IBM launched new models for its z17 mainframe series and LinuxOne servers to fit in a data center, at a time when space is at a premium. The vendor also made IBM Bob updates.
Historically, mainframe systems have occupied their own corners of the data center, tended to by dedicated personnel. With data center space and mainframe expertise both at a premium, such luxuries may be coming to an end.
This week, with new form factors and agentic tools, IBM is taking steps to integrate mainframes with the rest of the customer's data center operations.
On the hardware side, IBM introduced new mainframe configurations that enable organizations to fit equipment into a standard data center rack or co-locate non-mainframe equipment on the mainframe's dedicated frame.
On the software side, IBM has extended its agentic platform for developers, called IBM Bob, for mainframes, allowing developers to more easily write and manage applications through the controlled use of AI.
"We're really focusing on leveraging that AI, while simplifying what it takes to run on the mainframe," saidTina Tarquinio, chief product officer for IBM Z and LinuxOne, during a press briefing. "And we are doing that from an application development perspective and a system operation perspective."
A new form factor
The company debuted the z17 series in two new form factors: single-frame and rack-mounted options. These models complement the z17 series multi-rack configuration introduced last year. For Linux mainframes, the new LinuxOne Rockhopper 5 will be available in single-frame, rack-mounted and compact Express options.
The rack-mount option enables users to install mainframe components into their own data center racks. Organizations will no longer have to carve out dedicated space in their data center or co-location spaces for mainframes. A mainframe can be embedded with the rest of the data center equipment.
The single frame comes pre-built and pre-configured. The enclosure features intelligent power distribution units and SAN fiber connectivity.
The single-frame configuration for both IBM z17 and IBM LinuxOne 5 now has free space at the bottom where users can mount other equipment, such as Ethernet switches and storage devices.
The new IBM z17 and IBM LinuxONE 5 configurations also pack more computing density onto the rack, fitting up to 16 Telum II processors (with 82 available cores) and 18 TB of working memory into two processor drawers. This update offers a 20% increase in core count and a 12% increase in memory capacity.
The IBM z17 ME2 configuration, with a 5.5 GHz Telum II processor, offers 10% greater throughput per core, compared to the previous generation's IBM z16 A02. Each unit can accommodate up to 24 Spyre Accelerator cards.
One of these new z17 units is capable of 150,000 anti-money-laundering in-transaction inference actions per second, or about 12.5 billion encrypted transactions per day. And, as always with mainframes, users get resilience,said Andrew Crimmin, principal product manager for IBM Z and IBM master inventor, in the press briefing. In this case, IBM is promising 315 milliseconds of downtime a year, equivalent to the average time it takes to blink an eye.
"The common phrase 'blink and you'll miss it' actually applies to how little downtime our systems have," Crimmins said.
The newly-launched LinuxONE Rockhopper 5, like the z17, runs on the Telum II. However, the z17 runs on an IBM mainframe OS while LinuxONE -- built for high-density workloads -- runs on Linux distributions, such as Red Hat's, enabling Linux shops to use existing in-house Linux expertise.
Likewise, the IBM LinuxONE Rockhopper 5 is available in both single-frame and rack-mount configurations. And the new Express offering gives users a simpler way to start off with mainframes, with a smaller footprint and rack-mounted form factor.
IBM has seen, with certain customers, a 65% reduction in total cost of ownership by migrating workloads from distributed systems to the IBM LinuxONE mainframes, said Rick Schoonmaker, director of product management for IBM Z and LinuxOne, during the press briefing.
If you can co-locate GPUs, memory, storage and other compute in the same rack and do that in one floor tile versus three floor tiles, that's valuable.
Steven DickensCEO and principal analyst, HyperFrame Research
Data center crunch
The additional configurations come at an optimal time, when data center space is at a premium. Rental rates for data center floor space are now exceeding $400 per kW/month, and vacancy rates are at an all-time low, according to CBRE's 2026 Global Data Center Trends report.
"If you can co-locate GPUs, memory, storage and other compute in the same rack and do that in one floor tile versus three floor tiles, that's valuable," said Steven Dickens, CEO and principal analyst of HyperFrame Research. "That's real money. That's real cost savings for enterprises."
Availability is one benefit of using a mainframe that IBM did not highlight in the press briefing, Dickens said. Once the offer goes live in August, IBM said it will deliver the orders within a few days. This is no small selling point given the shortages of GPUs and memory on the open market, Dickens said. IBM is in a good position given the company's own silicon and strong supply chain.
"Particularly for Linux workloads, people might make decisions purely just because of availability," Dickens said.
Agents on the mainframe
Because the mainframe is core to many business operations, IBM saw it as a natural fit to add agentic capabilities to its mainframe portfolio.
"Clients can bring AI inference directly into their core transaction workflows, where the data already exists, rather than moving that data across environments," Schoonmaker said.
IBM has been helping developers use AI to tackle their toughest tasks in writing and debugging AI apps with IBM Bob, its agentic AI platform built on VS Code. Using AI enables Bob to dynamically adjust to each new task, with a comprehensive understanding of the underlying system architecture.
IBM introduced Bob last year, and this week it has extended the tool with mainframe-specific capabilities, workflows and expertise.
IBM recognized that the mainframe is a beast that requires some specialized skills. The Bob premium packages consider the specific platform's architecture, runtime assumptions, integration patterns, validation needs and operational constraints.
Initial offerings include a premium package for Java modernization and a premium package for Z.
The Z package extends the capabilities of IBM watsonx Code Assistant for Z to ease the developer's journey in developing enterprise-ready AI apps that run on the mainframe. It is particularly well-suited for editing, linting and debugging z/OS applications.
With Bob infused with knowledge of platform-specific languages, middleware awareness and advanced analytics, IBM estimated that using Bob can make complex engineering work go 20–40% faster and cut the effort for building structured workflows by 50-80%.
IBM Bob should not only make the lives of mainframe programmers easier, it should also enable new developers to work on mainframe apps, said Skyla Loomis, general manager for IBM Z Software, in an e-mail interview.
"When a developer can step into a 30-plus-year-old insurance application and understand it with a single prompt, everything changes," Loomis wrote. "By bringing that level of orchestration and reasoning directly into the [integrated development environment], Bob makes mainframe application development more accessible."
In addition to updating Bob, IBM also debuted several new tools to help admins manage their mainframes.
One new offering is the IBM Infrastructure Management for Z and LinuxOne, which assists with provisioning and configuration. Thanks to its use of the Terraform infrastructure-as-code software, which IBM acquired as part of its 2025 acquisition of HashiCorp, administrators orchestrate and automate deployments via a unified interface.
And in September, IBM will release IBM COBOL Elevate for z/OS, which will help users optimize their COBOL applications.
Freelance news writer Joab Jackson has been writing about back-end IT technologies for the past three decades. His grandfather programmed mainframes, and his father wrote computer games for hobbyist programming magazines in the 1980s.
