Announcement Summary - April 03, 2012
Content of this summary is subject to change after the date of publication
Announcements by Letter Number
112-058 Machine installation policy change for all Installation by IBM Machines
212-070 IBM z/VSE V5.1 - Additional enhancements available
212-073 IBM InfoSphere Data Architect V8.1
912-062 Hardware withdrawal: IBM System Storage DS3500 1 TB SAS Large Form Factor (LFF) for DS3500
Promotions and Price Changes
Most recent US Promotion and Price Change announcement letters
Hardware Announcements
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At a glance
The Brocade 16 Gb Fibre Channel (FC) host bus adapters (HBAs) provide an ideal solution for all servers requiring high-speed data transfer in disk connectivity for data-backup, mission-critical applications. The HBAs provide support for SAS and SATA HDDs, SSDs, and tape drive configurations.
Features:
- End-to-end SAN solutions using 16 Gb PCIe HBA technology for System x® servers
- High-performance, highly available SANs
- Easy setup and integration into existing SAN configurations
Overview
The Brocade 16 Gb Fibre Channel (FC) host bus adapters (HBAs) for IBM System x are part of a family of high-performance FC HBA solutions. These HBAs deliver exceptional performance, enabling small and medium businesses to experience unsurpassed robustness and reliability for a wide spectrum of servers, storage, and SANs.
These adapters are based on a design that requires minimum user effort while delivering maximum user satisfaction. The wide adoption of installation or configuration wizards eliminates the complexity and intricacies of Fibre Channel SANs. Emphasis on ease of use at every step ensures a successful, enhanced experience. Default settings and auto-detect configuration (similar to those used with Microsoft™ Windows) provide more user guidance for dashboard functionality to get better results.
Both HBA solutions include easy-to-use software installation wizards that step you through the complete HBA installation for Windows with just a few mouse clicks.
In addition, each HBA includes a software utility for Windows and Linux SAN management for these adapters that is tailored specifically for small and medium business users. You can easily monitor and perform any necessary maintenance, including updating firmware.
These adapters broaden the IBM FC HBA portfolio for System x servers. These additions to the portfolio are offered in both single and dual-port PCI Express® HBAs.
Features include:
- 4 Gbps, 8 Gbps, or 16 Gbps (auto-negotiation)
- Persistent binding
- LUN masking
- 2,048 concurrent logins
- Up to 500,000 IOPS per port at 16 Gbps
With rigorous testing by IBM through the ServerProven® program, you can maintain a high degree of confidence that your System x server storage subsystem is compatible and functions reliably using these 16 Gb HBA adapters.
Warranty: One year parts only limited warranty1.
1 For information about the IBM Statement of Limited Warranty, visit
Alternatively, this information is available through your IBM representative or reseller. Copies are available upon request. With respect to on-site service, IBM sends a technician after attempting to diagnose and resolve the problem remotely.
Feature exchange
None
Key prerequisites
The 16 Gb FC HBA adapters can be used on supported System x servers with an available PCI Express expansion slot.
Planned availability date
April 23, 2012
112-058 Machine installation policy change for all Installation by IBM Machines
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Overview
IBM is making a general policy change regarding IBM Machines that require installation by IBM. For a machine (including without limitation an MES) that IBM is responsible to install, if the Machine is not made available for IBM to install within six months from shipment, installation will be subject to an IBM installation charge.
Planned availability date
April 3, 2012
Software Announcements
212-070 IBM z/VSE V5.1 - Additional enhancements available
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At a glance
In addition to function delivered at general availability, z/VSE® V5.1 adds value to CICS® TS, further exploits innovative zEnterprise™ technology, and extends the z/VSE connectivity options in heterogeneous environments.
z/VSE V5.1 enhancements include:
- Support for IBM® CICS Explorer® - "the new face of CICS Transaction Server for VSE/ESA".
- Fast Path to Linux™ on System z® (Linux Fast Path) in an LPAR environment.
- 64-bit input/output processing for applications.
- A z/VSE database connector to access various relational databases.
- IPv6/VSE V1.1 Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) support.
- VSE/POWER enhancement to ease job output handling.
