IBM installs €11.5m Mainframe at South East Technological University to Mark 70th Anniversary in Ireland
IBM has announced the provision of an €11.5 million technology system, including an IBM z17 mainframe, to a leading Irish university to support skills development in Ireland as part of its 70th anniversary celebrations in the country. The IBM z17 is installed at South East Technological University (SETU) through an educational loan agreement. This initiative, welcomed by the Irish Government and IDA Ireland, will help to continue to position Ireland at the forefront of technology education.
The IBM Z mainframe powers approximately 70% of global transactions by value, and, through this initiative, students across computer science, engineering, cybersecurity, data and AI will gain hands-on access to the system. In doing so, they will have the opportunity to develop skills aligned with real‑world enterprise technology environments, typically only available in large commercial organisations, helping them develop skills aligned to everyday use cases.
At SETU, the z17 mainframe and software will support teaching, learning, and research across the university, with more than 60 existing research and student resource servers being consolidated onto a single mainframe system. By consolidating existing resources into a single platform, the system will enhance how students learn about systems administration, programming and AI in a practical, real-world environment – including the introduction of Level 9 Certificates in Mainframe Technologies and Artificial Intelligence, benefitting more than 1000 computing students across a broad range of modules.
In addition, researchers across the university will benefit from enhanced computing capacity to support modelling, simulation, and secure data management. The system will also provide student-led technology societies with access to dedicated learning environments, enabling hands-on experience in areas such as systems administration, programming and AI within an enterprise-class setting.
Taoiseach Mícheal Martin said: “For 70 years, IBM has contributed to Ireland’s growth by investing in technology, skills and innovation. This latest support to boost education and research will help equip the next generation with the capabilities required for the AI era, whilst strengthening Ireland’s position as a hub for advanced enterprise technology. This commitment by IBM reflects Ireland’s ambition to build long-term, sustainable leadership in digital innovation.”
Source: IBM
Precisely Powers Customer Communications with AWS Deployment
Precisely has announced that EngageOne™ Compose and EngageOne™ Vault can now be deployed on Amazon Web Services (AWS). Regulated enterprises can run Customer Communications Management (CCM) directly within their own AWS environments, without re-platforming or moving data outside established governance boundaries. By keeping communications data governed and accessible within trusted cloud environments, this release helps organizations operationalize AI-driven communications, automation, and future customer engagement initiatives.
Organizations across regulated industries face growing pressure to move customer communications to the cloud. Yet many are forced to choose between SaaS solutions that move sensitive communications outside their control or complex migrations that introduce risk, cost, and delays. In both cases, organizations must either sacrifice governance or reinvest heavily in rebuilding proven communications systems.
Precisely addresses this challenge by enabling its CCM solutions, EngageOne Compose and EngageOne Vault, run directly on AWS within customers’ own AWS environments. This model allows organizations to move communications workloads to the cloud while preserving existing investments and workflows.
“Regulated enterprises need a clear path to evolve customer communications in the cloud without compromising governance or control,” said Allan Christian, General Manager of EngageOne Products at Precisely. “With EngageOne Compose and EngageOne Vault running directly within their own AWS environments, organizations can build on what already works, gaining scale, higher throughput, and lower operational burden while reducing migration risk and cost.”
Running EngageOne Compose and EngageOne Vault on AWS delivers secure, scalable, and compliant communications capabilities, including:
- Deploy on AWS within customers’ AWS environments: Run composition and archival services inside the AWS account to maintain control over data, security, and compliance while benefiting from AWS performance.
- Scale elastically with higher throughput: Automatically adjust capacity to meet peak communication volumes and accelerate processing across digital and print channels.
- Reduce operational overhead: Eliminate the need to manage fixed infrastructure, patches, and upgrades by leveraging AWS services and automation.
- Govern the full communications lifecycle: Manage creation, composition, delivery, archival, and compliant retrieval across digital and print channels in one solution.
