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| System/390 | |
|---|---|
| Name | System/390 |
| Developer | IBM |
| Family | IBM System/390 |
| Release | 1990 |
| Discontinued | 2000s |
| Predecessor | IBM System/370 |
| Successor | zSeries |
| Type | Mainframe |
| Cpu | IBM mainframe processors |
| Memory | up to multiple gigabytes |
| Os | MVS, OS/390, VM, VSE |
System/390 System/390 was a family of IBM mainframe computers introduced in 1990 as a continuation of IBM's long lineage of large-scale IBM mainframe systems. It provided enhanced processing, virtualization, and I/O capabilities used by institutions such as JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, United States Department of Defense, and Deutsche Bank. System/390 supported enterprise workloads for organizations including AT&T, General Electric, Shell plc, Royal Dutch Shell, and Citibank across global data centers in New York City, London, Frankfurt am Main, and Tokyo.
System/390 originated from the evolution of the IBM System/360 and IBM System/370 product lines and reflects engineering developments influenced by research at IBM Research and collaborations with partners like Hitachi, Fujitsu, and Siemens. The platform's lifecycle intersected with major industry events such as the rise of UNIX servers from Sun Microsystems and HP which pressured enterprise computing strategies. Strategic decisions by IBM under leaders like Lou Gerstner and influenced by market forces represented by firms like Microsoft and Oracle Corporation shaped the System/390 roadmap. Regulatory regimes exemplified by Basel Committee on Banking Supervision and procurement by agencies like the Internal Revenue Service affected deployment patterns. The system's transition toward 64-bit architectures paralleled standards efforts involving IEEE and procurement criteria from multinational corporations including Procter & Gamble.
System/390 incorporated a CISC instruction set architecture inherited from predecessors and introduced innovations in microarchitecture and channel I/O influenced by research at University of Cambridge and Massachusetts Institute of Technology. It featured logical partitioning concepts that would later be formalized in technologies used by VMware and hardware virtualization techniques championed by firms such as Intel and AMD. The design integrated high-speed buses and adapters interoperable with systems from Cisco Systems and storage from EMC Corporation and NetApp. Mainframe cryptographic support aligned with standards developed by National Institute of Standards and Technology and enabled secure operations for clients like Goldman Sachs and Barclays. System/390's reliability, availability, and serviceability (RAS) mechanisms influenced practices at data center operators such as Equinix and cloud pioneers like Amazon Web Services.
The System/390 family encompassed models spanning entry-level to high-end configurations, competing with enterprise servers from Amdahl Corporation and later with Hitachi Data Systems platforms. Product evolution toward IBM's eServer zSeries reflected market shifts tracked by analysts at Gartner and Forrester Research. Key hardware milestones paralleled breakthroughs in semiconductor fabrication by Intel Corporation and memory developments by Samsung Electronics and Micron Technology. Major customers including Wells Fargo, HSBC, BNP Paribas, and Societe Generale migrated across model generations during modernization programs driven by consultancies such as Accenture and Deloitte.
System/390 ran enterprise-grade operating systems like MVS, OS/390, VM/ESA, and VSE/ESA, and hosted middleware such as CICS and IMS. Database systems ported to the platform included DB2 and client integrations with Oracle Database and Informix for transactional workloads at companies like Amazon.com in early e-commerce experiments. Development environments supported languages and tools from ecosystems represented by IBM Rational, Microsoft Visual Studio (for some client-side integrations), and standards from POSIX and ISO. System/390 participated in enterprise application deployments for vendors like SAP, PeopleSoft, Baan Company, and Siebel Systems.
Benchmarking of System/390 configurations used industry metrics such as TPC-C and workload characterizations referenced by analysts at IDC and SPEC. Performance tuning involved I/O subsystem comparisons with storage arrays from Hitachi Vantara and Hewlett Packard Enterprise as enterprises including Target Corporation and Walmart evaluated throughput and latency. Capacity planning and performance engineering were influenced by studies from Stanford University and Carnegie Mellon University and tools developed by vendors like BMC Software and CA Technologies.
System/390 reinforced IBM's position in enterprise computing and influenced subsequent platforms like the IBM zSeries and z/Architecture used by financial institutions such as Nasdaq and New York Stock Exchange. Its concepts in virtualization, RAS, and secure processing impacted standards and offerings from Oracle Corporation, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud Platform in hybrid cloud strategies. Histories of enterprise IT modernization documented by Harvard Business School and retrospectives by IEEE Spectrum highlight System/390's role in large-scale transaction processing for organizations including UnitedHealth Group, Pfizer, ExxonMobil, and Chevron Corporation.
Category:IBM mainframe computers Category:Mainframe computers