ZIIP - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

In IBM

IBM

International Business Machines Corporation or IBM is an American multinational technology and consulting corporation headquartered in Armonk, New York, United States. IBM manufactures and sells computer hardware and software, and it offers infrastructure, hosting and consulting services in areas...

System z9

IBM System z9 is a line of IBM mainframe. It was announced on July 25, 2005 and the first models were available on September 16, 2005. The System z9 also marks the end of the previously used eServer zSeries naming convention, and it is the last z/Architecture 1 machine.- Background :System z9 is a...

(and successor) mainframe

Mainframe computer

Mainframes are powerful computers used primarily by corporate and governmental organizations for critical applications, bulk data processing such as census, industry and consumer statistics, enterprise resource planning, and financial transaction processing.The term originally referred to the...

s, the System z Integrated Information Processor (zIIP) is a special purpose processor

Microprocessor

A microprocessor incorporates the functions of a computer's central processing unit on a single integrated circuit, or at most a few integrated circuits. It is a multipurpose, programmable device that accepts digital data as input, processes it according to instructions stored in its memory, and...

. It was initially introduced to relieve the general mainframe central processors (CPs) of specific DB2

IBM DB2

The IBM DB2 Enterprise Server Edition is a relational model database server developed by IBM. It primarily runs on Unix , Linux, IBM i , z/OS and Windows servers. DB2 also powers the different IBM InfoSphere Warehouse editions...

processing loads, but currently is used to offload other z/OS workloads as described below. The idea originated with previous special purpose processors, the zAAP and IFL

Integrated Facility for Linux

The Integrated Facility for Linux is an IBM mainframe processor dedicated to running the Linux operating system, with or without z/VM. IFLs are one of three types of IBM mainframe processors expressly designed to reduce software costs...

, which offload Java and Linux processing, respectively. A System z PU (processor unit) is "characterized" as one of these processor types, or as a CP (Central Processor), or SAP (Service Assist Processor). These processors do not contain microcode or hardware features that accelerate their designated workloads. Instead, by relieving the general CP of particular workloads, they often lead to a higher workload throughput at reduced license fees.

DB2 for z/OS

Z/OS

z/OS is a 64-bit operating system for mainframe computers, produced by IBM. It derives from and is the successor to OS/390, which in turn followed a string of MVS versions.Starting with earliest:*OS/VS2 Release 2 through Release 3.8...

V8 was the first application to exploit the zIIP, but now there are several IBM and non-IBM products and technologies that exploit zIIP. The zIIP requires a System z9 or newer mainframe. The z/OS 1.8 and DB2 9 for z/OS support zIIPs. IBM also offers PTFs

Program temporary fix

Program temporary fix is the standard IBM locution to designate a single bug fix, or group of fixes, distributed in a form ready to install for customers...

for z/OS 1.6, z/OS 1.7, and DB2 V8 to enable zIIP usage. (DB2 9 for z/OS is the first release of DB2 that has support built in.)

IBM publicly disclosed information about zIIP technology on January 24, 2006. The zIIP hardware (i.e. microcode, as the processors hardware does not currently differ from general purpose CPUs) became generally available in May, 2006. The z/OS and DB2 PTFs to take advantage of the zIIP hardware became generally available in late June, 2006.

zIIPs add lower cost capacity for four types of DB2 work:

Remote DRDA
DRDA
Distributed Relational Database Architecture is a database interoperability standard from The Open Group.DRDA describes the architecture for distributed data. It defines the rules for accessing the distributed data, but it does not provide the actual application programming interfaces to perform...

access via TCP/IP. This category includes JDBC and ODBC access to DB2, including access across LPAR
LPAR
A logical partition, commonly called an LPAR, is a subset of computer's hardware resources, virtualized as a separate computer. In effect, a physical machine can be partitioned into multiple logical partitions, each hosting a separate operating system....

s via Hipersocket
HiperSocket
HiperSockets is an IBM technology for high-speed communications between partitions on a server with a hypervisor. The term is most commonly associated with zSeries, System z9 and System z10 mainframes which can provide in-memory TCP/IP connections between and among LPARs running several different...

s, such as Linux on System z9. The exception is access to DB2 V8 stored procedures, which redirect a small portion of the work. DB2 9 native remote SQL procedures do use the zIIP.
Parallel query operations. DB2 9 can increase the amount of parallel processing and thus use the zIIP more.
XML parsing in DB2 can use zIIP processors or zAAP processors
Certain DB2 utilities processing.

Support for zIIPs

Although DB2 UDB

IBM DB2

for z/OS

Z/OS

was the first product released that exploited zIIP

ZIIP

In IBM System z9 mainframes, the System z Integrated Information Processor is a special purpose processor. It was initially introduced to relieve the general mainframe central processors of specific DB2 processing loads, but currently is used to offload other z/OS workloads as described below...

processors, it is not limited to just DB2

IBM DB2

or IBM

IBM

products. The zIIP

ZIIP

speciality CPU can also be used for IPSec processing in TCP/IP, certain general XML

XML

Extensible Markup Language is a set of rules for encoding documents in machine-readable form. It is defined in the XML 1.0 Specification produced by the W3C, and several other related specifications, all gratis open standards....

processing, and IBM

IBM

's Scalable Architecture for Financial Reporting. Third-party independent software vendor

Independent software vendor

Independent software vendor is a business term for companies specializing in making or selling software, designed for mass marketing or for niche markets...

s (ISVs) have introduced support for execution of their products on zIIPs.

They include CA (formerly Computer Associates), BMC Software

BMC Software

BMC Software, Inc. is a multinational corporation specializing in Business Service Management software, with record annual revenue in fiscal 2009 of $1.87 billion...

, GT Software, Inc.http://www.gtsoftware.com/, NEON Enterprise Software http://www.neon.com, Progress Software

Progress Software

Progress Software Corporation , formerly Data Language Corporation, is an American software company that sells business application infrastructure software. Its best known product is the OpenEdge ABL , which was developed in the early 1980s. The best known application written in Progress is...

and Phoenix Software International.

For example; the CA NetMaster Network Management for TCP/IP product can run both its main task and packet analyzer subtask on a zIIP

ZIIP

. Progress Software claims that their Shadow

Shadow

A shadow is an area where direct light from a light source cannot reach due to obstruction by an object. It occupies all of the space behind an opaque object with light in front of it. The cross section of a shadow is a two-dimensional silhouette, or reverse projection of the object blocking the...

server will allow 99% of the integration processing for Web services/SOA workloads and/or data queries to be diverted from the General Purpose Processor. Ivory Server for z/OS from
GT Software, Inc.http://www.gtsoftware.com/ provides zIIP

ZIIP

support for XML

XML

parsing, XML

XML

payload construction and data conversion processing. Additionally Ivory Server supports the zAAP processor using the optional IBM

IBM

z/OS

Z/OS

XML

Services and the IFL

Integrated Facility for Linux

processor with zLinux. Ivory Server and Ivory Studio (the Ivory IDE

Integrated development environment

An integrated development environment is a software application that provides comprehensive facilities to computer programmers for software development...

) provide options that allow clients to manage the workload offloaded to the zIIP

ZIIP

Specialty CPU from the GP CPU.

Commercial software developers, subject to certain qualification rules, may obtain technical details from IBM on how to take advantage of zIIP

ZIIP

under a Non-Disclosure Agreement

Non-disclosure agreement

A non-disclosure agreement , also known as a confidentiality agreement , confidential disclosure agreement , proprietary information agreement , or secrecy agreement, is a legal contract between at least two parties that outlines confidential material, knowledge, or information that the parties...

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.