Fifty years after the original System/360 revolutionized business computing, big iron remains a fixture at most enterprises, with much of the world’s mission-critical data still stored on mainframes for security reasons. But having a tight perimeter is a double edged sword, since it not only puts information beyond the reach of external hackers but also renders it inaccessible for analytics.

Companies like Syncsort are addressing this challenge by making it faster and easier to move data off the mainframe, but for many organizations with strict compliance obligations, that’s not an option. IBM is offering a more viable alternative. The technology stalwart on Tuesday debuted zDoop, a Hadoop distribution developed in collaboration with mainframe data analytics specialist Veristorm for use in Linux-based System z deployments. The solution enables customers to uncover insights in their most sensitive information without going through a governance nightmare trying to extract it into another platform.

The distro was announced on the same day as the Enterprise Cloud System, a System z appliance geared towards managed service providers (MSPs) that ships with IBM storage and management software built-in. The company said that it can handle up to 6,000 virtual machines and provides seamless scalability, lowering the total cost of ownership by up to 55 percent. To help customers realize further savings, Big Blue is rolling out an AWS-eque billing model that allows companies to pay for their Linux mainframe infrastructure over time based on compute consumption rather than system capacity.

The company is also introducing new pricing for mobile workloads on z/OS via the IBM System z Solution for Mobile Computing, which makes it 60 percent cheaper to handle transactions made over smartphones and tablets. To make it easier for companies to handle all those transactions, IBM is updating its CISC Transaction Server with better support for cloud and mobile applications that deal with high traffic volumes.

On the security front, Big Blue is releasing a service stream enhancement (SSE) for zSecure that adds expanded compliance reporting capabilities and integration with the QRadar SIEM log event management tool for unified dashboarding. The enhancement is joined by a new mainframe edition of the firms’s light-weight WebSphere Liberty Connect application server and a complementary continuous integration tool (CI) that aims to reduce development time from months to weeks.

Last but not least, IBM announced a new DS8870 flash storage system that it says provides up to 30 times better performance than traditional disk-based solutions. Practitioners can learn about the expanded System z solution ecosystem through three free MOOCs (massive online open courses) the company will provide in partnership with the Linux Foundation and New York’s Syracuse University and Marist College.