- Support of IBM System Storage® Tape Controller 3592 Model C07.
These enhancements will be made available with PTFs for z/VSE V5.1.
z/VSE V5.1 is generally available since November 25, 2011.
For ordering, contact: Your IBM representative or an IBM Business Partner. For more information, contact the Americas Call Centers at 800-IBM-CALL (426-2255). Reference: LE001
Overview
In addition to function delivered at general availability of IBM z/VSE V5.1, you get supplemental enhancements that are designed to:
- Add value to CICS Transaction Sever for VSE/ESA (CICS TS) V1.1.
- Further exploit innovative IBM zEnterprise technology.
- Extend the z/VSE connectivity options in heterogeneous environments.
These supplemental enhancements fulfill the statement of direction in Software Announcement 211-118, dated April 12, 2011, and Software Announcement 211-466, dated October 12, 2011.
z/VSE V5.1 is available since November 25, 2011. For information on the content of z/VSE V5.1, refer to Software Announcement 211-466, dated October 12, 2011, or refer to the z/VSE website at
z/VSE V5.1 additional enhancements:
- Support for IBM CICS Explorer - "the new face of CICS Transaction
Server for VSE/ESA V1.1"
CICS Explorer V1.1 capabilities can now be used with CICS TS.
- The Fast Path to Linux on System z function (Linux Fast
Path) in a logical partition (LPAR) environment
Linux Fast Path was introduced with z/VSE V4.3 for use in a z/VM® guest environment. Now LPAR support is added, which is intended to extend the connectivity options for z/VSE clients. Linux Fast Path in an LPAR environment requires zEnterprise technology with the HiperSockets™ Completion Queue function.
- 64-bit input/output (I/O) processing for applications
64-bit virtual addressing for applications was introduced at general availability of z/VSE V5.1. z/VSE V5.1 enhancements add 64-bit I/O processing for applications. With 64-bit I/O processing, clients have the flexibility to also use 64-bit virtual storage for I/O buffers and thus benefit from increased processor storage available with the latest IBM System z servers.
- A z/VSE database
connector
This z/VSE database connector is designed to allow z/VSE applications to access a relational database on any suitable database server. It gives z/VSE clients more flexibility in selecting a database server that runs on a platform other than z/VSE. z/VSE applications can now utilize advanced database functions and use SQL statements provided by modern database products.
- IPv6/VSE V1.1 enhancements
IPv6/VSE now supports Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) for secure transmission of data to and from remote host systems. Protocols that are supported are HTTPS (HTTP over SSL), FTPS (FTP over SSL), SMTPS (SMTP over SSL), and TN3270E over SSL.
Key prerequisites
Refer to the Hardware requirements, Software requirements, and Planning information sections for details.
Planned availability date
June 15, 2012
212-073 IBM InfoSphere Data Architect V8.1
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At a glance
IBM InfoSphere® Data Architect V8.1 enhancements improve database support and usability for use in your enterprise through:
- Support for Netezza® 6.x including transformation from IBM Industry Models to Netezza physical data models
- Support for DB2® 10 for Linux, UNIX™, and Windows™ including time travel query and fine-grained access control features
- Support for IBM Rational Team Concert™ V3
- Building on Eclipse 3.6.2 to enable shell-sharing with current versions of IBM Rational® Software Architect, Rational Application Developer, and other Eclipse 3.6.2-based offerings
- Improved support for Sybase ASE to include user, group, and role privilege support and table locking scheme, as well as improved delta DDL support
- Enhancements in diagramming and compare and synch
For ordering, contact your IBM representative or an IBM Business Partner. For more information contact the Americas Call Centers at 800-IBM-CALL (426-2255).
Reference: YE001
Overview
IBM InfoSphere Data Architect is a powerful collaborative data design tool. With InfoSphere Data Architect, you can discover, model, visualize, relate, standardize, and integrate diverse and distributed data assets across your enterprise.
InfoSphere Data Architect provides the following features and benefits that help to:
- Simplify and speed up warehouse design, dimensional modeling, and change management by providing a tool to the warehouse data modelers and database administrators to design and manage your warehouse from an enterprise logical model.
