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IBM Launches Linux-Only Mainframes
An anonymous reader writes: IBM is introducing two mainframe servers that only run on Linux. It's part of a new initiative from the Linux Foundation called the Open Mainframe Project. "The idea is that those companies participating in this project can work together, and begin building a set of open source tools and technologies for Linux mainframes, while helping one another overcome common development issues in the same manner as all open source projects." IBM's hardware release is accompanied by 250,000 lines of code that they're open sourcing as well. "Ultimately the mainframe mainstays are hoping to attract a new generation of developers to their platform. To help coax new users, IBM will be offering free access to the LinuxOne cloud, a mainframe simulation tool it developed for creating, testing and piloting Linux mainframe applications." Canonical is working with IBM to bring Ubuntu to mainframes.
IBM is introducing two mainframe servers that only run on Linux.
In Capitalist America, Linux runs on mainframe servers.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
To help coax new users, IBM will be offering free access to the LinuxOne cloud,
Is this access just for coax users or is it available via fibre or twisted pair?
Suse has supported linux on Z-Series for quite some time https://www.suse.com/products/...
~corporate tool, but employed~
You'll need an EBCDIC keypunch to create the input card deck.
THIS is the kind of story /. was designed for..... VERY cool!!
THANK YOU, Edward Snowden!! Americans owe you a debt of gratitude (whether they know it or not..)
I'm sorry, but Ubuntu on mainframes? Ubuntu is the linux distribution FURTHEST from being appropriate for a mainframe - it's heavily targeted towards desktop users, particularly those with a lower level of expertise (or a lower desire to put work into their OS) than the average linux user. What's more, it's adware/spyware now, which is definitely something I'd hate to have on a mainframe - the last thing you want is your OS transmitting and receiving data at random!
These are mainframes that only run Linux. There is no other supported operating system.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Large, fast, massive IO, and extremely reliable computers running a POSIX or POSIX like OS.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Yet the mainframe is by far the most reliable and secure environment where to run production software. The folks working on mainframe have traditionally more rigour in their processes than those running mid-range servers. At least it was the case not that long ago.
Views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of the author.
Is it supported merely for legacy systems, or does IBM still find a niche use for AIX? Anybody care to enlighten me?
"Yet the mainframe is by far the most reliable and secure environment where to run production software"
Maybe, but I always felt it was more like "security through obscurity". There aren't many z/OS exploits because of it's low usage footprint, not because it's anymore inherently secure than a modern UNIX/Linux.
If you post as Anonymous Coward, don't expect a reply.
I notice TFA has no mention of what the hardware will cost, or what IBM will charge for Linux on a mainframe, or even the model numbers of these two mainframes which are Linux only. And MongoDB on an IBM mainframe? Talk about a culture clash.
Mainframes are nice in that you get hw with 100% uptime. Not 99.99%, but 100%. Electronics getting old? Need replacements? Offline a couple of CPUs, then pull the cards while the machine is running. Insert new ones and bring them up. Repeat, until you've swapped all the CPUs - and the mainframe was running all the time! (Obviously not at 100% capacity, but transactions were processed continuously).
Memory modules are hot-replaceable in the same manner. So is network, disks & power supplies. All is redundant, all is replaceable without shutting down. You can do such stunts "to some extent" with PC hardware - i.e. you can get a pc-type server board with redundant power. And linux has hot-adding of CPUs already. But mainframes has 50 years of experience with this sort of always-up requirement - so it just works, without snags.
It's not the mainframe that's so bulletproof. It's MVS. And, as you noted, an extremely risk-avoidant culture.
How do you replace the motherboard? What if a cap blows?
Something has to hold the system bus, and that can't be hot-plugged.
Nokia's DX200 series of PSTN switches had fully redundant motherboards, you could literally physically cut the PCI bus and the thing would just keep on rolling, without dropping any calls..
The logic is packaged in 'drawers' (up to 4 per system). If one fails it is taken offline and replaced and the image keeps running (at lower capacity of course).
So, is the point that if you're spending millions on it, then you will be more careful with the software?
Do the programmers get to wear a white lab coat?
Except for, well the actual facts. Canonical does in fact put Ubuntu on phones. That's actually one of their products, Ubuntu Phone. Red Hat, on the other hand, sells Red Hat ENTERPRISE Linux. They do in fact have a different focus.
"It's all Linux", one might say. Both do use (different) Linux kernels, just like Android does. There are also differences, such as the focus on new features vs time-tested reliability. Red Hat doesn't get the hottest new stuff the moment that upstream releases a beta. They wait until it's stable and reliable. For mainframes, you probably want stable and reliable.
Mainframes don't have a system bus in the way the PC crowd thinks of it. You can in fact swap out the backplane parts one at a time and maintain system/image uptime/integrity.
Mainframes are not simply overpriced PCs. They're put together internally in quite a different way.
The original system busses were in the backplane, not in on a "motherboard". That was true even on my very first (S-100) PC, long before IBM got into the personal computer market. The backplane was almost nothing but wiring, with no caps to blow. You'd basically have to set it on fire to render it useless.
