17 summary – IBM 990 User Manual
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Chapter 1. zSeries 990 overview
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Parallel Sysplex License Charges (PSLC) apply for OS/390 software products and may apply
with the PSLC price option if the customer elects PSLC pricing. When servers currently
priced under the PSLC structure are upgraded to a z990 server, the customer may elect to
continue using PSLC pricing. However, if the z990 server is an upgrade from a z900 server
that has already converted to WLC pricing, the products running on the upgraded server must
be charged under the WLC structure.
VM and VSE products running on z990 servers qualify for the same pricing structures
currently available for other z900 servers. The Extended License Charge (ELC) applies for
servers over 80 MSUs. The Graduated Monthly License Charge (GMLC) applies for servers
under 80 MSUs. Customers who select WLC pricing for the z/OS environment must license
VM and VSE products with the Flat Workload License Charge (FWLC). z/VM Version 4
License, and Subscription and Support (S&S) charges, are priced per processor based on
terms and conditions.
Software charging for z990 will be based on the number of active CPs, except when
customers qualify, and elect WLC sub-capacity pricing. The z990 software MSU values are
determined when the order is placed; software charging is based on the full capacity of the
selected model. Full capacity is determined by the number of active CPs within the model.
The MSU performance ratings for the z990 server are available on the Web:
1.3.17 Summary
On a physical resource level, z990 is a S/390 architecture server with a maximum of 48 PUs
and 256 GB of main memory structured in a four-book configuration. The books are
interconnected by a high speed memory coherence ring, thus building a large and very
efficient SMP. The I/O adapters are housed in three I/O cages, and provide a maximum of
1024 (maximum 256 per LCSS) channel ports.
The z900 to z990 is a “Frame Roll” MES. The z990 A and Z frames are shorter and deeper
than the z900's frames, actually taking up less space than the z900. The z900 I/O cards,
16-port ESCON, FICON Express, PCICA, and OSA Express will move to different I/O slots in
the new z990 system I/O cages.
PR/SM handles these physical resources as one contiguous space and provides, on a logical
level, up to 30 logical partitions and up to four Logical Channel Subsystems with 256 channel
paths each. Thus, a large and scalable physical resource pool is generated, managed by
PR/SM in a highly efficient way, taking advantage of LPAR clustering.
Dynamic CHPID management and I/O priority queuing were introduced with z900. These
capabilities are extended to support Linux (for S/390 and on zSeries) partitions with the same
efficiency. Since the maximum number of supported logical PUs within a partition is 24 (z/OS
V1.6, and z/VM V5.1 plans to have support for up to 24 processors in a single LPAR), multiple
copies of operating systems (z/OS and Linux) run “side-by-side” on the same hardware
platform. z990 also continues to support the latest Ethernet technology, to provide the highest
bandwidth connections to external servers.