- Reduce cost and enhance productivity by providing a tool to the service-oriented architecture (SOA), enterprise service business (ESB), or business intelligence (BI) architects, data modelers, and database administrators to enforce and implement your corporate data modeling standards and to reverse engineer and integrate existing models and data assets into an enterprise logical model.
- Reduce cost and enhance understanding of data assets across your enterprise by integrating InfoSphere Business Glossary with your data models.
- Reduce cost by enabling cross-lifecycle, cross-role, and cross-organizational collaboration that aligns process service, application, and data architecture by providing a tool that can be integrated and used together with Rational Software Architect, Rational Requisite Pro, WebSphere® Business Modeler Advanced, Cognos® Business Intelligence, Rational Application Developer, Data Studio, and integrated with InfoSphere Information Server by application architects, application developers, BI architects, database administrators, warehouse modelers, and warehouse database administrators.
- Simplify custom report generation through wizards that no longer require programming. This reduces cost and speeds up model management by automating and extending tasks through Eclipse Java™ pluglet support.
- Simplify deployment on Windows and Linux because the tool is built on Eclipse, a reliable and extensible platform for building, deploying, and managing software across the entire software lifecycle.
Key prerequisites
For details, refer to the Hardware requirements and Software requirements sections.
Planned availability date
April 30, 2012: Electronic availability
June 1, 2012: Media availability
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At a glance
IBM DB2 10.1 for Linux, UNIX, and Windows (LUW) reduces your overall database licensing, administration, and storage costs. DB2 10.1 for LUW offers:
- PL/SQL compatibility, integrated time-based analytics, and SPARQL support for new "no SQL" applications, helping to speed up application development
- Simplified administration and optimal use of your data storage resources with multi-temperature storage
- Extreme scalability and availability with DB2 pureScale®
- Adaptive compression, helping to lower storage
- Flexible definitions of role and data access control, helping you improve security
- A suite of complementary products to manage database performance, deployment, administration, monitoring, and availability that is included in the DB2 Advanced Enterprise Server Edition
For ordering, contact your IBM representative or an IBM Business Partner. For more information contact the Americas Call Centers at 800-IBM-CALL (426-2255).
Reference: YE001
Overview
IBM DB2 10.1 for Linux, UNIX, and Windows (LUW) delivers new capabilities that can help you save time and money. DB2 10.1 can help you reduce the complexity of management, improve the productivity of your developers and database administrators, ease the effort and expense of deploying new applications, and take advantage of query performance and compression improvements to help lower your overall data management cost.
DB2 10.1 LUW offers greater management efficiency. Multi-temperature storage helps you to leverage different types of storage to maximize performance at the lowest possible cost with integrated management of storage groups to migrate hot, warm, and cold data to the appropriate class of storage. New Row and Column Access Control provides you with easy and flexible rule and role definitions to manage and control data accesses for enhanced security and the building of multi-tenant applications. Continuous Data Ingest is designed to enable you to transparently load data from external sources into DB2 databases without downtime for integrated real-time analysis and decision making.
DB2 10.1 LUW includes the PL/SQL compatibility feature, which can help speed application development, and help reduce your time to market as well as costs. Time Travel Query is integrated into DB2 for easier and faster time-based analytics applications development. SPARQL support enables new types of "no SQL" applications development with Resource Definition Framework (RDF) data stores.
DB2 10.1 LUW is designed to deliver fast performance and high reliability for your enterprise. IBM DB2 pureScale leverages proven mainframe Sysplex technology to deliver extreme redundancy and scalability. Adaptive compression, the latest addition to DB2's industry-leading database compression technology, can help to further reduce your storage costs while at the same time improve performance. Enhanced query joins and optimizer enhancements increase query performance that can enable you to respond to complex business questions within seconds or less.
DB2 Advanced Enterprise Server Edition includes a full suite of products and features to help you manage your enterprise and help reduce your overall database software costs. DB2 10.1 Advanced Enterprise Server Edition also includes a comprehensive set of tools to help you develop, manage, and deploy databases with greater efficiency, performance, and availability.
