PSI Adopts NEC Itanium Servers for Mainframe Clones
by Hesh Wiener

A SHARE conference, like the one in San Diego in mid-August, is where mainframe enthusiasts hear about Platform Solutions. The most recent presentation by the vendor of compatible mainframes had a familiar focus on technology and showcase customers. It also had a few stunners. For its large systems, PSI is changing hardware vendors from Hewlett-Packard to NEC. It is sharpening its focus on the range covered by z9 BC models. And it now has a user with a workload that is right in the heart of a key market: utility billing. READ MORE >

Top Mainframe Stories from Around the Web

(CNET) AMD's future "Bulldozer" processors are the latest examples of why the debate over CISC and RISC is not only alive and well, but also never-ending. Don't expect either CISC or RISC to fade into the pages of history anytime soon. Each has an important role to play and as the complexity of instruction sets continues to escalate, the processors will continue to be both CISC-like and RISC-like. READ MORE >

(Enterprise Systems) The payback isn't so sweet for most companies that have taken on service oriented architecture projects. At least that's the word from 63 percent of the participants in a survey initiated by Nucleus Research. READ MORE >

(DMReview) Under the category of "You Can't Take it With You," is the dilemma of enterprise data in legacy databases. It's there and quite accessible to applications running on the mainframe, but how many companies are stymied when it comes to integration strategies? Plenty, it would seem. READ MORE >

(zJournal) The promise of mainframe integration middleware is that it will provide appreciable performance enhancements while reducing hardware costs. If you are considering a services oriented architecture, you should understand what the specialty processors--the zIIPs and the zAAPs--bring to the project. READ MORE >

(Enterprise Systems) If you missed the early round of articles that examined the new security features in the upcoming z/OS version 1.9, here's another opportunity for you to learn about enhancements in the areas of network security policy management, Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) services, and the z/OS Integrated Cryptographic Facility (ICSF) that supports the PKCS #11 security standard. READ MORE >

Chats, Webinars, Seminars, Shows, and Other Happenings

See our full calendar of events at
http://www.itjungle.com/big/big-calendar.html

September 17-19 -- Las Vegas, Nevada - The Gartner Portals, Content & Collaboration Summit puts the focus on building, implementing, and managing portals; leveraging social networking for collaboration; and the challenges and pitfalls of enterprise content management projects. There will be 30 sessions within four separate tracks, peer networking, product demonstrations, and distinguished keynote speakers. LEARN MORE >

September 17-21 San Antonio, Texas - The IBM System z Conference and Expo presents sessions on topics such as virtualization, security, resiliency, workload management, and integration. More than 350 in-depth elective sessions will highlight IBM System z9 and zSeries and Systems Storage. The sessions are divided into the following focus areas: General Interest and Management, z/OS, z/VM, z/VSE and Linux. LEARN MORE >

October 8-11 -- Orlando, Florida - The IBM WebSphere Portal Technical Conference will feature the latest product upgrades and platform extensions for the popular middleware. Among the highlights will be an emphasis on faster deployment of composite applications, enhanced Web 2.0 support, simplified portal-based solutions, and increased integration with business processes. IBM product architects and developers, business partners, and customers will provide training, case studies, and best practices information. Certification testing will be available and a vendor expo will be included. LEARN MORE >

October 15-18 -- Dallas, Texas - More than 140 educational sessions, plus networking opportunities with IT managers, storage architects, and infrastructure professionals, and a vendor expo are combined at Storage Networking World, an event hosted by ComputerWorld. Guest speakers include Frank Abagnale, fraud and identity theft expert; James Onalfo, CIO of the New York City Police Department; Steve Fastook, Vice President of Technical and Commercial Operations at CNBC; Brian Cobb, Senior Vice President of Enterprise Systems Management at Fannie Mae, Parker Mabry, Senior Vice President and Manager of Network Systems Engineering at Morgan Keegan; and Joe Lacik, Senior Vice President, of Information Services at Aviall Services. LEARN MORE >

December 2-7 -- San Diego, California - The 33rd annual Computer Measurement Group conference, CMG2007, brings together data processing professionals interested in system evaluation to maximize performance measured in terms of response time, throughput, and through capacity management. Sessions are geared toward making enhancements to existing systems or designing new systems with the aim of providing adequate performance at a reasonable cost. The courses are divided into two groups. One group consists of platform agnostic sessions and provides attendees with basic knowledge that is independent of any specific hardware or operating system. The second group is platform specific specializing in operating systems such as z/OS, Windows, Unix and Linux. LEARN MORE >