Monday, September 13, 2010

IBM Enterprise PL/I for z/OS V4.1

Here's another July 22 announcement : 'IBM Enterprise PL/I for z/OS , V4.1 delivers performance improvements and usability enhancements (ZP10-0299)'.

I think this PL/I announcement is a bit exemplary for a 'new' approach by IBM. You know what I mean : every new release or version of a particular software (be it DB2, z/OS or other) gives you more functionality but also demands more resources. IBM wants to get rid of this particular image and is apparently going through great lengths to achieve this. Look at presentations / announcements of z/OS 1.12 or of DB2 10, they both have the same message : they should offer more functionality, still demand less resources.

The same goes for this new PL/I compiler. As you know IBM has added some 100 new instructions on the IBM zEnterprise 196. And the new PL/I compiler is making good use of them. Or, as the announcement states it :
"zEnterprise 196 hardware exploitation has been implemented in the Enterprise PL/I for z/OS compiler through the addition of the ARCHITECTURE(9) option. This option enables the use of new instructions from the load/store-on-condition and the distinct-operands facilities to be exploited in the compiler-generated code. This is designed to provide better performing applications tuned for the zEnterprise 196 server. Additional optimization and tuning help to improve the floating-point performance. These changes can improve the performance of generated code without the need for changes to the source code. A performance improvement of over 3% was observed using code generated by Enterprise PL/I for z/OS Version 4 using ARCH(9) when compared to code generated using the Enterprise PL/I for z/OS V3.9."
IBM Enterprise PL/I for z/OS V4.1 becomes available on September 24, 2010.

You can find some more information on the IBM Enterprise PL/I for z/OS page and in the Data Sheet.

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