E-business - IBM gives S/390 the e-business edge

IBM last week added e-business enhancements to its S/390 mainframe which include high-level encryption support, XML recognition and extended high-speed networking capabilities.

IBM last week added e-business enhancements to its S/390 mainframe which include high-level encryption support, XML recognition and extended high-speed networking capabilities.

These features, included in Version 2.9 of OS/390, are part of an e-business push by IBM aimed at allowing users to reduce the number of servers required for e-commerce applications.

Mark Lillycrop, director of research at analysts Xephon, said: "IBM's focus is to improve web access and transactional access for e-commerce. It has improved the size, scalability and availability of its S/390 mainframe, which has a large base of legacy applications."

Jurgen Ley, head of IBM's S/390 programme, said demand for processing power was rising because of ERP, hardware consolidation, applications development - but most significantly due to e-business.

IBM aims to protect internet transactions with features such as pluggable cryptographic co-processor cards that added 2,048-bit RSA signature generation capability - the highest level of encryption allowed under US export rules.

Such levels of security are essential in e-commerce and banking and finance.

The addition of a shared hierarchical file system will allow up to 32 S/390 machines to update the same database.

Martin Brampton, chief analyst at Bloor Research, said the ability to link S/390s to access large farms of data is important in areas such as data warehouses and customer relationship management where vast quantities of data need to be processed.