify their IT environments. Customers also gain the ability to process large amounts of data using the two levels of physical and two levels of virtual cache, and it does that in an energy-efficient way.

The new mainframe can support hybrid cloud working and sites ramping up their AI usage. It also comes with mainframe-level security. It comes with up to 16 Integrated Facility for Linux (IFL) cores, and supports up to 864GB of memory. Of course, the Telum chips provide on-chip AI acceleration, which provides in-transaction inferencing needed for fraud detection, medical imaging, and insurance claims processing. For example, health insurance companies could analyse large volumes of medical records in near real time to validate process claims, increasing the speed of business decision making.

In terms of security, the IBM LinuxOne 4 Express comes with the IBM Secure Execution for Linux capability – a hardware-based security technology that is now built into IBM LinuxONE 4 Express. This scalable isolation protects workload data within virtual machine guests from unauthorized access or modification. In multi-workload environments where data in use could be vulnerable to insider attacks or credential compromise, this is definitely a must-have. And, obviously the workloads are protected from external attacks.

In these days when costs and security can mean the difference between a company staying in business or disappearing from the marketplace, the new IBM LinuxOne 4 Express gives small and medium-sized organizations a good option to choose. Hybrid cloud working is what most companies are doing or working towards, the new machine can handle that. Making greater use of generative and other AI modes of working is similarly on everyone’s radar these days. The new box can do that too. And it has mainframe security levels at its core. So, that means choosing the new box offers future facilities and security. In terms of cost, moving from any number of Linux boxes to a single centralized box will, as mentioned above, realize cost savings for a company. It will also give them better insight into what exactly is going on. Although the cost may seem steep to people unused to mainframe environments, taking a slightly longer look at the accounts should definitely lead to cost savings for any organization.

The IBM LinuxOne 4 Express is an exciting and interesting step for IBM to bring in new customers that previously might have ignored the mainframe world completely and believed the old myths about dinosaurs etc. It's small, it's cheap (relatively), and it's powerful, and I wish it every success.

The new IBM LinuxONE 4 Express will be generally available from IBM and certified business partners on 20 February.

20 years of iTech-Ed Ltd

2024 is a bit of a special year here at iTech-Ed Ltd. It was our 20th anniversary on 1 February. I thought you might be interested in some of the changes that have taken place in that time.

Before we set up iTech-Ed Ltd, I had worked for Xephon for 18 years. Xephon ran briefings on mainframe topics, ran surveys on mainframe topics, and created user guides to things like databases. In 1986, they decided to try a small publication by CICS professionals for CICS professionals. They called it CICS Update. It sold very well – remember there was no Google or Internet in those days, and it was difficult to easily get your hands on working bits of code and alternative solutions to common problems. VM Update followed in 1987, and then a whole range of mainframe-based publications. I was there at the very beginning and over the next 18 years edited most of them.

In 2004, Xephon sold the name and the publications to TCI publications. We set up iTech-Ed Ltd, and we got the contract to edit around five or six of these Updates each month. My first activity, at one minute after midnight on 1 February 2004, was to upload the new issues to the Web site.

Over the next three and half years, iTech-Ed was responsible for encouraging technical people to write articles, editing and checking them to produce each edition every month, paying contributors, and sending the publications to the printers and putting them on the Web site. A small team of experts checked the text for punctuation and grammar as well as technical accuracy.

At the same time, iTech-Ed was carrying out consultancy work and producing technical documentation that was used in-house by a number of well-known companies. And we also started blogging at Mainframe Update using Blogger and Mainframe World on IT Toolbox.

Towards the end of 2007, the Updates ceased publication, and the very first Virtual IMS user group meeting was held using Webex. The user group was immediately very popular and was sponsored by NEON Enterprise Software. That year also saw a growth in number of companies using our Web design and development services.

In 2008 the company took its first steps in offering advice on social media and how organizations could use it both to get their message out there and also to interact with customers in a positive way. I also qualified as a Microsoft Office Specialist Master Instructor – MOS MI – and ran a number of on-site training courses. And in 2010 I attended Microsoft SharePoint Administrator and Developer training.

iTech-Ed Ltd also started publishing the Arcati Mainframe Yearbook – the de facto reference work for mainframers. In 2024, Planet Mainframe took over the production and publication of the Yearbook, and the current edition is available here.

I was first made an IBM Champion in 2009 and have been a champion every year since. I have had numerous articles published in a variety of Web-based and printed publications, such as Enterprise Tech Journal, zJournal, Mainframe Executive, Technical Support, and others. I started blogging regularly on Destination z in July 2011, and now writes for TechChannel. He has also been a regular writer Planet Mainframe.

In 2011, Fundi Software took over as sponsor of the Virtual IMS user group and we then launched the Virtual CICS user group. Both of them enjoy regular meetings and newsletters and have over 600 members. In 2023, the Virtual Db2 user group was launched. I chaired and organized all three of these user groups until Planet Mainframe took over most of the heavy lifting.

Over recent years, we’ve published guest blogs, I’ve ghost written blogs for many other blog sites, and I’ve written articles for other sites including Experfy and the AIOps on IBM Z site. I also wrote for Spiceworks (which was Toolbox) for a number of years. And I’ve created podcasts for a number of different companies.

I’ve spoken at the Guide Share Europe (GSE) UK conference for a number of years, speaking about mainframe security and, more recently, artificial intelligence (AI). I’ve been awarded the IBM Z and LinuxOne Influencer badge over the past few years.

So, here we are – 2024. 20 years in business. If you want to get in contact with us, our website is itech-ed.com or you can email mailto:trevor@itech-ed.com. You can Like us on Facebook at fb.com/itech-ed, follow me on Twitter at @t_eddolls or Instagram at @t_eddolls, and Threads @t_eddolls. You can also connect on LinkedIn at linkedin.com/in/teddolls.