The following are IBM United States Announcements as of September 5, 2017
- Power Systems™ delivers the extraordinary benefits of SAP HANA on Power® with new pricing features on Power E880C, E850C, and S824 servers
- IBM IMS Tools offer new and enhanced administration and database management solutions
- IBM Water Operations for Waternamics on Cloud helps enable water operators improve efficiency and deliver better services
- IBM Payments Pricing Solution for z/OS, V1.1 delivers a new per-payment pricing option for deployments of IBM Financial Transaction Manager for z/OS workloads
- IBM Db2 on Cloud enables larger database workloads on Bluemix® Dedicated private cloud infrastructure service, bringing public cloud service to private cloud clients
- Software withdrawal: IBM Cognos® Business Intelligence PowerPlay® selected part numbers
- Software support discontinuance: IBM WebSphere® Cast Iron® Hypervisor Edition - Replacements available
- Software withdrawal and support discontinuance: IBM Bluemix Local Containers and IBM Bluemix Dedicated Containers
Hardware Announcements
Power Systems™ delivers the extraordinary benefits of SAP HANA on Power® with new pricing features on Power E880C, E850C, and S824 servers
PDFAt a glance
New Power Systems pricing features deliver solution pricing for select processor and memory combinations across the following systems:
- Power E880C: 48 core at 4.02 GHz and 40 core at 4.19 GHz processors with a minimum of 4 TB and a maximum of 32 TB DDR4 system memory, starting at 75% minimum CPU and memory activations.
- Power E850C: 24 core at 3.65 GHz processor with a minimum of 1 TB and maximum 4 TB DDR4 memory, with 100% CPU and memory activation.
- Power S824: 24 core at 3.52 GHz system with a minimum of 512 GB and maximum of 2 TB of DDR4 memory.
Overview
As part of this exclusive HANA offering, new HANA pricing features are being offered on IBM Power E880C (9080-MHE), E850C (8408-44E), and S824 (8286-42A) servers, providing optimal pricing solely for SAP HANA on Power dedicated workloads. These features deliver an easier and more flexible transition to a SAP HANA solution at an excellent price. These HANA on Power pricing features are limited to SAP HANA on Power configurations and deployments only.
Key prerequisites
- The client must purchase an eligible minimum configuration for these servers.
- The client must purchase new or possess valid software license entitlements for SAP HANA to run on this server.
- The servers and features are to be dedicated to the SAP HANA workload, allowing a maximum of 25% allocated to AIX® for migration and HANA application dependency purposes.
- Proof of purchase of the software (for example, a copy of the invoice) must be provided to IBM on request.
Planned availability date
September 26, 2017
Software Announcements
IBM IMS Tools offer new and enhanced administration and database management solutions
At a glance
IBM® IMS™ Administration Tool for z/OS®, V1.1 provides an ISPF and web user interface for IMS administrators to:
- Report on IMS catalog space utilization and compare contents to ACB libs for easier management of the catalog environment
- View, add, and change IMS objects
- Generate task-based, error-free JCL for IBM IMS Tools utilities
- Use dynamic SQL to access IMS data using the IMS SPUFI interface
- Submit IMS Type 1 and Type 2 commands with store-forward capabilities and a comprehensive audit log
IBM IMS Database Solution Pack for z/OS, V2.2 is updated to include IMS Administration Tool, extending its current capabilities:
- High-performance utilities needed to reorganize and maintain IMS Full Function and High Availability Large Database (HALDB) databases, including unload, load, index building, and image copy tasks
- Online and conditional reorganization capabilities to keep IMS databases at maximum availability and avoid unnecessary database maintenance
- IT operational analytics data collected during all phases of IMS database administration and used extensively to allow IMS DBAs to proactively manage their IMS environment
Overview
IBM IMS Administration Tool for z/OS, V1.1 is a new offering that provides a comprehensive set of functions designed to ease the workload of today's IMS administrators. With this product, you can manage your IMS DBD and PSB resources, including the ability to view, add, and change IMS objects. For users implementing the IMS catalog, you can report on your IMS catalog space usage and compare its contents to your current ACB libs. You can also issue Type 1 and Type 2 IMS commands, generate simple, task-based JCL for all your IMS maintenance needs, and even use SQL statements to access your IMS data. Choose between an online web interface, via integration with the separately licensed IBM Management Console for IMS and DB2® for z/OS, V1.1 (5655-TAC), or a traditional ISPF interface.
IBM IMS Database Solution Pack for z/OS, V2.2 combines several sophisticated IMS database products into a single solution. With V2.2, IMS Database Solution Pack now contains the new IMS Administration Tool for z/OS, V1.1. In addition to the Administration Tool capabilities described above, this comprehensive solution provides both online and offline IMS database reorganization, support for IMS library maintenance, advanced capabilities to manage IMS HALDB databases, and the ability to check and repair database integrity and pointer errors.
