On May 26, 2009, Unisys introduced a new line of ClearPath mainframes including new models, OS enhancements and refreshed price performance increases on top of last October’s performance improvements. Last week, Wikibon was briefed on this announcement by Bill Maclean, Vice President, ClearPath Programs for the Systems & Technology group. We also met with Steve O’Brien who briefed us at EMC World regarding Unisys’s use of EMC’s VMax in an upcoming ClearPath announcement.
While Cloud computing is not a major theme of this announcement, Wikibon was most struck by three aspects of this release that we believe are heavily Cloud-friendly, notably:
- The availability of specialty engines to improve Java and Websphere MQ performance.
- Extensions to ClearPath ePortal, a set of services to allow easy integration of Web services and intelligent mobile devices such as Apple’s iPhone.
- Integration of EMC’s VMax storage system into the ClearPath portfolio.
Why Customers Should Care
Existing Unisys ClearPath customers including many large banks, government agencies, transportation companies, and telecommunications firms have invested considerable infrastructure and processes around ClearPath mainframes. While some pundits may question investments in ClearPath technology, the fact is Unisys has carved out a significant niche for mission critical, high availability, and highly efficient transaction computing.
The business case for existing customers to continue investing in ClearPath will make sense, as long as Unisys continues to invest in and evolve the platform. This is the second major ClearPath hardware announcement since last fall and customers running I/O intensive applications are particularly well served by these enhancements.
On the software side, Unisys is continuing to enhance application modernization with extensions to ClearPath’s ePortal, a set of operating system components which connects database and transaction processing with Java and Websphere MQ to allow simple integration of applications to the Web and mobile devices. This allows efficient direct communications from Web-based applications such as kiosks and e-ticketing as well as applications supported by mobile devices e.g. Apple’s iPhone. These functions are supported and accelerated by the use of specialty engines on the ClearPath Mainframe.
The integration of EMC’s VMax modernizes the data storage infrastructure by optimizing storage for enterprise flash drives (EFDs), and optimizing the placement of data within distributed storage tiers.
Relevance to the Cloud
The business driver behind the Cloud, as it pertains to traditional IT, is enabling rich connectivity within organizations and between organizations (i.e. connecting users and applications across what previously were islands of computing). For example, an insurance company wants to enable its agents to use a mainframe claims application: Instead of making copies of data across the Web, it maintains a master copy on the mainframe and allows direct access to the most up-to-date data on that mainframe.
In our view, the most compelling aspect of this announcement is the modernization of applications to allow the facile integration of mobile devices and other Web services across what will become an infrastructure of internal and external clouds. The Cloud is putting a premium on integrated stacks that communicate with high availability and security to other systems.
Unisys ClearPath is the most tightly integrated platform available in the market for transaction processing.
Action Item: Business managers within the ClearPath customer base have an opportunity to modernize applications and allocate them to a secure, highly available environment. ClearPath customers need to exploit these new capabilities and enable secure access to core corporate data resources directly across the Cloud in real time. This secure private cloud infrastructure will be the foundation for improvement of business processes within and between organizations.
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