IBM has unveiled new server systems that the company says can take a major step toward thwarting the hackers behind a string of corporate attacks.
Called the IBM Z, the new mainframes have the technical ability to encrypt all the data flowing through them in real-time. The project took IBM more than two years to prepare for Monday's launch.
Corporations typically encrypt only a fraction of their data to save cost and avoid crippling slowdowns in performance, says Ross Mauri, general manager of the z Systems group at IBM. By making changes within the hardware of the mainframes themselves at the microchip level — adding billions of transistors so that each system can process 12 billion encrypted transactions each day — IBM believes it solved that problem for customers. "We took away the problem of it being cumbersome and costly," says Mauri. "This is a way to make the final perimeter."
To achieve the increase in performance, IBM dedicated six times the real estate on its chips to cryptography as before, with additional algorithms to help them run together at scale. "Think of it as if you have a car with a V6 engine," says Mauri. "We added a supercharger and four more cylinders — significantly more horsepower."
The servers also feature a storage system for encryption keys that will cause the keys to self destruct if any tampering is detected. Big Blue says it is certified at the highest level ever given by the government for key storage and management.
At customer HM Health Solutions, a subsidiary of Highmark Health that has used IBM mainframes for decades, vice president Scott Gaydos says the new servers will allow his company to significantly simplify its architecture, which currently operates off a mix of its own in-house servers and remotely via the cloud. Though HM Health Solutions offers its own service to its customers over the cloud, Gaydos says mainframes like the IBM Z will continue to have an important role in HM's system by helping to process the data being used on its web services. "People say, oh a mainframe, there's no place for that, and that couldn't be further from the truth," says Gaydos.
"Pervasive encryption," the tactic enabled by these servers to encrypt everything as you go, may also prove a difference maker for multi-national businesses navigating shifting regulations. ADP tech chief Stuart Sackman says his company is under constant attack globally and is hoping to encrypt more of its data using the new technology. A sixty year customer of IBM, ADP currently runs its largest domestic payroll engine on the systems, calculating 20 million paychecks per pay period, while also running its money movement, tax filing systems and cloud-based software suite on versions of the Z-series mainframes. "The more data we can encrypt, without negatively impacting the performance or limiting the capability of our cloud solutions, the better off we will be as a company," says Sackman.
Corporate encryption buffs will have to wait until Q3 to get access to the new tech, which will be available as an upgrade to customers. (IBM still picks up between 5 and 15 major new clients each quarter for mainframes, says Mauri.)
With IBM set to report Q2 earnings later in the week, the systems announcement may be hoped within the company to be something of a balm for what has been vocal displeasure from some analysts on Wall Street. Jefferies analyst James Kisner recently released a report questioning the return on investment IBM will see from its Watson artificial intelligence efforts. In April, IBM reported systems group revenue was down 16.8%, continuing a many quarters-long slide.
For Mauri and the team within IBM that worked with 150 clients on the new encryption, at least, Monday's news is the culmination of month's of work to put the systems group back on its footing as an industry leader. "No other platform in the world can do this," he says. "So it's something leading edge."