These products complement the current portfolio of IBM IMS Tools and solutions. For more information about IMS Tools, visit the IMS Tools website.
Key prerequisites
IBM IMS Tools operate on any z Systems™ hardware configuration that supports the required software. Refer to the Hardware requirements and Software requirements sections for details.
Planned availability date
September 8, 2017
Refer to the Availability of national languages section for national language availability.
IBM Water Operations for Waternamics on Cloud helps enable water operators improve efficiency and deliver better services
At a glance
IBM Water Operations for Waternamics on Cloud provides both public sector and commercial water operations with intelligence into their assets and operations to help improve business value by leveraging advanced analytics and optimization. Water Operations for Waternamics on Cloud can help:
- Lower business risks by making water, waste water, and district heating operations proactive rather than reactive.
- Enhance quality of service to help improve customer satisfaction.
- Improve operational efficiency.
- Reduce capital expenditures.
- Increase revenue by increasing billed services and potentially support new revenue streams.
- Minimize commercial water losses as well as regulatory penalties.
- Minimize impacts on the environment by supporting water conservation, addressing sewer blockages and overflows, and optimizing treatment processes.
- Encourage sustainable behaviors.
Overview
Water operators face challenging situations because of aging infrastructures, shrinking budgets, declining resources (in quantity and quality), and increasing customer expectations and regulatory requirements. To act effectively, they must consider all segments of the water cycle and intervene where the most compelling impact exists. They must be able to handle the massive volumes of data generated by the existing operation and supervision systems and produce, in near real time, the requested performance indicators, insights, advice, and calls to action.
To successfully address these challenges, water utilities and water organizations must drastically change their approach to water management. In particular, they must:
- Consider the interactions among the various departments in the water management organization, rather than addressing each of them in an isolated manner.
- Make use of the huge amounts of structured and unstructured data generated by sensors, social media, metering infrastructures, and business applications, as well as break down the borders of compartmentalized IT systems.
- Move from classical (and expensive) brick-and-mortar approaches to innovative solutions that use advanced analytics and cognitive solutions to leverage the content of disparate data streams.
Developed by IBM in association with Veolia, Water Operations for Waternamics on Cloud delivers a comprehensive solution to the challenges faced in cities, utilities, and commercial enterprises of all sizes by helping operators make sense of the deluge of data they must cope with. It mines data for insights to help drive efficiencies, reduce costs, support better decision making, and improve customer service.
Water Operations for Waternamics on Cloud is designed to help:
- Deliver near real-time situational awareness of the operating environment, including water infrastructure, water resources, waste water, and district heating related data.
- Reduce costs of operations and maintenance.
- Minimize capital expenses by, for example, increasing the life span of assets and maximizing capacity.
- Improve customer service by supporting call centers, field services, and online services.
- Facilitate regulatory compliance by supporting the monitoring of relevant key performance indicators (KPIs), triggering necessary actions, and optimizing technical processes.
- Reduce customers' operational risk profiles.
- Empower and motivate workers by providing access to powerful tools and tailored information at their point of impact.
- Minimize impacts on the environment by supporting water conservation and optimizing treatment processes.
- Innovate water management practices and processes to enable new, potential revenue streams.
Key prerequisites
Water Operations for Waternamics on Cloud requires a workstation and an internet browser as specified in the Technical information section.
Planned availability date
September 7, 2017
Refer to the Availability of national languages section for national language availability.
IBM Payments Pricing Solution for z/OS, V1.1 delivers a new per-payment pricing option for deployments of IBM Financial Transaction Manager for z/OS workloads
Overview
The banking industry continues to undergo significant changes, particularly in the area of payments. Driven by the value that can be offered to their clients, there is an increasing adoption of instant payment systems. For the transaction to be truly instant, banks are required to make a dramatic shift in their payment processing, which includes inter-bank clearing and settlement, from batch to real-time transactions. These instant payment systems require:
- Fast, predictable response time
- Seamless scalability to accommodate unpredictable spikes in demand
- Continuous availability
- Highest levels of security
In addition to implementing Instant Payments, clients look to transform their overall payments architecture, with changes, such as a payments hub that are introduced, and also as replacement of existing payments engines. IBM Z hardware and the IBM z™ /OS operating system are built to satisfy all these client demands.
IBM Payments Pricing Solution for z/OS provides pricing flexibility for payments workloads on z/OS environments. This solution provides a new per-payment pricing option for deployments of programs running in support of IBM Financial Transaction Manager for z/OS (FTM). Payments Pricing Solution for z/OS enables operational cost to be tied directly to business value by basing the price of the solution on the number of production payments that are processed, rather than capacity that is used to process them.
