There's lots of announcement news today, including z/OS 1.10, z/VM 5.4, and z/VSE 4.2. But I also want to draw your attention to IBM's announcement of its Solution Architecture for Financial Reporting (SAFR). I think this announcement is extremely important. You can get more information on SAFR by visiting:
http://www.ibm.com/systems/z/advantages/dataserving/solutions/safr and more information on data serving, data warehousing, and business intelligence solutions on System z by visiting: http://www.ibm.com/systems/zbi SAFR is a unique solution for high performance, high volume reporting and analysis over large quantities of transactional and other operational data. It solves many of the most challenging business intelligence problems businesses have, and it does so efficiently and securely. The core of SAFR relies on special algorithms that can aggregate multiple BI requests into a single pass of operational data. (For database geeks, among other things SAFR could well be the fastest and most efficient "join engine" ever invented.) SAFR operates directly on sequential file (disk or tape), VSAM, and DB2 for z/OS data sources, but extensions are available to feed almost any data source from any platform into SAFR for efficient processing. DB2 for z/OS is not required but is recommended as a repository for SAFR's metadata. (The other option is DB2 for Linux/UNIX/Windows, including DB2 for Linux on System z.) SAFR exploits recent System z technologies, including 64-bit z/Architecture and the System z Integrated Information Processor (zIIP). SAFR workloads, which are highly tuned for processor efficiency and SMP exploitation, typically demonstrate extremely high zIIP eligibility percentages. SAFR is available exclusively for z/OS and System z. SAFR's algorithms depend on System z's tremendous I/O performance and z/OS Workload Management (WLM). Many customers run SAFR at all hours, concurrently with OLTP. For those customers that do not currently have System z, options are available for either managed hosting or for near "turn-key" installations with rapid training. There are myriad advantages to SAFR, including the most efficient use of increasingly precious data center space, power, and cooling. (BI solutions are among the most demanding of costly server infrastructure. SAFR changes that.) Performance and efficiency are its hallmarks, enabling businesses to solve particularly challenging intelligence problems that would otherwise be difficult or impossible for other solutions. Reports and analysis are more accurate, timely, and "live," resulting in better (and more profitable) business decisions. The security advantages are clear: SAFR operates in the strongest security environment and does not force businesses to copy sensitive data elsewhere. (A basic security engineering principle is that information should not be spread more than necessary, and then only on a "need to know" basis. SAFR is most consistent with this core principle and helps businesses avoid costly security breaches.) Although the name suggests SAFR only operates on financial data, and obviously that is an important market, in fact SAFR applies to almost any industry with large quantities of operational data. SAFR also has close synergy with most business intelligence products, including IBM Cognos. I alluded previously to the fact that 2008 would be a big year for business intelligence on System z, and SAFR is another excellent example. Do check it out. - - - - - Timothy Sipples IBM Consulting Enterprise Software Architect Specializing in Software Architectures Related to System z Based in Tokyo, Serving IBM Japan and IBM Asia-Pacific E-Mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