High Availability Disaster Recovery (HADR) feature is included in all the for-purchase DB2 10.1 editions (Express, Workgroup Server, Enterprise Server, and Advanced Enterprise Server, Database Enterprise Developer).
The security features Label Based Access Control and the new Row and Column Access Control are also included in all the for-purchase DB2 10.1 editions (Express, Workgroup Server, Enterprise Server, and Advanced Enterprise Server, Database Enterprise Developer). These security features provide you with a robust and flexible set of rules and access controls to manage and help secure data accesses to help you control your security risks.
Key prerequisites
Refer to the Hardware requirements and Software requirements sections of this document.
Planned availability date
April 30, 2012: Electronic availability
June 11, 2012: Media availability
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At a glance
IBM DB2 Connect™ V10.1 includes:
- Enhancements to exploit the new capabilities in IBM DB2 10 for z/OS®
- High availability and performance enhancements
- Improved integration with IBM tools
- New driver capabilities, including improvements to ease migration from other vendor databases
- Ease of deployment
For ordering, contact your IBM representative or an IBM Business Partner. For more information contact the Americas Call Centers at 800-IBM-CALL (426-2255).
Reference: YE001
Overview
IBM DB2 Connect 10.1 delivers capabilities that exploit the latest features in IBM DB2 10 for z/OS and IBM DB2 for i 7.1, including performance enhancements, unsurpassed resiliency, temporal data management, and simplified deployment. DB2 Connect 10.1 is designed to leverage your enterprise information -- no matter where it is stored. For those enterprises that have made DB2 for z/OS and DB2 for i servers the cornerstone of their agile business, DB2 Connect provides application enablement and a robust, highly scalable communications infrastructure for connecting web, Windows, UNIX, and Linux applications to data.
IBM DB2 Connect 10.1 Application Server Advanced Edition and IBM DB2 Connect 10.1 Unlimited Advanced Edition for System z enhance IT staff's ability to depend on the stability and reliability of existing DB2 server investments, leverage the flexibility and ease of new programming languages and tools, and support efforts to increase the performance and security of database applications. Using the IBM pureQuery technology that is included in the advanced editions of DB2 Connect allows you to boost the SQL performance of your data server while helping to protect your data from SQL injection attacks and other types of database application security risks. In addition, key performance metrics and correlation metadata can be captured and displayed within IBM Data Studio.
IBM DB2 Connect 10.1 includes IBM Data Studio V3.1.1, a comprehensive product for application development and database administration. IBM Data Studio helps database developers and administrators manage, administer, and develop heterogeneous database environments for increased productivity.
DB2 Connect is the industry-leading solution integrating System z, IBM i, and other enterprise data with client/server, web, and service-oriented architecture (SOA) applications. DB2 Connect 10.1 delivers significant feature enhancements to improve programmer productivity, provide a more robust infrastructure, and enable the flexible deployment of DB2 Connect technology.
An enhanced set of application development tools simplifies database application development and eases application deployment that includes new Developer Workbench and enhanced functionality for Visual Studio 2010. DB2 Connect 10.1 introduces a unified debugger, rapid application deployment with a lightweight runtime client, and many other features that allow you to save time and develop applications that work across different DB2 data servers. Also, significant enhancements to the IBM DB2 Driver for JDBC and SQLJ keep developers on the leading edge of Java technology. Improvements to DB2 Connect 10.1 federation capabilities simplify the programming challenge by adding support for two-phase commit capabilities for multivendor data sources.
Reduce administration costs with advances in performance, manageability, and installation
With features such as server-based license activation in Unlimited Editions for System z, nonadministrator installation on Windows, response file installation enhancements, and support for coexistence of multiple copies of the DB2 database system, DB2 Connect 10.1 allows your IT staff to spend more time supporting your business needs instead of installing and deploying database systems.
Key prerequisites
Refer to the Hardware requirements and Software requirements sections of this announcement.
