Information Builders Delivers Support for IBM zIIP Chip
Enables Customers to Optimize Mainframe Environments
NEW YORK, NY (August 25, 2009) –
Information Builders, an independent leader in business intelligence (BI) solutions, today announced support for IBM System z/OS computer Integrated Information Processor (zIIP) in FOCUS 7.6.10 and WebFOCUS 7.7. Information Builder’s zIIP chip support represents the first and only BI platform optimized for the popular mainframe environment.
The zIIP chip was designed to handle BI workloads and other data intensive applications. Specialized mainframe processors like the zIIP allow users to offload work that might otherwise run on the mainframe’s general purpose chips.
“By extending support for the IBM zIIP, Information Builders is providing mainframe users a dramatic performance and cost advantage to expand their operations in the zIIP mainframe environment,” said Robert Hoey, general manager, Major Markets, Systems and Technology Group, IBM. “It represents the latest of many levels of support and interoperability Information Builders offers to IBM customers.”
For mainframe operations that need to drive greater value and performance, Information Builders has optimized FOCUS and WebFOCUS for the zIIP environment. The new versions perform the same mission-critical tasks, while maximizing processing power and reducing execution and response times, as well as delivering consistent application performance and solid customer service. By enabling efficient BI operations on the mainframe, Information Builders gives customers real-time, dynamic reporting with enough processing power to deliver large customer-facing applications, without incurring extra costs for setting up infrastructure or buying new machines or databases.
Leveraging the zIIP, Information Builders helps enhance mainframe operations of FOCUS and WebFOCUS by improving resource optimization to reduce latent workload demand, which the central processor can now absorb, and by stimulating visible performance improvement.
About 80 percent of the new FOCUS and WebFOCUS processing is zIIP-enabled, including computations, report formatting, aggregation, screening criteria, styling, and transaction processing. Information Builders’ new BI applications divert as much processing as possible to the zIIP, while monitoring and adjusting to optimize zIIP utilization. zIIP is accessible to mainframe FOCUS as of release 7.6 and WebFOCUS 7.7, available in the third and fourth quarters of 2009, respectively.
“Information Builders is dedicated to helping customers enhance value and optimize their BI deployments,” said Information Builders founder and CEO Gerald Cohen. “By extending FOCUS and Web FOCUS to support the zIIP chip, we have dramatically recalculated the economics of mainframe business intelligence. Finally, business intelligence applications can leverage the genius of the zIIP environment without compromising accessibility or performance.”
About Information Builders
Information Builders’ award-winning combination of business intelligence and enterprise integration software has been providing innovative solutions to more than 12,000 customers for the past 30 years. WebFOCUS is one of the world’s most widely utilized business intelligence platform. It provides the security, scalability and flexibility needed at every level of global extended enterprises. Its simplicity helps create executive, analytical, and operational applications that reach dozens to millions of users. Information Builders’ iWay Software suite provides state of the art, multi-purpose, pre-built integration components that address all SOA, application, data and information management requirements. Its integration adapters have been adopted by the leading software platform providers. Information Builders also offers solutions in the performance management, business activity monitoring, and enterprise search markets. The company’s comprehensive enterprise product offerings give Information Builders’ customers the ability to grow and innovate according to their needs.
Information Builders’ customers include most of the Fortune 100 and U.S. federal government agencies. Headquartered in New York City with 90 offices worldwide, the company employs 1,450 people and has more than 350 business partners. More information is available at http://www.informationbuilders.com.
Source: Information Builders