1. An Energy, Memory, and Performance
Analysis Case Study on the Mainframe
Mike Buechele, John Rankin, Elisabeth Stahl IBM Systems and Technology Group
© 2009 IBM Corporation

2. Agenda
Why Energy Efficiency Benchmarking ?
Mainframe => Energy Efficiency
Server Consolidation, Virtualization, and TCO
The Case Study: Energy, Memory and Performance
Analysis
Conclusions
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3. My Summer Vacation 2009
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4. Grinnell Glacier, Glacier National Park, 1940 vs. 2004
Source: http://www.livescience.com/php/multimedia/imagegallery/igviewer.php?imgid=626&gid=42&index=0
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5. Science Panel Calls Global Warming ‘Unequivocal’
2007
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6. Why Energy Efficiency Benchmarking ?
– Historically, power was a seldom thought of commodity but due to
increased demands on power grids and municipal power systems
power can no longer be ignored.
– Metrics for power consumption of different components can help
build more balanced systems.
– Metrics provide the necessary data for high-level management
software, operating systems to make scheduling decisions and
power profiles for changes to compilers and operating systems.
– Power metrics are needed to anticipate and implement cooling
requirements in datacenters, determine operational costs and
balance performance with energy usage.
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7. Energy Efficient ?
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8. Mainframes and Energy Efficiency
The newest mainframe is more energy efficient than its predecessor.
The energy consumption per unit of capacity in mainframe servers has
decreased by a factor of sixteen since 1995.
Over the same time period, the floorspace occupancy per unit of capacity
has decreased by a factor of seventy-seven
The mainframe provides monitoring of energy consumption and tools for
building energy consumption trends that can be utilized for in-depth
analysis.
The mainframe can be a very smart platform
for the integration of energy efficiency and performance.
8 © 2009 IBM Corporation

9. Global CIO Study 2009
“CIOs also are continuing on the
path to dramatically lower energy
costs, with 76 percent undergoing or
planning virtualization projects”
Source:
http://www.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/28314.wss
9 © 2009 IBM Corporation

10. Server Consolidation and Virtualization
Server consolidation advantages:
Improved availability, reduced costs and complexity, and simplified
operations
Maximization of an organization’s return on investment in the data center
High levels of security and data integrity that are difficult to achieve in a
distributed environment
Server consolidation specifically exploiting virtualization can be a very
effective tool in helping to reduce energy costs.
By pooling, managing and optimizing IT resources across servers,
virtualized systems and storage can improve the economics and
operations of under-utilized IT assets, with the potential to decrease
energy needs and usage.
For a long time, mainframes by definition have been virtualized.
10 © 2009 IBM Corporation

11. The Total Cost of IT
• Hardware costs: Reducing the number of server, storage devices,
peripherals
• Software costs: Lowering software licensing and renewal costs, operating
systems, and supporting software
• Support staff: Reducing the number of human resources needed to
administer or manage the environment, as well as ongoing training costs
• Operational costs: Reducing costs of floor space, power consumption,
cooling systems
• “Hidden costs”: Costs associated with inconsistent or incompatible
hardware and supporting software, system failures, data loss, security
exposures, network costs
11 © 2009 IBM Corporation

12. Total Cost of Ownership (TCO)
TCO is a key financial measure that provides IT managers with estimates
of direct and indirect costs on technology investments to align IT
investment with organizational strategy.
TCO may be calculated over a three year period to achieve a cost that
reflects implementation of a system and over a shorter period for budgets
and planning.
TCO includes hardware, software, operational, networking, and support
costs. Major operational costs include electricity, cooling, and floor space.
Power and energy efficiency have begun to play a larger part in the TCO
calculation.
12 © 2009 IBM Corporation

13. The Case Study
Mainframe Memory
Large System Performance Reference Data
Power Estimation Tool
Power Efficiency Workload Analysis
Client Scenarios
Consolidation Calculations
Results
13 © 2009 IBM Corporation

14. The Case Study - z10 BC Memory Input
Memory can be obtained in increments of 4 GB up to a total size
of 32 GB. From 32 GB the increment size doubles to 8 GB until
120 GB. To accommodate workloads with higher memory
demands, the memory size of the z10 BC can now be increased
to 248 GB.
14 © 2009 IBM Corporation

