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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 can support 700 users on a decent dual desktop system with Linux, what's this guy thinking?
Maybe he's just got an extra mainframe laying around...? You've got to think the support/maintenance on a mainframe would be horrendous compared to buying a new desktop server for this?
MadCow.
I used to have a sig, but I set it free and it never came back.
I love the idea of recycling old high-end machines. I think this could be a big thing in the future... Buying a cheap old mainframe could be cheaper and more reliable then using a PC workstation with server software. Besides it sounds like fun hehe.
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By the way, if you are thinking of taking the RHCE course 300 (fast track for UNIX proficient people), I really enjoyed it.
Click here or here.
It's frequently said that Linux is not stable enough for mainframe systems. It's also frequently said that mainframes have been obsoleted by smaller, more powerful computers.
I am quite relieved to see that Winnebago has challenged the "norms" and put Linux to use on a mainframe. Linux is commonly used for mission-critical software, like the Linux server sitting next to me that handles our company's mail, but to see it doing something mission-critical on a mainframe is quite impressive.
Good work, Winnebago.
IBM has a Virtual Machine OS, that allows you to run multiple OS's on a mainframe. You can run Linux (or even multiple instances of Linux) and still run your legacy apps under OS/390.
[Insert pithy quote here]
You either believe in rational thought or you don't
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.
What - are you a sysadmin at hotmail?
Big Iron is generally measured in MIPS, (been that way for over twenty years). So what the Big Blue Spokesperson is saying is:
"In the fourth quarter of last year, eleven per cent of the total computer power we shipped was tunning Linux."
Now that might mean that they shipped a total of 100 Mainframes (Really Big Boxes) of various models. They added up the MIPS of all of them and came up with some number of total MIPS -lets say 100,000. Of that 100 mainframes, thrity of them (relatively low end) totalling 11,000 MIPS were configured with Linux.
I'll agree, it seems kinda dumb, it would be like Ford reporting sales based on the total horsepower of all the engines in all the cars and trucks they sold, and then giving the percentage of them "configured" for diesel.
Maybe an UBMer would care to explain why it makes sense?
You either believe in rational thought or you don't
When you buy a mainframe from IBM you pay for the processing you want. They ship you a complete system (anywhere between 4 and 16 processors I believe?) and turn on (and charge you for) only the number you want. Some of the processors can be configured to only run Linux, and that is what they mean by "mips" being configured to run Linux.
The reason for configuring the processors to only run linux is that many mainframe software vendors charge based on the number of MIPS your machine runs at. If I am buying an MVS application I do not want my Linux processors in the mainframe to affect the price I am paying.
Finkployd
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.
Perhaps it's just me, but that makes no sense whatsoever. How do you ship a measure of speed? "Shipping" millions of instructions per second seems to me to be the same as "shipping" miles per hour.
;-)
It's just you.
In the mainframe world, where virtualized hardware is the norm, systems are sold by the MIPS. In other realms of computing we talk about a 32-processor or a 128-processor system (or, if you buy Sun, a 106-processor system, for some reason). In mainframe land, you talk about a 12 MIPS system or a 45 MIPS system or whatever.
It makes a lot of sense, too, when you think about the fact that a four processor system, mainframe or otherwise, from five years ago is probably less powerful than a one-processor system now. It sort of normalizes it if you talk about system capacity in MIPS rather than in terms of "x processors of type y at z megahertz."
Don't compare the practice to shipping "miles per hour," but rather to horsepower. General Motors could, if they wanted to, say that they shipped umpteen million horsepower worth of engines last year, and it wouldn't be that hard to understand. It's just a different way of counting.
of course, if I finished reading your reply (or bothered to read the article in the first place :) I'd have noticed the "Doesn't want to use Intel" bit, which makes my argument a tad pointless. oh well
It seems more appropriate now.
DOS is dead, and no one cares...
If there's a Bourne Shell, I'll see you there
I'll agree, it seems kinda dumb, it would be like Ford reporting sales based on the total horsepower of all the engines in all the cars and trucks they sold, and then giving the percentage of them "configured" for diesel.
:)
IBM charges you for your mainframe (and support contract) based on MIPS. The software you run in MVS (in most cases) is priced based on the number of MIPS you run in your mainframe shop. Ford doesn't charge for their cars based on horsepower
It makes sense because it lets you know that 11% of all mainframe computing power sold in the 4th quarter of last year is running Linux. IBM doesn't sell "boxes" per se, they sell MIPS.
Finkployd
In the end you have a couple of boxes that runs E2K.
Yes, that was a full stop.What these guys are doing is running Linux under a single VM instance. It will cost them serious money because Linux for these boxes isn't cheap. However, they pay only for the first instance at their shop.
I have gone through the price options on W2K Enterprise Server, Advanced Server and Professional with Exchange Server and so on. There is *no* way that we are not talking serious cash here and that is for s/w alone. MS recommends that you dedicate particular systems for certain functionality like E2K - which is great but this costs.
The end result here is that you say that your company is planning to purchase. Come back when everything is working and tell us how much it really cost.
