Because it previewed in March, IBM is ready to ship an AI-infused, hybrid-cloud oriented model of its z/OS mainframe working system.
Set for supply on Sept. 29, z/OS 3.1, the working system grows IBM’s AI portfolio to let prospects securely deploy AI purposes co-located with z/OS purposes and information, in addition to a wide range of new options comparable to container extensions for Pink Hat and Linux purposes that higher assist hybrid cloud purposes on the Huge Iron.
On this launch of the mainframe’s OS, AI assist is carried out in a function package deal referred to as AI System Companies for IBM z/OS model 1.1. that lets prospects construct an AI Framework that IBM says is designed to assist preliminary and future clever z/OS administration capabilities.
It contains assist for key AI lifecycle phases together with information ingestion, AI mannequin coaching, inferencing, AI mannequin high quality monitoring, and retraining providers, IBM says.
“AI System Companies is meant to supply a seamless and simplified set up, setup, and administration expertise of the AI-infused capabilities with out requiring further information science or AI abilities,” IBM wrote within the Announcement Letter detailing the brand new launch.  “It’s designed to pave the best way for AI use case suppliers that may harness the foundational AI capabilities to handle AI mannequin operationalization necessities, simplify the method to place future AI use instances to work, and speed up time to market.”
The AI System Companies package deal contains:
- A Information Assortment engine that delivers a typical method to ingest, filter, and gather IT information meant for use for AI mannequin coaching and to carry out inference. It parses and collects the uncooked IT information, and streams it to the info retailer, an AI Framework for IBM z/OS element that holds information to coach the AI fashions and information for use for inference functions, IBM wrote.
- An AI mannequin server that gives a set of capabilities used to operationalize AI fashions by use case suppliers. It focuses on coaching the prebuilt fashions or AI mannequin coaching purposes along with your information to take your information patterns into consideration, deploy the skilled mannequin, and apply inference and AI mannequin administration, together with mannequin high quality monitoring, retraining, and versioning capabilities. The AI mannequin server makes use of IBM Watson Machine Studying for z/OS Core version, IBM wrote.
- An AI-powered Workload Supervisor (WLM), designed to foretell upcoming batch workload and react accordingly to proactively optimize system assets.
Whereas supporting AI purposes is a core element of the z/OS technique (which runs on older /14 and z/15 fashions in addition to the brand new z/16) the working system additionally continues the cloud transformation assist of the mainframe, IBM said.
Using the mainframe to assist cloud environments is a rising development in keeping with {industry} watchers.
A current mainframe buyer survey by Aracti requested mainframe websites whether or not they function in a hybrid cloud surroundings that discovered 42% of respondents at present used their mainframe in a hybrid cloud surroundings (up from 21% final 12 months).
An additional 16% assume that they are going to run a hybrid cloud surroundings at a while sooner or later (down from 21% final 12 months).  Nonetheless not everybody desires to assist clouds on the Huge Iron. Some 42% of the websites surveyed (down from barely from 47% final 12 months) don’t use hybrid cloud and don’t have any plans to take action.
“z/OS 3.1 is designed for shoppers to leverage {industry} normal expertise to extend growth velocity and modernize their purposes with new environments and APIs to persistently construct, deploy, and handle workloads, each Linux and z/OS, throughout a hybrid cloud surroundings,” IBM wrote.
Alongside these traces z/OS 3.1 contains Container Extensions (zCX) and assist for zCX Basis for Pink Hat OpenShift enhancements designed for improved efficiency and safety, with new options and capabilities to assist NFS, HTTPS, IBM WebSphere Hybrid Version, and IBM Storage Fusion OpenShift Shared Persistent Storage, IBM wrote.
It additionally features a new bodily file system designed for z/OS UNIX utilities to offer clear entry to information in a safe and constant method, IBM said.
IBM has added different cloud-related providers. For instance, final 12 months IBM added IBM Z and Cloud Modernization Stack 2022, and Wazi as-a-Service that lets prospects extra simply develop and check mainframe purposes as-a-service in a public cloud surroundings.
IBM Z and Cloud Modernization Stack 2022.1.1 provides industry-standard instruments to modernize z/OS purposes on a pay-per-use foundation. For instance, the service contains assist for options together with:
z/OS Join, which makes use of a JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) interface to tie into and hyperlink with current purposes to make Z purposes and information a part of a hybrid cloud technique.
z/OS Cloud Dealer, which integrates z/OS-based providers and assets into Pink Hat OpenShift, which may let organizations create, modernize, deploy, and handle purposes, information, and infrastructure.
Developer assist for IBM Wazi, the cloud-native growth surroundings. A Wazi Sandbox lets builders construct and check z/OS software elements in a virtualized, containerized, self-service, private sandbox working on Pink Hat OpenShift that runs on x86 {hardware}.
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