This announcement partially satisfies the statement of direction for a software only per-payment solution that was made in Software Announcement 217-368, dated July 17, 2017.
Key prerequisites
Payments Pricing Solution for z/OS, V1.1 requires:
- FTM for z/OS
- One of the following IBM Z servers:
- z14
- z13™
- z13s
For additional details, refer to the Technical Information section.
Planned availability date
September 8, 2017
IBM Db2 on Cloud enables larger database workloads on Bluemix® Dedicated private cloud infrastructure service, bringing public cloud service to private cloud clients
At a glance
IBM Db2 on Cloud brings the following public cloud service benefits to private cloud clients:
- Provides private cloud clients with fully managed cloud database service
- Enables capacity optimization of up to 48 cores,1 TB RAM, and 11 TB storage systems
- Enables enterprises to move larger workloads into a fully private cloud infrastructure
Overview
IBM Db2 on Cloud (previously known as dashDB™ for Transactions) now offers larger database workloads on IBM Bluemix Dedicated private cloud infrastructure service. Previously available for Db2 on Cloud on the Bluemix public cloud, this new IBM Cloud Service enables sensitive industries using IBM's private cloud service to leverage a simplified database solution that is fully managed and designed for massive amounts of data.
IBM Db2 on Cloud is designed to provide private cloud clients with:
- An easy, problem-free way to run Db2. No setup is required and IBM handles maintenance and updates, such as backups and security.
- Optimized storage capacity of up to 48 cores, 1 TB of RAM, and 11 TB of storage space
- An easy-to-use web console for importing and running SQL and administrating the system.
- High availability plans that can minimize downtime. These plans offer a 99.99% uptime Service Level Agreement and rolling updates for security patches.
Note: Effective June 20, 2017, IBM dashDB for Transactions SaaS was renamed to IBM Db2 on Cloud, and IBM DB2 on Cloud was renamed to IBM Db2 Hosted. This announcement is applicable to the newly named IBM Db2 on Cloud and not to IBM Db2 Hosted, formerly named IBM DB2 on Cloud. For full details, see Software Announcement 217-363, dated July 18, 2017.
Key prerequisites
- Internet connection
- Supported browser
Planned availability date
September 5, 2017
Withdrawal Announcements
Software support discontinuance: IBM WebSphere® Cast Iron® Hypervisor Edition - Replacements available
Overview
Effective April 30, 2018, IBM will withdraw support for selected IBM WebSphere Cast Iron Hypervisor Editions and IBM WebSphere DataPower® Cast Iron Appliance XH40 appliance firmware licensed under the IBM International Program License Agreement:
| Program number | Program release name | VRM | Withdrawal from support date |
|---|---|---|---|
| 5725-C11 | IBM WebSphere Cast Iron Hypervisor Edition Standard | 6.3.x | April 30, 2018 |
| 5725-C11 | IBM WebSphere Cast Iron Hypervisor Edition Standard | 6.4.x | April 30, 2018 |
| 5725-C12 | IBM WebSphere Cast Iron Hypervisor Edition Enterprise | 6.3.x | April 30, 2018 |
| 5725-C12 | IBM WebSphere Cast Iron Hypervisor Edition Enterprise | 6.4.x | April 30, 2018 |
| 5765-W16 | WebSphere DataPower Cast Iron Appliance XH40 Standard Edition V6 OTC license | 6.3.x | April 30, 2018 |
| 5765-W16 | WebSphere DataPower Cast Iron Appliance XH40 Standard Edition V6 OTC license | 6.4.x | April 30, 2018 |
| 5765-W28 | WebSphere DataPower Cast Iron Appliance XH40 Enterprise Edition V6 OTC license | 6.3.x | April 30, 2018 |
| 5765-W28 | WebSphere DataPower Cast Iron Appliance XH40 Enterprise Edition V6 OTC license | 6.4.x | April 30, 2018 |
| 5765-W04 | WebSphere DataPower Cast Iron Appliance XH40 Enterprise Edition V6 Fixed term license | 6.3.x | April 30, 2018 |
| 5765-W04 | WebSphere DataPower Cast Iron Appliance XH40 Enterprise Edition V6 Fixed term license | 6.4.x | April 30, 2018 |
| 5765-CB9 | WebSphere DataPower Cast Iron Appliance XH40 Development Edition V6 Fixed term license | 6.3.x | April 30, 2018 |
| 5765-CB9 | WebSphere DataPower Cast Iron Appliance XH40 Development Edition V6 Fixed term license | 6.4.x | April 30, 2018 |
| 5765-W40 | WebSphere DataPower Cast Iron Appliance XH40 Development Edition V6 OTC license | 6.3.x | April 30, 2018 |
| 5765-W40 | WebSphere DataPower Cast Iron Appliance XH40 Development Edition V6 OTC license | 6.4.x | April 30, 2018 |
| 5765-W46 | WebSphere DataPower Cast Iron Appliance XH40 Development Edition Enterprise Perpetual License | 6.3.x | April 30, 2018 |
| 5765-W46 | WebSphere DataPower Cast Iron Appliance XH40 Development Edition Enterprise Perpetual License | 6.4.x | April 30, 2018 |
WebSphere Cast Iron Hypervisor Java™ 6 support
IBM highly recommends that you move to IBM Cast Iron Hypervisor Edition V7.5.1 or IBM App Connect Professional V7.5.2 and the latest Java SE version (Java SE 8) due to potential security risks on earlier releases of WebSphere Application Server and Java. IBM App Connect Professional provides the option to use Java SE 6, Java SE 7, or Java SE 8. IBM App Connect Professional includes Java and during the life-cycle of IBM App Connect Professional those packaged versions of Java may go out of support by Oracle. Once a Java SE release is no longer supported by Oracle then IBM will not be able to provide any code fixes for that specific Java release.