On their minis (AS/400) they are known as Logical Partitions, which allow the machines to run Linux, Notes servers, and various versions of OS400, and rumored to eventually include other OSes...
Many times easier to support one machine that multiples... and its easier to execute a backup machine for it as well.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
IBM has consistently given me the best support I've found anywhere. They're patient, competent, and skilled.
The CE's I've dealt with have all been very professional; and have displayed none of the behavior you saw.
In one case, I even had a tech from supportline call me back weeks after he'd already solved a problem for me, to tell me about an alternate method he'd picked up from one of the more senior people. He'd used it on another customer's problem, and called me back to let me know it was an option that I might prefer if it came up again. Now that's service.
Hot Damn! It's the Soggy Bottom Boys!
if you are thinking of taking the [fast track] RHCE course I really enjoyed it.
Same here, last June. And when I took my Linux on S/390 training in December, I was in class with people from a major online bill payment company, a major auto insurer, Canada's DOD, and many others. Most had already deployed it and wanted to see what they hadn't figured out for themselves yet.
In August, 2000, I sat next to an IBM'er by coincidence on a flight. He saw I was reading the "Linux for S/390" RedBook. He said I'd become a "demigod" if I get into that. I've already gone thru one consolidation project, starting a second one on Monday in NYC, and have a third one queued up, waiting for me to finish up in NY. It seems we recently gave a customer a server upgrade plan, and they replied, "what, no Linux?" So we're redoing it as a consolidation plan for Linux on S/390.
I'd say Linux on S/390 is picking up steam big time. When I spoke to a friend about this setup, he replied, "Wow, you finally sound like one of those mainframe IBM'ers we used to make fun of!" Of course, he still has no reply to the argument that I can reduce just about any single data center to a couple of 48U racks, and give all the servers five nines.
Intelligent Life on Earth
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 think a lot of Intel-oriented people would be floored if they learned about the hardware reliability and flexibility that mainframes offer. Do you have dual power supplies in your Dell box? Can you hot swap them? Do you have hardware RAID? What about redundant hardware RAID attached to a dual-channel RAID storage box (also with dual hot-swap power supplies)? Can you hot plug your processors? RAM? RAID controllers?
A key feature of Linux is that it lets you select reliability and availability just by turning a dial. From handhelds to Intel to RISC to midrange and mainframe, you get to decide how mission critical your apps are. If you accidentally unplug your Dell box, your users are SOL until it reboots.
Intelligent Life on Earth
Just where you can get sun microsystems's view on this (not neccesarily mine.. but perhaps.. but maybe not..)
To quote This Article in computerworld magazine:
Q: Sun has done quite a bit in the way of Linux support, but you really haven't gone the IBM route of marketing Linux-based systems. Why is that?
A: We're the No. 1 Linux appliance server supplier in the world with the Cobalt line [from the acquisition of Cobalt Networks Inc. last year] (see story). We have Linux extensions to Solaris. We just don't think a Linux partition on a mainframe makes a lot of sense. It's kind of like having a trailer park in the back of your estate.
I note that there is quite a few peoples that do not know how things are done on a mainframe. I will TRY and clarify. If you have an average box, say 400 mips, there will be a couple of things happening on this box. Starting of with the OS, OS/390 (or z/OS, VSE, VM). Then a network server VTAM and TCP/IP, a Security server, the some DB's DB2, IMS/DB(or some vendor DB). Then transaction servers CICS or/and IMS serving 4000+ concurrent online users logged on to CICS or IMS. Then you may have oh lets say 500+ programmers, system programmers, DBA, Administrators etc, logged on to the OS "shell" TSO doing programming, compiling, admin, editing and in general doing what these kinda people do, maintaining the monster. The there may be a MQSeries or two running handling client connections and messaging applications and client (pc's, server's *nix's) connections to DB2.. (i'm touching the surface here!) So in general there is a little more happening on a mainframe than on you average wintel box. So in order to separate the production and development, and test environments you can go and partition this one little box up into three logical partitions, called LPAR's in dinosaur speak. Each LPAR can be IPL'd (BOOT in dino speak) without affecting any one of the other LPAR's. So now you have one IBM 2064 400MIP box, 3 LPAR'S and still have room to breathe. Add another LPAR, install VM, Load LINUX/390 and reboot the LINUX LPAR. But still only one Linux server on the box? But we have 250 NT boxes to replace? Not to Worry!! under VM on your brand new LPAR on your mainframe box you can begin to start Linux images at will. So in the end we have 1 Box, 3 OS/390 Mainframe partitions, 1 VM partition with 250 Linux servers running. But now the 400 mips is kinda running out of steam. Call up IBM and they will come and add another cpu. And if you were planning ahead the IBM 2064 should have an idle couple of CPU's under the hood not being used. So you call IBM, they give you the code and you go to the master console and issue a "very cpu online" command and off you go. No IPL required, no downtime. Do that on your duel XEON Intel with Windows... any kind of Windows. I'm not going to go into Parallel Sysplex'ing, syscon's and CICSPlexing etc.