IBM Z Deepens Data Privacy Capabilities with New Air-Cooled Models and IBM Secure Execution for Linux

By Ross Mauri, GM of IBM Z

In September 2019, IBM announcedIBM z15™, delivering industry-first data privacy capabilities with the ability to manage the privacy of customer data across hybrid multicloud environments, and to scale from one to four frames. For our clients on their journey to cloud, IBM z15™ and IBM LinuxONE IIIwas a major step forward around encrypting everywhere, cloud native developmentand IBM Z Instant Recovery– but we aren’t stopping there.

Announcing z15 T02, LinuxONE III LT2 and IBM Secure Execution for Linux

Every day, clients of all sizes are examining their hybrid IT environments, looking for flexibility, responsiveness and ways to cut costs to fuel their digital transformation. To help address these needs, today IBM is making two announcements: two new single frame, air-cooled platforms – z15 T02 and LinuxONE III LT2 – designed to build on the capabilities of z15, and IBM Secure Execution for Linux, a new offering designed to help protect from internal and external threats across the hybrid cloud. IBM Secure Execution for Linux, z15 T02 and LinuxONE III LT2 will become generally available on May 15, 2020.

Expanding privacy with IBM Secure Execution for Linux

According to the IBM sponsored Ponemon Institute’s 2020 Cost of an Insider Breach ReportPonemon and IBM Cost of Insider Threats report 2020: https://www.ibm.com/downloads/cas/LQZ4RONE, insider threats are steadily increasing. Since 2016, the average number of incidents involving employee or contractor negligence has increased from 10.5 to 14.5 in 2019 – and the average number of credential theft incidents per company have tripled over the past three years, from 1.0 to 3.2. The 2016 data only pertains to US companies. The 2019 data includes North America, Europe, Middle East & Africa and Asia-Pacific. We believe the data is comparable because US companies represented in the 2016 report are multinationals. IBM Secure Execution for Linux helps to mitigate these concerns by enabling clients to isolate large numbers of workloads with granularity and at scale, within a Trusted Execution Environment (TEE) — available on all members of the z15 and LinuxONE III families.

For clients with highly sensitive workloads like crypto and blockchain services, we know that keeping data secure is even more critical – which is why IBM Secure Execution for Linux works by establishing secured enclaves that can scale to host these sensitive workloads and provide both enterprise-grade confidentiality and protection for sensitive and regulated data. For our clients, this is the latest step toward delivering a highly secure platform for mission critical workloads.

For years, Vicom has worked with LinuxONE and Linux on Z to solve clients’ business challenges as a reseller and integrator. Upon learning about how IBM Secure Execution for Linux can help clients, Tom Amodio, President, Vicom Infinity said, “IBM’s Secure Execution, and the evolution of confidential computing on LinuxONE, give our clients the confidence they need to build and deploy secure hybrid clouds at scale.”

Simplifying your regulatory requirements for highly sensitive workloads

In addition to the growing risk of insider threats, our clients are also facing complexity around new compliance regulations like GDPR (General Data Privacy Regulation)  and CCPA (the California Consumer Privacy Act), demonstrating that workload isolation and separation of control are becoming even more important for companies of all sizes to ensure the integrity of each application and its data across platforms. IBM Secure Execution for Linux provides an alternative to air gapped or separated, dedicated hardware typically required for sensitive workloads.

Delivering cyber resiliency and flexible compute

Building on recent announcements around encrypting everywhere, cloud native and IBM Z Instant Recoverycapabilities, as well as support for Red Hat OpenShift Container Platformand Red Hat Ansible Certified Content for IBM Z, these two new members of the IBM Z and LinuxONE families bring new cyber resiliency and flexible compute capabilities to clients including:

·        Enterprise Key Management Foundation – Web Edition: provides centralized, secured management of keys for robust z/OS management.
·        Flexible compute: Increased core and memory density with 2 CPC drawer design, provides increased physical capacity and an enhanced high availability option. Clients can have up to 3 I/O drawers and can now support up to 40 crypto processors.
·        Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4.3 – the latest release, planned for general availability this month on IBM Z and LinuxONE.

Complementary IBM Storage enhancements

In addition, IBM also announced new updates to our IBM Storage offerings for IBM Z. The IBM DS8900 all flash array and TS7700 virtual tape library both now offer smaller footprint options. This week the TS7700 family announced smaller footprint, with flexible configurations for businesses of all sizes and different needs that can be mounted in an industry standard 19-inch rack.

For more information, visit
·        IBM Z: https://www.ibm.com/it-infrastructure/z
·        IBM LinuxONE: https://www.ibm.com/it-infrastructure/linuxoneFor more details on the announcement, watch our launch video:  https://mediacenter.ibm.com/media/0_vczkd5zx