Planned availability date
April 30, 2012: Electronic availability
June 11, 2012: Media availability
PDF
At a glance
IBM InfoSphere Warehouse V10.1 makes it easier for you to develop your business analytics solutions, helps speed your warehouse deployment and management, and helps reduce your overall licensing, administration, and storage costs. InfoSphere Warehouse V10.1 offers:
- Simplified administration and optimal use of you data storage resources with multi-temperature storage
- Adaptive compression, helping to lower storage costs
- Real-time analytics with enhanced zigzag join and continuous data ingest, helping improve performance
- Flexible definitions of role and data access control, helping you improve security
- PL/SQL compatibility, integrated time-based analytics, and SPARQL support for new no SQL applications, helping speed application development
- A suite of complementary products to manage data warehouse performance, deployment, administration, monitoring, and workload management that is included in InfoSphere Warehouse Advanced Enterprise Edition
For ordering, contact your IBM representative or an IBM Business Partner. For more information contact the Americas Call Centers at 800-IBM-CALL (426-2255).
Reference: YE001
Overview
Businesses must address challenges and work to achieve on-demand access to insight. Some of these challenges include bottlenecks in capturing and loading operational data that slow the ability for businesses to react in a timely manner as well as performance overheads in handling heavy workloads and complex queries for analytics processing. If they succeed in addressing the challenges, businesses can target smaller customer segments and communicate with them about their individual needs and wants, while driving new market opportunities within the current business landscape. They can identify and capitalize on even the smallest trends, attaining competitive advantages normally only realized by more flexible and dynamic smaller businesses. They can detect small behavior patterns that can have a significant influence and impact on the business in terms of revenue, expenses, and growth. Most important, they can build competitive strategies around data-driven insights and, in the end, generate impressive business results.
InfoSphere Warehouse V10.1 can help you to reduce the complexity of data warehouse management, accelerate business decisions, ease the effort and expense of deploying new functionality, and take advantage of performance and compression improvements to help lower your overall data warehouse cost and increase warehouse management efficiency.
InfoSphere Warehouse Advanced Enterprise Edition V10.1 includes the additional tooling functionality to manage large scale warehouse deployments with additional performance, administration, backup, unload, recovery, and development tooling. In addition, all InfoSphere Warehouse Advanced Editions in the InfoSphere Warehouse Packs deliver the industry models and IBM Cognos reports to easily deploy a warehouse environment for customer, market and campaign, and supply chain insight.
Continuous Data Ingest enables you to transparently load data from external sources into InfoSphere Warehouse databases without downtime, while currently performing real-time business analysis and decision making.
Time Travel Query is integrated into DB2 10 and InfoSphere Warehouse allowing for easier and faster time-based (historical trend based) analytics applications. Addition of zigzag join helps to significantly reduce the time for complex multi-dimension business queries. Enhanced query joins and optimizer enhancements help increase query performance of other analytic queries and reduce the need for additional indexes.
InfoSphere Warehouse delivers fast performance and high reliability for your enterprise. Adaptive compression, the latest addition to DB2's industry-leading database compression technology, can further help reduce your storage costs while at the same time help to improve performance (especially for large I/O bound warehouse applications and query workloads). Multi-temperature storage helps businesses to leverage different types of storage to maximize performance at the lowest possible cost with integrated management of storage groups to migrate data to the appropriate class of storage.
New Row-and-Column Access Control provides you with easy and flexible rule and role definitions to manage and control data accesses designed to help enhance security and simplify application development. These security features provide you with a robust and flexible set of rules and access controls to manage and help secure data accesses that help reduce your security risks.
InfoSphere Warehouse V10.1 includes PL/SQL compatibility features helping to reduce costs and time to market. SPARQL support enables new types of "no SQL" applications development with Resource Definition Framework (RDF) data stores. Time Travel Query support allows for developers to more easily develop and deploy historical based analytic solutions.
Key prerequisites
Refer to the Hardware requirements and Software requirements sections.
Planned availability date
April 30, 2012: Electronic availability
June 11, 2012: Media availability
PDF
At a glance
InfoSphere Data Replication V10.1.3 and InfoSphere Federation Server V10.1 offer a foundation for world-class heterogeneous data integration solutions to help you address your data integration needs.
