Mainframes ClearPath Next-Generation Server Architecture

Service-oriented architecture (SOA) provides the ideal environment to modernize core business applications and improve flexibility. But an SOA is only as good as the operating environment that supports it.

What's needed is a service-oriented infrastructure (SOI). One that

• Offers intelligent, effective, integrated infrastructure management capabilities
• Easily supports the judicious use of open standards, platforms, and operating environments to gain economies of scale and price/performance benefits
• Delivers ever higher levels of business agility and service quality

And, of course, does it all without sacrificing anything in terms of core business solutions performance, security, and reliability.

ClearPath Next-Generation Server Architecture creates an SOI with phased delivery of new capabilities that help your organization follow an evolutionary path to an SOI, with the least disruption, least risk, and most benefit possible.

ClearPath Offerings Based on the Next-Generation Server Architecture Available Now

The ClearPath Dorado Models 4050, 4080 and 4090 are the most recent server deliverables based on the Next-Generation Server Architecture and OS 2200 operating environment. For the MCP operating environment, the ClearPath Libra Model 4080 and 4090 leverage the Next-Generation architecture to address mid-range performance with a Unisys Intel-based platform.

Today's Next-Generation Architecture server offerings deliver entry-level and mid-range performance, with high-end performance models to follow. This phased delivery of new capabilities will help your organization follow an evolutionary path to an SOA, with the least disruption, least risk, and most benefit possible.

Next-Generation Server Architecture Highlights

• Uses Intel® Xeon® X64 processor technology
• Revolutionary server architecture will be the first in the market to enable four operating environments – Microsoft® Windows®, Linux, ClearPath MCP, and OS 2200– to run concurrently on the same system in a single partition
• ClearPath Server hallmark attributes, including:
  • Investment protection via full upward compatibility from current environments 
  • Superior reliability, scalability, and availability
  • Highest performance levels for the world’s most demanding workloads
  • Pay-for-use business models and metering technology
  • Unsurpassed security
  • Tight integration of open middleware
• Heterogeneous resource management via policy-based workload and infrastructure management tools

Next-Generation Server Architecture Benefits

• A true “best-of-both worlds” server platform. Next-Generation Server Architecture combines enterprise-class levels of agility and service quality with cost savings that accrue from better overall system utilization, streamlined system management, and lower power and cooling costs.
• Maximum flexibility. The ability to deploy every application to its optimal environment with the secure knowledge that if your strategy changes or new technologies emerge, Next-Generation Server Architecture will evolve to meet your needs.
• Low-risk path to modernize. Take your valuable application portfolio forward to the ClearPath Next-Generation Server Architecture without having to re-architect or recompile programs or change data structures. It provides the ultimate “soft landing” as you move forward to embrace new technology strategies, as well as a seamless transition from a current to future-state architecture that, as always, maintains continued support for your ClearPath environment.
• Improved agility. Next-Generation Server Architecture offers newfound abilities to repurpose infrastructure quickly to suit today’s most pressing business needs. For example, you can apply more resources to complete month-end batch workloads and then switch back to the original configuration for day-to-day operations.

Next-Generation Server Architecture Evolution

A key component to delivering on our strategy is to not only provide a roadmap for the future, but to also provide the necessary building blocks, solutions, and offerings today to help our customers make this journey. With that in mind, a four-stage plan is in place to ensure that applications you are currently deploying will move seamlessly from one stage to the next without requiring re-architecting, recompiling, or data structure changes:

• Stage 1: Traditional ClearPath offering with the opportunity for both CMOS and Intel®-based partitions
• Stage 2: Modernization offerings to enable implementation of an SOA
• Stage 3: First generation of a complete Intel implementation; the ClearPath operating system runs in a dedicated Intel® partition and the Windows and Linux environments run on top of hypervisor technology optimized for scale-up high performance workloads.
• Stage 4: Full implementation of our strategy; both the ClearPath and open environments can be virtualized in a single physical partition. This virtualization provides the ultimate in flexibility, allowing you to choose the optimal platform for any given application or solution.

Services and Software to Drive Additional Value for Enterprise Computing

Using the Unisys 3D Blueprinting methodology, Unisys will extend the benefits of the new architecture with software tools and its rich suite of consulting, implementation, and management services for optimizing real-time infrastructure, consolidating IT, and extending and modernizing application environments.

Our Next-Generation Server Architecture demonstrates that we are truly committed to:

• Continuing investment for the future
• Maintaining our leadership in mainframe-class, mission-critical computing environments
• Delivering an architecture that allows you to lower your cost of operations
• Providing choice and flexibility