z/OS Communications Server

On April 18, 2007, IBM previewed an enhancement to the z/OS Communications Server that allows the IPsec processing to take advantage of the IBM System z9 Integrated Information Processor (zIIP).

IPSec is an open networking standard used to create highly secure connections between two points in an enterprise - this may be server-to-server, or server to network device, as long as they support the IPSec standard. Using IPSec to provide end-to-end encryption helps provide a highly secure exchange of network traffic, and can help satisfy regulatory requirements.

The zIIP, in effect, will be a high-speed IPSec protocol processing engine that is designed to provide better price performance for IPSec processing.

We plan to make this function available in August 2007 with a PTF for z/OS V1.8.

For help with workload sizing and capacity planning for this capability, you can use our new paper, z/OS IP Network Security: Capacity Planning for zIIP Assisted IPSec.