- InfoSphere Data Replication V10.1.3 enables high-volume, low-latency movement of changed data for solutions that range from warehousing and business intelligence to high availability and active-active databases.
- InfoSphere Federation Server V10.1 offers data virtualization through a robust SQL interface and a full relational database engine designed for global optimization of data access. It helps you quickly prototype and implement solutions involving disparate databases.
When used together, InfoSphere Data Replication and InfoSphere Federation Server offer the flexibility of copying data that needs to be closer to end users while virtualizing access so that other data can remain in place.
For ordering, contact your IBM representative or an IBM Business Partner. For more information contact the Americas Call Centers at 800-IBM-CALL (426-2255) Reference:
IBM InfoSphere Data Replication YE001 IBM InfoSphere Federation Server YE001
Overview
InfoSphere Data Replication V10.1.3 delivers log capture support for Version 10 of InfoSphere Warehouse as well as DB2 for Linux, UNIX, and Windows in IBM data replication technologies. It also provides enhancements to Q Replication for use in DB2 and InfoSphere Warehouse business continuity solutions such as active-active databases, active-active warehousing, and time-delayed standbys for the management of source data corruption due to application errors.
These Q Replication enhancements are also available through Q Replication, shipped with InfoSphere Warehouse and DB2 for Linux, UNIX, and Windows.
InfoSphere Federation Server V10.1 delivers support for Version 10 of InfoSphere Warehouse and DB2 for Linux, UNIX, and Windows as well as improved support for data virtualization. Potential data virtualization enhancements can range from improved performance to increased usability and reduced cost of ownership.
Some of these potential improvements are also available in the Federation Server function found in Version 10.1 of InfoSphere Warehouse and DB2 for Linux, UNIX, and Windows.
Key prerequisites
Refer to the Hardware requirements and Software requirements sections.
Planned availability date
May 18, 2012: Electronic availability
June 11, 2012: Media availability
Withdrawal Announcements
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Overview
Effective July 6, 2012, IBM will withdraw the following service component from marketing. New orders and registrations will not be accepted for this offering after that date.
Note: This service component may not be available in your area.
Withdrawn service
Withdrawal from Withdrawal of
Service name marketing date support date
IBM Server Product Services July 6, 2012 July 6, 2012
for System z - IBM
Implementation Services
for System z - CustomPac
for z/OS
Replacement service
Withdrawn service Replacement service IBM Server Product Services IBM ServerPac (5751-CS9) or Shopz for System z - IBM with additional installation support Implementation Services via IBM Implementation Services for System z - CustomPac for System z (6948-75A) or System for z/OS z onsite daily assist (6948-M10)
Related CustomPac deliverables
Effective July 6, 2012, the following related CustomPac deliverables will no longer be available in geographies other than EMEA. Orders will be fulfilled only for EMEA after July 6, 2012.
Product Description 5751-CS4 SystemPac 5751-CS5 ProductPac 5751-CS7 RefreshPac
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Overview
Effective April 30, 2013, IBM will withdraw support from the following product releases licensed under the IBM International Program License Agreement:
Program
number VRM Program release name
5639-XXB 2.3.0 IBM System Storage ProtecTIER
Enterprise Edition V2.3
5639-XXP 2.3.0 IBM System Storage ProtecTIER
Appliance Edition V2.3
912-062 Hardware withdrawal: IBM System Storage DS3500 1 TB SAS Large Form Factor (LFF) for DS3500
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Overview
Effective June 02, 2012, IBM will withdraw from marketing the LFF 3.5-inch drive option, part number 49Y1876, feature code 5165.
On or after the effective date of withdrawal, you can no longer order this product directly from IBM.
For new orders, the customer requested arrival date (CRAD) can be no later than June 30, 2012. You can obtain the product on an as-available basis through IBM Business Partners and IBM Personal Computer Distributors.
If you have a continuing need for this machine/model type, visit the IBM Certified Used website to check on availability or utilize request a quote to communicate your specific requirements. IBM Certified Used Equipment™ has the largest inventory of used IBM systems that are refurbished, tested, and warranted for a minimum of 90 days. For further information, visit
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