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Linux On Big Iron
panker writes "eWeek is running an article about a company who converted their IBM mainframe into a Linux email server. "The technical support manager at Winnebago Industries Inc. recently oversaw the deployment of Version 7 of SuSE Linux AG's Linux operating system on an IBM zSeries mainframe to run his company's e-mail server supporting 700 users." "
You either believe in rational thought or you don't
It would be overkill if they were using the mainframe only for this. But they already had a mainframe. With these machines, you can create a logical partition and run Linux in it. That's what they're doing... just taking a few resouces away from their regular system.
Garg
Garg
Alumnus, Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters
There are several posts that are wondering if this is overkill, so I'll respond to all. It's not since they already had the hardware and only added a single CPU to their existing mainframe. They got the whole nine yards for $26K, but they don't have to add a new server, license Exchange, hire a Windows admin if they don't already have one and, as the exec said, they don't want to use Intel hardware.
I don't have a problem with it. If you need an automotive analogy, compare MIPS to horsepower and it makes more sense.
They stab it with their steely knives,
But they just can't kill the beast.
Oh shit, it has? I better get on that there Linux thing then! Is it just me, or did that whole article have the "this isn't going to teach me anything new" feel to it?
sic transit gloria mundi
My company is planning to purchase a quad Xeon CPU 4GB RAM server as part of our Exchange 2000 migration for over 1000 users at a fraction of the price.
How is buying a new machine, plus a bunch of commercial software, plus sending techs to classes to learn how to manage the software, going to be cheaper than free software that your people already understand on a machine you already have? They did turn on an additional CPU, so there's some cost there, but more than likely they were getting close to maxing out their current system anyway and will benefit from the additional horsepower.
Plus, your solution is going to be far, far less reliable. There are IBM mainframes that have been running continuously for decades, with no downtime at all even through hardware and OS upgrades. Not that e-mail really needs to have six 9s uptime, but if you can get it for no additional cost, why not?
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
How does Linux for mainframe connect to mainframe DASD? Do you have device files for 3390-3 and 9's? Do they mask it as SCSI volumes? What about FICON?
-Steve
What a complete waste. REALLY. I've got an old Dell server running an oldish version of RedHat and Cyrus, serving email for about 1200 users. The machine is far from taxed right now. I would say that the whole setup cost about $4000 when first purchased.
We're replacing that setup with a newish Dell 1U server running a newer version of RedHat and a newer version of Cyrus and making tweaks along the way. With being a school that has promised email accounts for life to alumni, we're planning for growth, but the server still cost around $4000 plus the cost of the RAID for email data store.
--JLockard - "Some mornings, it's just not worth chewing through the leather straps." - Emo Phillips
Ah, it was just a question of phrasing. The sentence I quoted was worded in such a fashion that I was confused. I fully understand the concept of MIPS and why it is often a better indicator of server capacity, I just read the text, and took the phrase "11 percent of the mainframe mips (million instructions per second) shipped" as "11 percent of the millions of instructions per second shipped", which makes a great deal less sense if you don't work with mainframes routinely(read: never). I probably would have put a footnote or something in the article explaining that, or tried to find a clearer wording (I've been trying for 5 mins or so, without luck).
(Thanks to all for the clarification)
Monday is a horrible way to spend 1/7 of your life.
Ahh 5 nines up time on a mainframe.... I believe that if
1. You NEVER need to patch that version 1.x of Linux on the Mainframe
2. You NEVER need to patch the software emmulator that runs Linux on the mainframe.
3. You luck out and get all the Mainframe crap configured correctly the first time.
The only place I see this being a good solution is for shops that already have a well trained staff on supporting mainframes. People seem to miss the point that it is a royal pain to support one of these boxes. Why do you think companies like Sun, HP, DEC ect... came in to being?
You can get near 5-9's on standard Intel box now. Heck if you cluster it, you will have 5 nines. Although my guess is that you (the admin) will have to take the box down for some upgrade (thus killing the uptime...).
What I have found is that most companies with mainframes still find it much cheaper to purchase separate Intel boxes for mail, file/print, DNS, DHCP, ect..
I do applaud IBM for doing this, but PLEASE don't be fooled in to thinking that this is just a "STANDARD" Linux install. This is nothing more than running VMWare on a box. You have to know both operating systems to support it.
Steve Michael
steve.michael@performancestrategies.com
In the early 80s, IBM used MS-DOS because it thought hardware was where the money is. Now Microsoft is, well....Microsoft.
Now in the early 00s, IBM is using a free operating system and raking the big bucks in... you guessed it! Hardware!
Aahhhh, computer irony.
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Score 3? For what? Being wrong, at length? - smirkleton
of a winnebago loaded with dat tapes hauling down the highway at 45 mph.