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Windows OS Coming To the Mainframe
msmoriarty writes "Following up on its May announcement, IBM has now confirmed that by December 16 it will support Microsoft Windows on zEnterprise via its zBX component."
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The summary misses something fairly important, which is that Windows isn't running on the z mainframe itself. This allows Windows blades to be inserted into an external chassis (zBX) and managed by a software component called the Unified Resource Manager.
Reading through the thick IBM-specific jargon, zBX is actually a blade server management system that places blade servers on a private network connected to the mainframe, with the mainframe managing them. It supports POWER7 (FYI POWER is a "big cousin" to the PowerPC chip) and IBM System x (x86-based) blades.
So, in actuality, this is Windows running on an x86 box, with the mainframe managing it -- it is not like mainframe Linux where Linux is truly running on the mainframe.
Only one of the last 6 companies I worked for DIDN'T have a mainframe.
Not only does my current company still have a mainframe- we're doing a major software upgrade on it next year.
The mainframe never died.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
Some estimates have mainframes processing 80% of the world's data. http://fosspatents.blogspot.com/2010/08/western-civilization-runs-on-mainframe.html Now I'm not sure how accurate that percentage is, but if you run an enterprise business and have thousands of servers to maintain, a mainframe still makes a lot of sense.
Contrary to the impression left by the misleading title, this is NOT Windows running on a mainframe. It is Windows running on a blade in a blade center attached to and managed by the mainframe. Using a Windows (or Linux, or AIX) box to perform analytics on mainframe data is not new. What is new is the methods for getting the data from the mainframe, and the fact that the whole thing is managed by the mainframe. And in the mainframe sector, management is huge.
Lots of companies use mainframes still. For tasks that require high availability and high I/O, mainframes are your best bet. While you can run a web server on a mainframe, it isn't utilizing the advantages. Running your financial systems where you get tens or hundreds of thousands concurrent users making transcactions is where mainframes have no equal. Also remember it isn't always an either/or situation. A company can use a farm of web servers to handle the front end while the backend processing is handled by a mainframe.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
No no, your Main Frames will not start to blue screen, reboot twice daily for "Critical Security Patches", or need a Microsoft Certified *chuckle chuckle* Administrator. It's simply blade support which has been unavailable until now (for good reason IMO).
Big Blue is not in the Cloud game, but this does give a nice option for big iron selection from Cloud vendors. Since it's still the buzz word, IBM may as well cash in on it.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
Windows does not run on the mainframe (z/Architecture engine). Windows runs on an Intel blade in a blade center connected to the mainframe with some high-speed links and is managed by the mainframe. The mainframe is still running z/OS, and will have the same performance and reliability characteristics it always had.