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IBM's Newest Mainframe Is All Linux
dcblogs writes "IBM has released a new mainframe server that doesn't include its z/OS operating system. This Enterprise Linux Server line supports Red Hat or Suse. The system is packaged with mainframe management and virtualization tools. The minimum processor configuration uses two specialty mainframe processors designed for Linux. IBM wants to go after large multicore x86 Linux servers and believes the $212,000 entry price can do it."
I guess they need a blue penguin.
...Linux on the mainframe!
( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LrFgRAcr0jg )
One that hath name thou can not otter
Now maybe all the companies out there who are thinking of wasting money on cloud computing can just buy one of these, and basically have their own in-house cloud.
$212 sounds like a reasonable price for an x86 Linux server, at least as an entry level.
Just one question: What's a "000 entry price"?
I lol'ed at the retarded moderators.
At least we don't have to ask if it runs Linux.
At $212,000, a great stocking-stuffer for the kernel hacker who has everything.
org.slashdot.post.SignatureNotFoundException: ewg
There is a big difference between a mainframe and a high-end server. Why would someone buy a mainframe if they didn't need the reliability and special features of a mainframe? Aren't these really the selling points of the Z-series over the P-series, for example? Usually the P-series and I-series systems are also touted for virtualization, and tend to be less expensive. Can someone distinguish the big difference between these lines now? Traditionally, from what I remember, P-series was AIX, I-Series was AS/400, and Z-series was z/OS and other mainframe OS's. Of course, IBM has been offering Linux on all of them for quite awhile now.
Systemd: the PulseAudio of init systems
The sad fact is that there will be at least one beowulf cluster post even after that post I made^W^W...uh, I mean was made by not me posting anonymously because they were too impatient to log in.
What screensavers come with it, can I add my own?
Isn't that basically what it is?
but but but, will it run Windows?
Life is not for the lazy.
"Its minimum processor configuration are two specialty mainframe processors designed for Linux."
What the fuck kind of grammar is that?
I've got an IBM DS300 Fiber SAN with 4 hour support from IBM. It's been broken for 5 1/2 months now while we try to get IBM to fix it (Or at this point, we'd just be happy for the maintenance contract fee to be refunded). We've had about 15+ emails, half the time claiming we haven't responded to them yet and therefore we are the cause of the delay, yet quoting our reply in their message back saying we haven't responded.
I wouldn't buy another piece of IBM server equipment if you held a gun to my head.
Question is: Where can I find them? I wonder how MythTV with trans-coding shows and all the rest would run on them. Any ideas on where to find old p- or z- series mainframes?
I see those Windows commercials, and I just want to say "Well I'm Ken Thompson, and UNIX was my idea."
Yeah, but does it run Solaris?
Truth, Justice. Or the American Way.
Couldn't you get the same thing by running USS (Unix System Services) under Z/OS?
That's what all linux gear is bought for, to put windows on. !!
Honestly... what ELSE should it be running? Windows?
No, VM.
You sir are an idiot. This is IBM we are talking about here. It could be running any number of proprietary IBM OS's such as z/OS, aix, OS/400, z/VM, z/VSE, z/TPF, or MUSIC/SP.
Please never speak again.
It probably will, since OpenSolaris is ported to System z. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenSolaris_for_System_z
- Henrik
- when the Shadows descend -
I have all the information I could ever need, right on my desktop
You be missed!
There are a number of factors which go into this consideration of Linux on the mainframe. I must admit it was really cool when I first learned of it, having had an MP3000 to myself at an IBM training facilty to learn how to bring up VM/ESA and Linux/390(2001). Then I realized a few things like:
1. Linux cannot take advantage of the advantages of channel-based disk i/o, because it uses Unix i/o approaches which can never be as efficient as the traditional mainframe-based approaches. No one has shown me any evidence that Linux does anything particularly intelligent in its channel program construction and management. Linux assures that IBM can happily sell lots of IFL or general purpose CPUs which are necessary to compensate for this inefficient use of
mainframe resources.
2. Managing workloads under zVM can be great and is extremely well refined, but this requires zVM-specific skills which supposedly no one wants to pay for.
3. For transaction-based work, it's hard to beat TPF/zTPF, but unfortunately that requires some real mainframe skill to implement. And regrettably, zTPF requires Linux and zOS because IBM refuses to convert the programs running on zOS to run on Linux instead. Since TPF/zTPF and zOS both involve onerous monthly licensing charges based on capacity, it's no wonder that TPF/zTPF languish in relative obscurity.
I did a lot of work on 370/VM and it was really a brilliant operation system... vastly ahead of its time... it created true virtual machines, with their own virtual hardware and even console/control panel. Within each VM you could run whatever (IBM or non-IBM) operating system you wanted...including another copy of VM to create more VMs... to about 10 levels deep. The implementation was flawless... and each VM was completely isolated. Othere OS have just started to catch up... but most (all?) current OSs don't virtualize the hardware as well.
Back in the hayday of IBM... the system were well documented and incredibly reliable.
