ATLANTA, Sept. 22, 2009 -- The IBM Virtual IMS Connection User Group webcast on Oct. 6 will spotlight mainframe integration with an address by Rob Morris, chief strategy officer for GT Software (www.gtsoftware.com). Morris’ presentation, “Mainframe Integration is Not a Strategy – Get your MIPS Back while Delivering Value Today,” will explain the effectiveness of running mainframe work on specialty engines, particularly IFL, the Integrated Facility for Linux.

 

Whether it’s mainframe integration for mobile banking, global stock trading and multi-channel financial service delivery, or web-portal integration, enterprises can accomplish mainframe integration on a project by project basis, without major licensing requirements or MIPS concerns, Morris asserted.

 

“No one can debate the relevance of the mainframe in the enterprise, but leveraging mainframe applications and data requires adding new tools and technologies,” said Morris. “The allure to use seemingly ‘free’ tools is powerful. But enterprises can't really afford to settle for sub-standard solutions that have hidden costs, limited capabilities, and also add MIPS to an environment that is already overtaxed.

 

“Budgetary concerns related to MIPS usage can be addressed by careful apportionment of workload,” added Morris. For example, GT Software’s Ivory product line supports deployment of mainframe Web services across a wide range of platforms, giving organizations broad flexibility in where they choose to house integration-related workload – including zLinux. Key benefits of this approach include the ability to shift workload off the mainframe, as well as the ability to leverage new mainframe MIPS-reducing hardware such as zIIP, zAAP, and IFL processors with zLinux.

 

With Ivory Service Architect providing native support for IFL, Ivory takes a near-zero footprint on any enterprise's z/OS CPU consumption by offloading all the SOA processing to IFL specialty processors.  

 

“It's mainframe integration without taxing the mainframe,” said Morris. “IFL is a dedicated special purpose processor for running Linux workloads on the mainframe. While the IFL has the same functionality of a general purpose System z processor, Ivory workload running on the IFL does not incur any increased CPU consumption.”

 

The business decision to leverage investments in a proven platform like IMS, during the new era of web services, is one that provides tangible results while delivering on strategic objectives, said Morris. “IMS users are loyal to this legendary database and transaction system, and for good reason. It provides an information foundation for countless strategic applications.”

 

Morris’ presentation takes place at 11:30 am (EDT). Registration and other information can be found at http://www.virtualims.com/.