- As organizations expand digital and AI-driven customer experiences, the ability to leverage trusted, governed data within customer communications becomes increasingly important. By operating on AWS within customers’ AWS environments, EngageOne Compose and EngageOne Vault enable organizations to securely use high-integrity data to generate, deliver, and retain customer communications, supporting AI-driven automation, analytics, and scalable customer engagement use cases.
Source: Precisely
IBM Brings Its Most Advanced AI-Powered Security Portfolio to Clients, and is Strengthened by Ongoing Project Glasswing Work
IBM has announced the latest expansion of its enterprise security program for the AI era, and partners with Anthropic as a member of Project Glasswing, an industry initiative to defend the world’s critical software infrastructure.
For decades, IBM has secured the systems the world depends on, from mainframes processing global financial transactions to the open-source platforms and hybrid cloud environments at the core of critical industries in more than 175 countries. As attackers use frontier AI to accelerate every phase of the attack lifecycle, from reconnaissance to vulnerability discovery to exploitation, IBM is pairing its deep experience with a new generation of defenses built for the AI era.
Project Glasswing extends these efforts, uniting a coalition of security and technology leaders committed to protecting essential infrastructure and sharing findings across industries. As part of Glasswing, IBM has been identifying and remediating vulnerabilities in widely used software and sharing those findings with the broader community.
“AI-powered attacks have already moved beyond what traditional defenses can match. We’re helping clients assess their exposure and putting tools like IBM Concert to work in more environments. Separately, as part of Project Glasswing, we’ve been hardening our own products and contributing fixes back to the open-source community. The collaboration makes the entire ecosystem stronger,” said Rob Thomas, SVP Software & Chief Commercial Officer, IBM.
Source: IBM
Kyndryl and DPD Portugal Advance Critical IT modernization
Kyndryl and DPD Portugal have announced an expanded partnership to modernize the resilience and operational efficiency of DPD’s mission-critical environments in Portugal.
Through delivery of managed services for hybrid technology environments, Kyndryl will integrate DPD’s day-to-day operations via continuous transformation and service continuity to support DPD’s current and future business needs. DPD has expanded its partnership with Kyndryl because of the company’s unique skillset, experience and thought leadership in IBM i technology and Private Cloud. The project will cover critical infrastructure components, including IT infrastructure monitoring, platform management, backup and recovery, and storage. Kyndryl Private Cloud solutions will also support an enhanced disaster recovery model for DPD.
The goal will be to establish a more flexible, scalable and future-ready technology architecture, built on hybrid cloud, automation, standardization and operational governance capabilities. The modernized infrastructure will accelerate time-to-value, simplify day-to-day operations, and establish a more robust technology foundation to support continuous innovation and DPD’s evolving business demands.
“By leveraging Kyndryl’s deep expertise in managing mission-critical IT infrastructure services, DPD teams can focus on their most strategic priorities and spend less time on operational tasks. This enables faster and more reliable responses to the needs of customers and partners in an increasingly digital environment that demands seamless, secure, and personalized experiences,” said Duarte Teixeira, Customer Partner, Kyndryl in Portugal.
The agreement also includes workload migration to Kyndryl Private Cloud, adoption of standardization practices and Infrastructure as Code, and development of a more flexible, service-aligned consumption model. This approach will allow DPD to respond more agilely to business demands while maintaining operational consistency and control.
Source: Kyndryl
Zowe 3.5 Released
Open Mainframe Project’s Zowe 3.5 introduces updates that aim to make enterprise development and operations smoother, more transparent, and easier to contribute to. Zowe 3.5 is available to download via zowe.org/download, through the relevant marketplaces for Explorer for VS Code, Explorer for IntelliJ and from npm for CLI.
To take a look at what’s new — and what’s coming next, the full recording of the system demo and planning is available on Zoom. Or if you prefer the updates in written form you can read Zowe TSC Chair, Jacob Bahler’s regular update blog.
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