Unisys Announces New ClearPath Mainframes, Development Tools

Corrected: June 29, 2006

by Timothy Prickett Morgan

Server maker Unisys makes a lot of its money either directly or indirectly from its mainframe base, and just like IBM, it has to keep rolling out more powerful machines so customers can handle growing workloads. To that end, today Unisys is beefing up its two ClearPath mainframe lines with faster machines. The company is also rolling out a toolset created internally that can take high-level application models and kick out Java, .NET, and COBOL applications.

First, let's talk about the big iron. As anyone who runs COBOL applications knows, Unisys has two mainframes lines, one that hails from the Sperry portion of Unisys, and the other that comes from Burroughs. These platforms have unique processors and operating systems, but have been sold under a common platform named ClearPath for many years. The ClearPath Dorado machines run the new OS/2200 V11 operating system, while the ClearPath Libra machines run MCP V11. (MCP is also available in an emulated form on Windows-based ES7000 servers using Xeon processors, by the way, and the ClearPath mainframes also allow customers to plug Xeon boards into the mainframe backplane and partition them to support Windows and Linux, too.)

This week, Unisys is rolling out a new generation of CMOS mainframe engines for the ClearPath machines, which according to Colin Lacey, vice president of enterprise systems at Unisys, provide between 30 and 40 percent more aggregate processing power compared to the prior generation of ClearPath boxes.

The ClearPath Libra 680 server has 30 percent more MIPS than the Libra 585 box it replaces, and has an I/O subsystem that has 20 percent more oomph, too. The Libra machine uses dual-core CMOS mainframe engines, which is the first time that Unisys has deployed dual-core processors. The Libra machines can support up to 32 processor cores and MCP can span up to 16 processor cores in a single image. A 16-way image in a Libra 680 has about twice the performance, I/O connectivity, and main memory as a similar partition in the Libra 585 machine. The machine supports up to 256 GB of physical main memory, but because the Libra machine keeps 12 GB of reserve main memory per cell board, the maximum memory addressable by each of the two MCP images in a fully loaded box is 96 GB. The Libra 680 can be carved down into partitions at the core level, so in theory as many as 32 MCP instances could be run on a single box. The performance of the machine spans from 50 to 4,900 MIPS, with an entry configuration costing around $200,000 and a high-end configuration costing around $800,000. This price does not include systems software or peripherals. Unisys is also selling a version that comes with pay-per-use, meter-style pricing, called the Libra 690. Up to three four-processor Xeon boards can be added to the Libra 680 and 690 boxes, with each cell board being able to run Windows or Linux in a partition.

The Dorado 380 mainframes also scale to a maximum of 32 CMOS mainframe engines in a single frame, and the OS2200 operating system can span all those engines. A fully loaded Dorado 380 can run eight OS2200 images, each with four engines, if customers want to carve it up. A base Dorado 380 server has 1 GB of main memory per cell board, expandable to 4 GB per cell board, or a total of 32 GB per machine. Up to four of these machines can be configured in a shared cluster, which means up to 128 CMOS mainframe processors can be brought to bear on COBOL and other workloads. Unisys did not provide MIPS estimates for the Dorado 380, but said that it had more than twice the single-image performance of the Dorado 180, which was rated at 2,350 MIPS when it was announced in May 2003. Unisys says that an entry ClearPath Dorado 380 costs around $250,000, with a high-end configuration costing around $1,650,000. As was the case with the Libra boxes, Unisys is also selling a pay-per-use version of the machine, called the Dorado 390. The Dorado ClearPaths can support up to four partitions, with up to four Xeon processors each, running Linux or Windows instead of OS2200 on mainframe engines, if customers care to mix and match.

While new iron is always interesting, perhaps the most interesting part of the Unisys announcements this week is a tool called the Agile Business Suite. This is homegrown Unisys technology, and is in an application modeler and code generator that can spit out Java, .NET, or COBOL applications, which means application developers who work on Unisys' ClearPath mainframes and ES7000 X64 and Itanium boxes can craft applications once and have the ABS tool do the coding. "One of the challenges of the mainframe base today is skills," says Lacey, "and this tool addresses this issue." The ABS tool uses Microsoft's Visual Studio.NET application development tool as a front end, so companies familiar with this will be able to plug the ABS tools into Visual Studio and not have to bother with other COBOL compilers and tools when they choose to deploy an application on a Unisys mainframe. The new mainframe platforms, OS2200 V11 and MCP V11, support Java Enterprise Edition natively, by the way, so Java does not have to be run on Windows or Linux partitions.

Unisys also this week announced the ClearPath ePortal, which is an appliance that sits in front of the COBOL applications running on ClearPath Dorado or Libra mainframes and Web-enables those applications. Lacey says that by using the ePortal appliance, companies can reduce the deployment costs for Web-enabled mainframe applications by half.

The new ClearPath boxes also include systems software called Maximum Operations and System Trust, or MOST. This software uses policies set up by system administrators to automatically allocate server resources and take specific system actions based on those policies. The goal is to keep applications running within service level agreements and to reduce system downtime. The other goal is to cut down on administration staff by having the systems do as much of the work as possible to keep themselves running. While the system admins never like to hear such things, chief financial officers sure do.

This story has been corrected since it originally ran. We had said that the OS2200 operating system could only span up to eight engines in the new Dorado 380. OS2200 can, in fact, span up to 32 engines in a single system image, according to Unisys. IT Jungle regrets the error. [Corrected 06/29/06]

RELATED STORIES

NEC and Unisys Forge Deep Server and Services Alliance

IBM and Unisys Mainframe Roundup

Unisys Tweaks Its ClearPath Mainframes, Too