Upgradeability
IBM protects IT investments as businesses grow through the extensive upgrades offered by z800 servers. General purpose models are upgradeable throughout the z800 family. The Coupling Facility Model 0CF can be upgraded from one to four PUs, and to a general purpose model. The z800 Model 004 is upgradeable to a z900 Model 104, thereby opening up massive growth capabilities within the z800 product line.

Security
IBM leads the industry in bringing security to e-business with the integrated security features of z/Architecture. The high-availability CMOS Cryptographic Coprocessors feature has earned Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS) 140-1 Level 4—the highest certification for commercial security awarded by the U.S. government.

Three types of cryptographic processors are available to handle increasingly complex and changing security issues. By enabling applications to invoke industry-standard cryptographic capabilities such as Data Encryption Standard (DES), Triple DES and Rivest-Shamir-Adleman encryption (RSA), z800 servers provide scalable e-transaction security and the flexibility to quickly include additional standards.

In particular all z800 models provide for a total of 16 optional PCI Cryptographic Coprocessors (PCICC) and/or 12 PCI Cryptographic Accelerators (PCICA). When all four Processor Units (PUs) are used along with the maximum number of PCICC and/or PCICA Coprocessors, the z800 supports a maximum of 711 SSL/second.

Each of the three types of Cryptographic features are individually serviceable. Cryptographic PCI features are concurrently hot-pluggable for upgrades and repair actions.

Linux for zSeries, running on standard z800 engines and on Integrated Facility for Linux engines, is capable of exploiting the hardware cryptographic feature provided by the PCI card for SSL acceleration. This enables customers implementing e-business applications on Linux for zSeries to utilise enhanced security and hardware performance.