IBM introduced a data center rack mount configuration that allows enterprise customers to integrate IBM's sustainability-focused hybrid cloud platform into a wider range of data center environments. IBM Product Management VP Tina Tarquinio told SDxCentral that the new IBM z16 and LinuxONE 4 systems pave the road for novel sustainable design and edge computing use cases, while reducing physical data center space requirements and optimizing cooling and heating technologies.

Based on Tarquinio's discussions with customers, sustainability and environmental, social, and governance (ESG) topics used to be in IT leaders' top 5 concerns, but today "it's definitely within the top 3," she noted.

That's not surprising, considering the energy-intensive data center industry often accounts for a large majority of modern businesses' energy use and associated carbon emissions. "With the price of energy skyrocketing and extreme temperatures becoming more common," she added, "it’s more important than ever to optimize data centers for sustainability."

Limiting data center energy consumption posits a realistic way to limit corporate environmental impacts, and Tarquinio highlighted "key architectural advantages" that "distinguish both IBM z16 and LinuxONE for sustainability in the data center, especially when consolidating x86 workloads," she said. According to IBM, its customers save 75% more energy and limit data center space by 67% after moving workloads from x86 servers to LinuxONE or z16.

To support that idea of sustainable design, IBM incorporates recycled content and "environmentally-preferable materials" and provides reuse or recycling practices at equipment end of life. And for the last two decades, the company has been working toward its goal of improving the computing power delivered for each kilowatt-hour of electricity consumed in its new server products compared to equivalent previous generations.

IBM was able to accomplish that goal with this release; both new systems require less energy than similarly-configured previous iterations of the technology. "For example, the largest IBM z16, model Max200, using the intelligent power distribution unit [iPDU] improves maximum system capacity per kilowatt by approximately 18% compared to the largest IBM z15, model Max190, under a worst-case scenario," Tarquinio said.

"The rack mount offering, with its security, availability and performance, is really the only server of its kind," she touted.

The IBM z16 and LinuxONE 4 systems also expand the compatible environments and target audience of the recently announced z16 and LinuxONE multi-frame machines.

The new systems are expected to attract a diverse customer base, and "any company looking for a sustainable, scalable and secure solution that grows with their business is a good fit," Tarquinio said. "For small and medium-sized businesses especially, these systems offer the ability to scale workloads on a system with less capacity, but the same security, availability and high performance that they depend on from IBM," she added.

The IBM z16 and LinuxONE 4 systems also include an update to the environmental dashboard that provides more granular data to customers. "Environmental dashboards are becoming essential tools as businesses need to be able to report on the energy use of their infrastructure to prove that they are making progress on their net-zero commitments," Tarquinio said.

Specifically, the dashboard now includes metrics related to power consumption at the system and partition level from partition, infrastructure or unassigned power views. Customers can view heat load, processor utilization, ambient temperature, ambient humidity and dew point data; select time ranges and metrics for historical data reports; chart and analyze data; and export data for use elsewhere.