15. The Case Study - Large System Performance
Reference (LSPR) Input
The IBM Large System Performance Reference (LSPR) ratios
represent IBM's assessment of relative processor capacity in an
unconstrained environment for the specific benchmark workloads
and system control programs specified in the tables.
15 http://www.ibm.com/systems/z/advantages/management/lspr/index.html © 2009 IBM Corporation

16. The Case Study - Power Estimation Tool Input
An estimate of the power consumption for the specified configuration
16 https://www.ibm.com/servers/resourcelink/hom03010.nsf/pages/powerestimationmain?OpenDocument&login 2009 IBM Corporation
©

17. Power Efficiency LSPR Rating per Kilowatt using
WASDB (WebSphere Application Server and Data Base) Workload
WASDB Power Efficie ncy Sca tte rplot
4
3
LSPR r ating / KW
2
1
0
0 10 20 30 40 50 60
number of pr ocessors
Turning processors on in a mainframe requires little extra power;
Very little extra power is required to add additional LSPR workloads.
17 © 2009 IBM Corporation

18. The Case Study – Consolidation Calculations
200 distributed servers with low utilizations
25 of these servers 1 z10 BC processor
+ 30G real memory
= 8 IFL processors + 240G real memory
Original z10 BC supported 10 IFLs, 120G
memory need 2 z10 BCs
Enhanced z10 BC supports 248G need
1 z10 BC
18 © 2009 IBM Corporation

19. Case Study - Results
Original z10 BC New z10 BC
Model 2098 2098
Active Processors 5 (4 IFLs + 1 SAP*) 10 (8 IFLs + 2 SAPs*)
I/O Drawers 1 1
Memory 120 G 248 G
Copper Fan out cards 1 2
MP Daughter cards 2 4
FICON Express4 4KM LX 4 8
OSA – Express2 10GbE LR 1 1
Utility Input Power 3168 Watts 3609 Watts
Systems Required 2 1
Total Power Required 6336 Watts 3609 Watts
43% savings in power
50% savings in floorspace
19 © 2009 IBM Corporation

20. Conclusions
Many organizations around the world are looking to reduce power
consumption and many are facing data center power challenges.
Server consolidation and virtualization are important energy management
strategies and are integral to total cost of ownership - consolidating
additional work onto existing machines is an effective power performance
management technique.
With the mainframe, IT managers can successfully integrate reduced
power consumption with increased performance.
With additional memory, the mainframe can be even more energy efficient
and contribute to greater savings in both power and floorspace.
20 © 2009 IBM Corporation

21. References
[GASP08] M. Gasparovic et al, “IBM System z10 Business Class Technical Overview,” (2008).
http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/abstracts/sg247632.html?Open
[IBM09A] “IBM System z10 Business Class (z10 BC) Reference Guide,” (2009).
ftp://ftp.software.ibm.com/common/ssi/pm/rg/n/zso03021usen/ZSO03021USEN.PDF
[IBM09B] “IBM System z10 Enterprise Class (z10 EC) Reference Guide,” (2009).
ftp://ftp.software.ibm.com/common/ssi/pm/rg/n/zso03018usen/ZSO03018USEN.PDF
[IBM08A] “IBM Launches Next-Generation Mainframe for Midsize Customers,” (2008).
http://www.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/25584.wss
[IBM09C] “Power Estimation Tool,” (2009).
https://www.ibm.com/servers/resourcelink/hom03010.nsf/pages/powerestimationmain?OpenDocument&login
[STAH08] E. Stahl, M. Buechele, J. Rankin, “A Consolidation, Virtualization and Power Study on the IBM System z10,” Techdocs Library WP101265 (2008).
http://www.ibm.com/support/techdocs/atsmastr.nsf/WebIndex/WP101265
[IBM07] “IBM's Project Big Green Spurs Global Shift to Linux on Mainframe,” (2007).
http://www.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/21945.wss
[IBM08B] “Large Systems Performance Reference,” (2008).
http://www.ibm.com/systems/z/advantages/management/lspr/index.html
[SHAC08] M. Shacklett, “Optimized Computing: Nationwide’s Linux on System z Virtualization Reduces TCO and Time to Deploy,” Mainframe Executive (2008).
http://www.mainframe-exec.com/articles/?p=30
21 © 2009 IBM Corporation

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