The IBM z16 mainframe lives up to its reputation for delivering “zero downtime.”
The latest z16 server, introduced in April 2022, delivers nine nines—99.9999999%—of uptime and reliability. This is just over 30 milliseconds – 31.56 milliseconds to be precise – of per server annual downtime, according to the results of the ITIC 2023 Global Server Hardware, Server OS Reliability Survey.
ITIC’s 2023 Global Server Hardware, Server OS Reliability independent web-based survey polled nearly 1,900 corporations worldwide across over 30 vertical market segments on the reliability, performance and security of the leading mainstream on-premises and cloud-based servers from January through July 2023. To maintain objectivity, ITIC accepted no vendor sponsorship.
ITIC’s 2023 Global Server Hardware, Server OS Reliability survey also found that an 88% majority of the newest IBM Power10 server (shipping since September 2021) users say their organizations achieved eight nines—99.999999%—of uptime. This is 315 milliseconds of unplanned, per server, per annum outage time due to underlying system flaws or component failures. So, Power10 corporate enterprises spend just $7.18 per server/per year performing remediation due to unplanned server outages that occurred due to inherent flaws in the server hardware or component parts.
The IBM z16 and Power 10 server-specific uptime statistics were obtained by breaking out the results of more than 200 respondent organizations that deployed the z16 since it began shipping in April/May 2022. A 96% majority of these z16 enterprises say their businesses achieved nine
nines—99.9999999%—of server uptime. This is the equivalent of a near-imperceptible 31.56 milliseconds of per server annual downtime due to any inherent flaws in the server hardware and its various components (See Table 1).
An IBM spokesperson says that currently the IBM Z mainframe achieves an average of “eight nines” or 99.999999% reliability overall and that statistic includes the various versions (the z13, z14, z15 and z16) of its mainframe enterprise system. IBM has not yet reviewed ITIC’s independent survey data on the z16 results.
To put these statistics into perspective: The latest z16 corporate enterprises and their IT managers spend mere pennies per server/per year performing remediation activities due to unplanned per server outages that occurred due to inherent system failures.
This is the 15th consecutive year that the IBM Z and IBM Power Systems have dominated with the best across-the-board uptime reliability ratings among 18 mainstream distributions.
Additionally, the z16 customers say their firms experienced a 20% to 30% improvement in overall reliability, performance, response times and critical security metrics versus older iterations of the zSystems platforms.
Previous versions of the IBM Z mainframe—the z13, z14 and z15—always delivered best-in-class reliability. ITIC’s 2023 Global Reliability study found that the aggregate average results from all z13, z14 and z15 customers ranged between seven and eight nines of uptime depending on the version, age, server configurations and specific use cases.
There is an order of magnitude of that distinguishes the “nines” of uptime and reliability. For example, four nines of uptime—which is the current acceptable level of uptime for many mainstream businesses—equals 52.56 minutes of unplanned annual per server downtime. In contrast, five nines of uptime is the equivalent of just 5.26 minutes of unplanned annual per server downtime.
Meanwhile, the fault-tolerant levels of reliability – seven and eight nines, 99.99999% and 99.999999% represent 3.15 seconds and 315 milliseconds, respectively of unplanned per server annual outages due to server or component failures.
The z16: A Quantum Leap Forward in Reliability, Performance and Cloud Functionality
The IBM Z mainframes have always delivered best-in-class reliability, performance and security. However, the z16 quite literally takes a quantum leap forward by providing advanced capabilities like on-chip AI inferencing and quantum-safe computing.
The IBM z16 and Power10 servers also delivered the strongest server security, experiencing the fewest number of successful data breaches, the least amount of downtime due to security-related incidents and the fastest mean time to detection (MTTD). ITIC’s latest 2023 Global Server Hardware Security Survey found that 97% of IBM z16 enterprises were able to detect, isolate and shut down attempted data breaches immediately to within the first 10 minutes. Additionally, 92% of IBM Power10 customers detected and repelled attempted hacks immediately to within the first 10 minutes. An organization’s ability to identify and thwart security breaches, minimizes downtime, saves money and mitigates risk.
ITIC’s 2023 survey data found that 84% of respondent enterprises cited security issues as the top cause of unplanned downtime. And 67% of respondents cite human error as the cause of unplanned server and application outages. Human error encompasses everything from accidentally disconnecting a server, to misconfiguration issues and incompatibilities among disparate hardware and application and server OS software to failure to properly right size the server to adequately accommodate mission critical workloads.
Overall, the IBM z16 offers near perfect reliability and the most incredibly robust mainstream security available today.
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