Ziip

ZIIP

In IBM System z9 (and successor) mainframes, the System z Integrated Information Processor (zIIP) is a special purpose processor. It was initially introduced to relieve the general mainframe central processors (CPs) of specific DB2 processing loads, but currently is used to offload other z/OS workloads as described below. The idea originated with previous special purpose processors, the zAAP and IFL, which offload Java and Linux processing, respectively. A System z PU (processor unit) is "characterized" as one of these processor types, or as a CP (Central Processor), or SAP (Service Assist Processor). These processors do not contain microcode or hardware features that accelerate their designated workloads. Instead, by relieving the general CP of particular workloads, they often lead to a higher workload throughput at reduced license fees.