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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!
$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"?
At $212,000, a great stocking-stuffer for the kernel hacker who has everything.
org.slashdot.post.SignatureNotFoundException: ewg
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.
Private cloud is flavour of the month it seems. A recent (as in "last month") release from joint venture ACADIA (a Cisco+EMC+VMWare+Intel lash-up) shows that packaged private "Cloud" back end server offerings are at least seen as a way people will go.
I think it's smart packaging myself, four-cab VM building block, just add servers and away you go. And since you're just providing a VM environment, you're not limited in your underlying OS choices. Linux is a good way to go there.
~Although the ACADIA system is clearly superior to the IBM offering because (see above link) it can "accelerate customers' ability to increase business agility through greater IT infrastructure flexibility"./~ Gaaaahh!
Do not mock my vision of impractical footwear
What screensavers come with it, can I add my own?
IBM sucks. I know, I work for them. If your standard is a help desk staffed by untrained idiots, server support coming from Indians who barely speak english and could care less about anything other than their ticket count, and a consistent effort to make every issue a money issue, then yes, you probably get "excellent" support. I came to IBM in an outsourcing agreement. Before the outsourcing, the IT staff cared about the environment we managed. We wanted things to be done right, and took pride in the work we did. Now, only a skeleton crew of the original employees remain and the rest have been replaced by offshore staff, all at the direction of IBM's upper management determined to put the company and their customers into the poor house while pocketing fat bonuses and exercising stock options funded by the blood of their employees.
Sam P thinks that offshoring is so wonderful, and offers his employees an opportunity to work in "developing" countries for the "prevailing local wage". If he thinks it's so great, then he should move his fat prick ass out of his comfy house(s) and live there himself. No one in the US would miss him. He could take his fudgepacker buddy Bob Moffat with him and they could steal from the locals to pass the time.
Now there will undoubtedly be several who respond that I'm just bitter. They will make comments that I'm just a spoiled American, upset that the cheap labor from other geographies is threatening my lifestyle. And to all of them, from the bottom of my heart, FUCK YOU.
Never mind the grammar (I can hardly believe that I'm saying that), I thought that operating systems were designed to work with the processor(s). When did it get to be the other way around?
Lots of apps for IBM mainframes are per-processor licensed. This caused a problem for IBM in trying to sell mainframes to run hybrid workloads; the customer would say, "But those extra processors to run Apache on Linux are costing me money in licensing fees on my mainframe apps. It's cheaper for me to buy a smaller mainframe and a bunch of PCs."
So IBM put together a bunch of processors, hardware-identical with normal mainframe processors, but including extra microcode that limits them to running Java/XML (z Application Assist Processor) or Linux (the Integrated Facility for Linux). These units don't count as processors for purposes of licensing mainframe apps, since they can't run mainframe apps.