Security risks can come in the form of newly identified exposures that impact older versions of Java, and also updates from browser vendors that remove support for security standards that are no longer considered secure, such as SHA1. Current versions of WebSphere Application Server support multiple versions of Java SE. New releases of Java are added as they become available to enable you to stay current and reduce the risk of security exposures.
See Oracle support for details of when Oracle will discontinue support for specific Java versions.
If you are using WebSphere Cast Iron V6.3, V6.4 with Java SE 6, then there will no longer be support for the Java SE 6 version after October 2017.
Software withdrawal: IBM Cognos® Business Intelligence PowerPlay® selected part numbers
Software withdrawal and support discontinuance: IBM Bluemix Local Containers and IBM Bluemix Dedicated Containers
Product withdrawal
Effective on the dates shown, IBM will withdraw from marketing the following products as subscribed to under the applicable IBM agreement:
| Program number | Product name | Withdrawal date |
|---|---|---|
| 5725-Y18 | IBM Bluemix Local Supported Runtimes for Containers | December 5, 2017 |
| 5737-A37 | IBM Bluemix Local Containers | December 5, 2017 |
Although there is no direct replacement for the withdrawn product, IBM Bluemix Container Service offers solutions for:
- IBM Bluemix Local Supported Runtimes for Containers
- IBM Bluemix Local Containers
- IBM Bluemix Dedicated Supported Runtimes for Containers
- IBM Bluemix Dedicated Containers
use cases. Contact your IBM representative for details.
For more replacement information, see IBM Announces Kubernetes-based IBM Cloud private platform.
Access to these services will be discontinued effective June 20, 2018.
You will not have your service interrupted and will continue to receive support in accordance with the applicable IBM agreement.
For more information regarding IBM Bluemix Container Service, see IBM Cloud Bluemix.
More than ever, there is a demand for IT to deliver innovation. Your IBM i has been an essential part of your business operations for years. However, your organization may struggle to maintain the current system and implement new projects. The thousands of customers we've worked with and surveyed state that expectations regarding the digital footprint and vision of the company are not aligned with the current IT environment.
TRY the one package that solves all your document design and printing challenges on all your platforms. Produce bar code labels, electronic forms, ad hoc reports, and RFID tags – without programming! MarkMagic is the only document design and print solution that combines report writing, WYSIWYG label and forms design, and conditional printing in one integrated product. Make sure your data survives when catastrophe hits. Request your trial now! Request Now.
Forms of ransomware has been around for over 30 years, and with more and more organizations suffering attacks each year, it continues to endure. What has made ransomware such a durable threat and what is the best way to combat it? In order to prevent ransomware, organizations must first understand how it works.
Disaster protection is vital to every business. Yet, it often consists of patched together procedures that are prone to error. From automatic backups to data encryption to media management, Robot automates the routine (yet often complex) tasks of iSeries backup and recovery, saving you time and money and making the process safer and more reliable. Automate your backups with the Robot Backup and Recovery Solution. Key features include:
Business users want new applications now. Market and regulatory pressures require faster application updates and delivery into production. Your IBM i developers may be approaching retirement, and you see no sure way to fill their positions with experienced developers. In addition, you may be caught between maintaining your existing applications and the uncertainty of moving to something new.
IT managers hoping to find new IBM i talent are discovering that the pool of experienced RPG programmers and operators or administrators with intimate knowledge of the operating system and the applications that run on it is small. This begs the question: How will you manage the platform that supports such a big part of your business? This guide offers strategies and software suggestions to help you plan IT staffing and resources and smooth the transition after your AS/400 talent retires. Read on to learn:
LATEST COMMENTS
MC Press Online