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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.
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?
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.
Modern Z hardware has nothing to do with POWER. Mainframes do not push computation into channel controllers, whatever gave you that bizarre idea? Treat your database like a device driver? What is that supposed to mean? Linux runs native on zSeries, so virtualization is not necessary (and has not been for more than a decade).
You seem to know absolutely nothing about mainframes, why are you posting?
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..
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.