IBM released its new Z mainframe, the company's most substantial hardware overhaul in more than 15 years. The company developed the system by consulting 150 enterprise clients, all of whom ranked encr
IBM released its new Z mainframe, the company's most substantial hardware overhaul in more than 15 years. The company developed the system by consulting 150 enterprise clients, all of whom ranked encryption and data breaches as their top concerns.
The Z architecture encrypts data across applications, cloud services, and databases without requiring code modifications or affecting system performance. In 2016, attackers compromised more than 4 billion data records, a 556% jump from 2015. Over the past five years, criminals have stolen or exposed more than 9 billion records in total. Just 4% of those records were encrypted, leaving the rest accessible to organized crime networks, state actors, and employees with unauthorized access.
"The vast majority of stolen or leaked data today is in the open and easy to use because encryption has been very difficult and expensive to do at scale," said Ross Mauri, general manager of IBM Z. "We created a data protection engine for the cloud era to have a significant and immediate impact on global data security."
The Z includes IBM's fastest microprocessor. Compared to the previous z13 generation, the system delivers 35% greater capacity and can handle more than 12 billion encrypted transactions per day on a single machine.
As blockchain applications expand into enterprise operations, IBM brought the Z to its cloud infrastructure. The system serves as an encryption engine for cloud services and supports IBM Blockchain services. IBM Blockchain is a suite of cloud services designed for enterprises to create and manage blockchain networks. Blockchain services in Dallas, London, Frankfurt, Sao Paulo, Tokyo, and Toronto operate on the new Z architecture.
"The powerful combination of IBM Z encryption and secure containers differentiates IBM Blockchain services on the cloud by supporting the trust models new blockchain networks require," said Marie Wieck, general manager of IBM Blockchain. "Enterprise clients also benefit from the ease of use making management transparent to the application and the user."
IBM also partnered with AngelHack to launch "Unchain the Frame," a global virtual hackathon offering more than $50,000 in prizes. Developers are invited to build applications using blockchain, open source tools, financial APIs, and machine learning on the Z platform.
