zIIP is an acronym for the IBM System z9 Integrated Information Processor. It was previewed on January 24th, 2006. zIIP is the latest special purpose mainframe processor following the zAAP and IFL. The main purpose of the zIIP is to offload DB2 processing from the general central processors (CPs) to the less expensive zIIP, much like how the zAAP and IFL offload Java and Linux processing, respectively. IBM has said that DB2 for z/OS V8 will be the first application to support the zIIP. The zIIP requires a System z9 mainframe, and IBM will offer PTFs for z/OS 1.6 and 1.7 to enable zIIP usage. The zIIP is scheduled to be available later in 2006.

zIIPs will add lower cost capacity for three types of DB2 work:

• Remote DRDA access via TCP/IP. This category includes JDBC and ODBC access to DB2, including access across LPARs via Hipersockets, such as Linux on System z9. Excludes access to stored procedures.
• Business intelligence queries, specifically star schema.
• Certain DB2 utilities processing.

External links

• IBM.com: System z Integrated Information Processor (zIIP) FAQ (PDF)

IBM hardware | Mainframe computers