IBM has launched new System z Solution Edition Series with seven integrated hardware, software and service packages to help customers deploy new enterprise workloads, such as data warehousing, electronic payments and disaster recovery.

IBM has also launched additional new programs to help companies lower costs and reduce inefficiency by migrating from Sun and HP servers to the Linux platform on IBM’s System z.

The new offerings include IBM System z hardware, middleware and maintenance programs for new business functions, such as: data warehousing, application development, disaster recovery, enterprise security and fraud analysis.

In addition, the new offering also includes the System z Solution Edition for WebSphere, which combines System z technology with IBM’s WebSphere Application Server for a foundation to build, reuse, run, integrate and manage Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) applications and services.

The new Edition series also enhances the existing SAP offering, which is designed to provide near-continuous availability and data protection with DB2 for z/OS databases on System z. It can be combined with SAP application deployments for running Linux on the System z platform.

IBM also announced new pricing for its Integrated Facility for Linux (IFL) and associated memory to help companies consolidate workloads from siloed, inefficiently used servers onto Linux on the System z platform.

Karl Freund, vice president of IBM System z strategy and marketing, said: The Solution Edition Series, part of the Mainframe Charter, which IBM first articulated in 2003 delivers innovative solutions, expands System z’s performance and value, and fosters a larger System z community to meet customers’ business requirements.