Monday, January 19, 2015

Compiler announcements along with the IBM z13

On January 14, 2015, along with the announcement of the new IBM z13, there were also announcements of some new compilers. I give you the links where you can find all the announcement details
  • IBM Enterprise COBOL for z/OS, V5.2 delivers support for the latest IBM z13 processor architecture (ZP15-0034)
  • It’s all about the new functionalities I talked about in my previous post on the new IBM z13. IBM gives us the following comment about this new Cobol compiler : “Enterprise COBOL for z/OS V5.2 provides Day1 support for the new z13 processor, using the new Vector Facility for certain COBOL statements, and expanding the use of Decimal Floating Point Facility for Packed Decimal calculations. Enterprise COBOL V5.2 provides significant performance improvements over the GA release of Enterprise COBOL V5.1. “ 
  • IBM Enterprise PL/I for z/OS, V4.5 offers new function and improved performance (ZP15-0015)
  • The comment for PL/I is almost identical : “Enterprise PL/I for z/OS V4.5 is enhanced to fully exploit the new z13 architecture. It uses the new Vector Facility to improve code for certain functions and expands the use of Decimal Floating Point Facility for Packed Decimal calculations. Enterprise PL/I for z/OS V4.5 provides significant performance improvements over Enterprise PL/I V4.4.” 
  • New, high-performance IBM XL C/C++ for Linux on z Systems, V1.1 compiler now delivered for Linux on z Systems (ZP15-0005)
    “This is a brand new C/C++ product designed to improve the performance of applications running on Linux on z Systems. XL C/C++ for Linux on z Systems V1.1 runs on RHEL (6 and 7); and SLES (11 and 12). It is based on brand new technologies. This new compiler is built on Clang and advanced IBM optimization framework shipped in IBM Java and Enterprise COBOL V5. This combination not only provides easy migration of C/C++ applications from distributed Linux systems to Linux on z Systems, it also optimizes the performance of applications on IBM z Systems, latest z13.”
The new Vector facility that is mentioned each time is the new SIMD function. There should be a RedPiece about it over here, but for some or other reason I just can't seem to download it. But there's also some information about it in the new Redbook IBM z13 Technical Guide.

The General Availability is even earlier than the new IBM z13 : February 27, 2015 for the COBOL and PL/I compilers and February 16, 2015 for the C/C++ compiler.

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