Today IBM Corp. officially announced its z13s mainframe with speedy encryption, cyber analytics, and other security innovations which are baked into the new machine. Call it a cyberframe and watch the CIOs come running.

Big Blue spent 5 years and one billion dollars developing the z13 mainframe which was introduced last year for large customers. IBM IBM -1.84% describes it as the most sophisticated computer system ever built. Now they’ve added an ‘s’ to the end, for security.

The z13 can process 2.5 billion transactions a day, or the equivalent of 100 Cyber Mondays every day, based on results from IBM internal lab measurements. The z13s has advanced cryptography features built into the hardware that allow it to encrypt and decrypt data twice as fast as previous generations, protecting information without compromising performance.

“With the z13s, IBM is enabling mid-market clients to encrypt their entire business – from an order placed by a customer on a mobile phone, to the financial transactions processed in their data center,” said Caleb Barlow, vice president, IBM Security. “The key is that IBM is delivering encryption without any loss in system performance. It is lock-down security across the growing use of hybrid clouds to manage very high-volume transactions.”

IBM also is offering a new cybersecurity analytics service to z Systems customers that can help identify malicious activity by learning user behavior over time. The software comes from its IBM Security business unit.

“Fast and secure transaction processing is core to the IBM mainframe, helping clients grow their digital business in a hybrid cloud environment,” said Tom Rosamilia, senior vice president, IBM Systems. “With the new IBM z13s, clients no longer have to choose between security and performance. This speed of secure transactions, coupled with new analytics technology helping to detect malicious activity and integrated IBM Security offerings, will help mid-sized clients grow their organization with peace of mind.

IBM Corp. reported another drop in revenue — the 15th straight quarter, although its fourth-quarter earnings were slightly better than Wall Street expected thanks to big strides made in ventures like cloud and analytics.

IBM Security grew 12% in 2015, and became a $2 billion business. This is the second straight year that IBM Security posted double-digit growth.

“The z13s is another example of IBM’s ongoing investment in security,” Barlow said. “It represents innovative security technology at every level – from system and processor design to software. IBM continues to build out its security capabilities to help our clients – from R&D, to technology, products and services.”

How much does a cybersecurity mainframe — a fully loaded z13s with cloud security, fraud detection and database security built-in — go for? IBM doesn’t publish list prices. “The z13s cost is half that of Public Cloud for comparable configurations and equivalent workloads”, according to an IBM spokesperson. Makes you wonder how many zeroes are on the price tag. Surely a well trained IBM sales executive will explain that you can’t put a price on peace of mind.

By: DocMemory
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