Middleware is the software that runs our business but we typically don’t ‘see’.
Whether it is ensuring messages get from A to B with Websphere MQ, routing and transforming messages with IBM Integration Bus, providing a key business service with Websphere Application Server, or even connecting your mobile users to your back-end infrastructure, it is software that is part of our core IT business.
Customers are experiencing the value of running these workloads on Linux on IBM Power Systems, specifically with the Linux OS, harnessing the performance of the Power8 processor. With different distributions to choose from RedHat, SuSE or Ubuntu, the customer has flexibility to choose from to deploy their application. This value does not only come in terms of big performance gains for their critical workloads, but huge financial savings as well.
Typically, IBM software is licensed by the processor core. So, the more performance you can get per core, the best value you get for your investment. Based on published SPECjEnterprise2010 reports, which benchmarks Java EE workloads, Linux on Power8 with Websphere Application Server delivers over twice (2x) the throughput compared to Ivy Bridge on Intel, at 49% the cost. In that scenario, you would cut your software costs in half, just by moving your workloads to Linux on IBM Power8. In the other hand, if you are in need of more throughput because of increasing business requirements, you can keep your current software costs (same number of cores), but now you have twice the performance, and can meet your growing demands. My personal favorite is somewhere in the middle between performance and cost savings.
I invite you to start exploring the benefits of Linux on IBM Power Systems can give your enterprise. If you want to process more transactions with your WAS Server, IBM Integration Bus (formerly Websphere Message Broker), or even running your IBM Mobile First Enterprise platform with more users and reducing your costs, consider moving your workloads to Linux on Power8 and start saving.