That's because when you've coughed up a million or six for a mainframe that can take up to 10 minutes to re-IPL and paralyzes the entire company while it's down, the last answer to a technical problem you want to hear is "Have you tried turning it off and back on again?"
The whole concept of "fixing" problems via Ctrl-Alt-Del is one of the worst things that ever happened to computing technology.
Hardware used to be expensive, so companies hired expensive employees to provide expensive (but reliable) solutions.
Then hardware got cheap, so companies looked for cheap employees to provide cheap solutions. And got them.
So, is the point that if you're spending millions on it, then you will be more careful with the software?
Do the programmers get to wear a white lab coat?
Usually more like torn-up jeans and ratty t-shirts. The one who dress fancy are the ones who are least to be trusted.
Since "C" generally really is "K" in Latin, but people anyway seem quite happy to talk about stuff like"Sentrums" and "Seramics", I don't quite see your point.
I don't know about system z, but in some designs there are even redundant midplanes/backplanes, such that you could service them independently.
Yes 'bunch of wires' (traces) can have problems. A metal can corrode, a connector can deform. It's one reason that if you have a fully redundant system and expecting 100% uptime, sometimes a midplane is a worse decision than discretely cabled components. However with redundant and indpendently serviceable mid/backplanes, that no longer becomes a risk.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
What spyware, please include citations.
Scale out with Ubuntu Server
@Anon: "I'm sorry, but Ubuntu on mainframes? Ubuntu is the linux distribution FURTHEST from being appropriate for a mainframe - it's heavily targeted towards desktop users, particularly those with a lower level of expertise (or a lower desire to put work into their OS) than the average linux user. What's more, it's adware/spyware now, which is definitely something I'd hate to have on a mainframe - the last thing you want is your OS transmitting and receiving data at random!" ref
In 2009, the Register quoted z systems Linux mainframe pricing at $323,204 for a machine with five cpu cores, and no memory or disk: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2...
mainframe servers that only run on Linux.
Something about that quote seems backwards to me. Can I run that server on a raspberry pi running Linux?
Question:"... which IBM server range can run applications written for Windows NT and 2000, Novell NetWare, Aix and OS/2 as well as..."
Answer: "Probably the most important development, however, came in 1998, when the ability to run Windows NT was added (Windows 2000 has become an option now on the latest version)"
* BOTH quotes are from -> http://www.computerweekly.com/...
...which is talking about add-on x86 processors running NT (and other x86 operating systems).
I guess if MS can do it, IBM can too.
Except this is probably IBM locking out their own operating systems, i.e. they're not "machines that can't run anything other than Linux", they're "machines that can't run z/OS or z/VSE", which IBM has already had for a while. Given that I don't think anybody's has completed a port of any other open-source OSes to z/Architecture, that may amount to "machines that can't run anything other than Linux", but, unless there are bits of z/Architecture Linux that are binary-only and that support undocumented parts of the system (which I think there might be), that's not inherent to those systems.
(This is more like Apple releasing a Mac that doesn't have the right magic to have OS X willing to boot on it; it could still run Linux or Windows or....)
I also noticed the TechCrunch article has a link to the announcement: http://www.linuxfoundation.org/news-media/announcements/2015/08/linux-foundation-brings-together-industry-heavyweights-advance which produces "Access Denied"!!
Works for me....
So I shortened it: http://www.linuxfoundation.org/news-media/announcements/2015/08/ And that page shows no such announcement.
It does now, at the top.
Right. The hardware does not care what you run on it. However, if you have only IFLs z/OS won't load. They probably do that by not providing some undocumented instruction that z/OS needs when the engine is configured as an IFL. The Linux stuff is all open, there are no binary-only bits or undocumented instructions used by Linux.
There used to be a Z version of OpenSolaris. Don't know if it still exists or not. If it does, it would run on these machines.
The 'Linux-only' part of this announcement is not that the MACHINES are only capable of running Linux, it is that it is now possible to have a virtualized Linux environment using ONLY Linux (before you had to have z/VM to provide the virtualization).
Since "C" generally really is "K" in Latin, but people anyway seem quite happy to talk about stuff like"Sentrums" and "Seramics", I don't quite see your point.
His point is presumably that accenting the "e" at the end of "niche" reveals that the person doing so learned about accents, but didn't learn that "niche" doesn't have an accent over the "e" in French, in French class.
I tried to make as much sense as the parent. Know what? Ubuntu has been quite similar to debian especially if you consider that LTS is the real version (that's semi-official since the other ones got reduced to 9 monthes)
Currently Ubuntu LTS is more conservative than debian jessie, since the latter has systemd. I'm not up to speed about what petty things people can troll about with command-line Ubuntu LTS though.
AFAIK, they never did actually kill RETAIN off. Nothing could outperform that thing, much less fucking Lotus Notes. Also AFAIK, Lotus Notes continues to suck for E-Mail inside IBM The old mainframe-based E-Mail, Profs, was a significantly better E-Mail system. And they killed OS/2 off in '95 or '96. Quite possibly the best thing about Linux everywhere on the company's hardware is that IBM Didn't Invent It.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Niché does mean something along the line of "nidificated".