I grew to love JCL... alas CICS always sucked.
two specialty mainframe processors designed for Linux
Seriosly? That's just marketing FUD. They are not designed for Linux, they just have some features deactivated so that z/OS can't run on them, so that they "could sell them cheaper".
Linux assures that IBM can happily sell lots of IFL or general purpose CPUs which are necessary to compensate for this inefficient use of
mainframe resources.
Oh, and Java! They are very happy that their customers convert their mainframe stuff to be mostly Java, because it's so inefficient and causing them to buy more processing power from IBM!
Are you aware of how little intersection there is between virtualization and HPC clustering?
"Linux cannot take advantage of the advantages of channel-based disk i/o, because it uses Unix i/o approaches which can never be as efficient as the traditional mainframe-based approaches"
That's interesting, tell us more about the differences between Unix and 'mainframe-based' disk I/O.
Now none of you can complain that Apple is expensive. Linux/IBM has all of you beat!
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
> IBM sucks. I know, I work for them ..
yea, out at their Redmond facility .. :)
Really sad.
The System z hardware is no more EBCDIC than you are. z/Linux uses ASCII for messages, commands, and utilities, just as z/OS uses EBCDIC. The z/Linux choices include ports of RedHat and Suse. The port does not include translating these to EBCDIC.
Now, the old native Unix for z/OS, Unix System Services, *was* an EBCDIC Unix. Nothing ever said Unix had to be based on ASCII. Porting programs to USS was a challenge because too many programs made assumptions about the binary value of characters. Usually the fixes were simple, but sometimes the defects were hard to find. But if an assumption was made about the collating sequence, the problem was harder.
Anybody used linux on a mainframe? I skimmed the comments but didn't see anyone mention they used one. I have it works but it has its issues...big issues. Anybody ever seen prices for memory on a mainframe. Big bucks. I'm sure its come down since then but in the last 2 years I heard them talking here at work about $10,000 for 1 Gb and it comes in 8 Gb "books". Then try to get your mind around z/VM RAM disks for swap (my z/Series guy says this is how you have to do it). Mainframe dasd (thats disk to the rest of us) is insanely expensive. Plus at least for us when you convert it in z/VM and present it to linux a mod27 (27 Gb mainframe volume) turns into a little over 23 Gb under LVM. Add that do all of the prepackaged executables you use have to be packaged for z/series hardware. Meaning ix/86 executables don't run on linux on Z the same way they won't run on linux on Power (p or i series)
I still think of it as System 38, but I figure there aren't all that many who do. With the transition from the IMPI to the Power hardware, it's really a different beast from the old System 38. Still, the MI is there, and that's what I came to know and love. I mean, honestly, create dataspace index as an instruction? And my personal favorite, copy bytes with overlap left adjusted with pad. Now that's an instruction.
"It's a different kind of world. We need a different kind of software ..."
I've got it! LCARS running on a Galaxy Class starship computer core.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
If you cannot derive the meaning of words within the context within which they are used, it's you with the problem (reading comprehension). This forums is not about English grammar or spelling, nor is it anyone's last will and testament (or legal document, or paper for a grade in academia). It's only a forums you nitpicking trollish scumbag. Get over it. By the way, since there is not an "english grammar section" on this forums, why don't you realize you are off-topic and fuck off? Thank you.
With the introduction of XA architecture in the late 80's, IBM moved some of the virtualization technology down into the hardware, they created a new instruction, SIE - Start Interpretive Execution that could tap into this facility. This facility ended up being the heart of both LPARs and VM/XA (which grew into current z/VM). Conceptually the SIE instruction, or the LPAR facility saves the current processor context, and starts a new context. The "guest" system (or the LPAR) now runs in this new context until some condition has been met (e.g. certain timer pops, certain state changes, etc, as defined by the meta-system (z/VM or the base system managing the LPARs). The movement of this function down into hardware was a logical extension of what used to be called hardware VM assists in pre-XA days.
Basically the base hardware provides LPARs (in fact for quite some time IBM mainframes can only run in LPAR mode, even if one has only one system image). LPARs allow sharing of the physical processors, sharing of physical I/O devices, and partitioning of physical memory. With an LPAR you cannot exceed the physical resources available, meaning that you cannot define an LPAR image with more processors then are physically available, or give an LPAR image more memory then is physically available. This is where z/VM comes in.
z/VM provides the ability to virtualize the physical resources. You can define a VM guest with more memory then is physically available, or more processors then are physically available. In addition z/VM can provide virtualized I/O devices, or provide more fine grained partitioning of physical devices (e.g. carving a disk volume into a collecting of smaller volumes in what is called mini-disks -- which are not the same as a disk partition).
Forget Flash . . . . Does it run Quake?
So we get Lotus Domino instead?! Somehow that doesn't seem... right.
That is all.
So the mainframe uses just the linux kernel rather than the gnu/linux os??
SVC 202.
CAmbridge.
It's R13 for you, my friend. Go drink your Socrates' Pinoqachole
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Extracting sunbeams from
Seconded. But you should see the zSeries. TCP checksum and CPU time instruction. Fused multiply add/sub. Not bad, eh?
I know tobacco is bad for you, so I smoke weed with crack.