In an effort to reduce the number of migrations off of the mainframe to other distributed platforms, particularly clustered Windows environments or Linux server farms, IBM introduced the notion of a “specialty engines”. In IBM-speak, a specialty engine is an additional processor, dedicated to a specific type of workload that functioned in the same way as the general purpose processor (GPP) yet had the benefit of not incurring MIPs related charges. These trends began in 2001 with the introduction of the IFL, and continued with the introduction of the zAAP and zIIP specialty processors.
IFL – the Integrated Facility for Linux (IFL) is dedicated to running Linux workloads on the mainframe. While the IFL has the functionality of a general purpose System z processor, Linux workload on the IFL does not incur any increased MIPs.
zAAP – the System z Application Assist is dedicated to running Java on the mainframe. The “free MIPs” for Java workloads is designed to promote the System z as a viable platform for Java. Beyond just Java workload, IBM allows XML parsing to run on the zAAP.
zIIP – the IBM System z Integrated Information Processor (IBM zIIP) was designed to run select DB2 workloads to reduce costs to the general purpose processor. One of the additional “allowable” types of workload is XML parsing.
This concept of “Free MIPs” has given IBM a lot of mileage to push the mainframe as a viable long-term platform for both existing and new workload, especially around SOA. Depending on your needs, one or more of these specialty engines can play a role in your mainframe integration effort, allowing you reduce or even eliminate the MIPs overhead that results from a heavy SOA workload. Ivory offers full support for all three specialty engines.
