IBM Launches Linux-Only Mainframes 157
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.
In Capitalist America... (Score:2, Funny)
IBM is introducing two mainframe servers that only run on Linux.
In Capitalist America, Linux runs on mainframe servers.
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Was that supposed to be funny?
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Did it have to be?
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Yes.
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Yes. Was that ^ supposed to make you look superior?
If you didn't get it, or did and just didn't think it was funny anyway, that's okay. But what makes you care so much that you felt you had to tell everyone that you didn't find it funny?
At least one other person has found it funny enough to mod it so, so I'm calling that a win.
If I've misinterpreted your post, and you're upset because you recently lost someone dear to you in a Linux mainframe related accident, then you have my sympathies.
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What about Fibre users? (Score:5, Funny)
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?
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Twinax, IBM's old 5250 cable is all the rage again, running new sas/sata displayport and 10-100ge.
Been around for awhile... (Score:2)
No it hasn't (Score:3)
These are mainframes that only run Linux. There is no other supported operating system.
Re:No it hasn't (Score:4, Interesting)
Yup - first thought that ran through my mind: "Oh, they're selling Z Series with crippled Firmware."
I'm kind of stumped. Linux on a Mainframe is a neat party trick, but it doesn't really make a lot of sense. Modern Z Series hardware is heavily derived from Power. Why not just run Power Linux? Mainframe I/O design is intentionally about as un-PDP-like as possible, so it's a bad match for Unix, Linux, or even Windows for that matter (NT ran on MIPS, so it theoretically could be ported to S/390). Mainframes get their performance by pushing computation into the channel controllers, and while you could do something like that in Linux, are any of your applications ready to treat your database like a device driver? Because that's what you'll have to do. And, incidentally, it's why every attempt from AIX/370 to Linux on Z Series has required virtualization and a ton of independent kernels to get anything resembling decent performance. And that's where Dell will come in and put thousands of cores in a 42U rack for you... No, IBM's own P Series is a better idea, and their former x86 division (now Lenovo) looks even better.
Erik
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Yeah, I'm sort of failing to see the point here as well - running your classic z/OS backend stuff and then having a few zIFLs talking to the backend over HiperSockets (IIRC) made sense, but just a big zSeries box with no way to run legacy apps?
I'm not sure but I guess the market will decide..
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Yeah, I'm sort of failing to see the point here as well - running your classic z/OS backend stuff and then having a few zIFLs talking to the backend over HiperSockets (IIRC) made sense, but just a big zSeries box with no way to run legacy apps?
It seems apparent that there now exists a significant market segment that only cares about Linux serving and not legacy mainframe apps.
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Traditionally the main advantage of mainframes was expensive high-capacity peripheral devices. (Well, they used to also be a lot faster...but they were enough more expensive that this was a dubious advantage over a network of micro-computers. And, of course, depending on which decade you are looking at.)
So. Perhaps the advantage is that this is a mainframe built totally around high end commodity CPUs. IBM sold they chip fab awhile ago, so there's not too much reason that they should stick with the power
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These days, mainframe peripherals are much like any other... high end EMC or HDS gear or the like, 10G or 40G ethernet and possibly fiberchannel (dinosaur still walking the earth). Interconnect on the mainframe would be better in general than high end rack mount servers, a modest advantage but not enough to justify the cost. Availability is the trump card.
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As to the interconnect, there's also Infiniband. However, the BIG thing with mainframe I/O is that unlike the PC hardware, there's no single system bus that gets split between devices, instead you have a crap-ton of channels that can all communicate concurrently, and the available features for data integrity, encryption etc, which includes checksumming of transfers between devices or between device and RAM etc.
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...the BIG thing with mainframe I/O is that unlike the PC hardware, there's no single system bus that gets split between devices, instead you have a crap-ton of channels that can all communicate concurrently...
You mean, unlike old PC hardware. Modern AMD hardware has hypertransport and Intel followed with QPI, both point to point serial architectures. The traditional shared bus is now just an emulation.
and the available features for data integrity, encryption etc, which includes checksumming of transfers between devices or between device and RAM etc.
PCI devices (now actually serial-connected) are unrestricted in what they can do. Network hardware has because a lot smarter and does a lot more offload. Disk hardware, not so much, but it's heading in that direction. So basically the same thing, which should be no surprise. Updated and subject to stronger evoluti
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Hypertransport and QPI are only between CPU and either a communications hub or straight to the northbridge, and the internal shared bus(AMD and Intel have both shied away from Crossbar Switches, though HP has a custom one for their Superdome machines(which itself tries to go into Big Iron areas)). Things that would make my current Sandy Bridge Xeon or my previous Opteron system choke, such as trying to make multiple infiniband cards run at full steam simultaneously to and from a RAM disk didn't even registe
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Reliability.
Re:No it hasn't (Score:5, Informative)
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?
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you have some incorrect information also
First layer virtualization is provided by PR/SM to deploy LPARS prior to this announcement. Linux was not running "natively"
Of course the Z architecture is modified PowerPC processor based
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z processors are not and have never been based on PowerPC. I don't know where this myth comes from.
When someone says that an OS running on a platform 'requires virtualization', they mean that there is some required facility missing from the platform, and that facility is provided by the virtualization layer. There is no such requirement to run Linux on Z. PR/SM is not providiing anything that is not available in the hardware.
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Of course the Z architecture is modified PowerPC processor based
So you're claiming here that the uops into which the z13 microprocessor cracks the non-single-cycle z/Architecture instructions [ieee.org] are Power ISA instructions?
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The IBM Z mainframe is a direct descendant from the IBM 360 from the 60ies.
Using a modified PPC to run the legacy CISCy code would be bad both for performance and reliability. Even assuming you meant IBM POWER rather than Power PC this holds.
IBM shares process technology and experiences in e.g. optimizing decimal floating point execution between the POWER and the Z series - but they are completely separate designs.
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Z series and power definitely do not share an instruction set, and they have really substantial differences, but that isn't keeping the engineering teams all that separated, if indeed they are at all.
Quoting Timothy Prickett Morgan from http://www.itjungle.com/tfh/tf... [itjungle.com] , "And as has been the case in the past, the Power and z processors are designed by a single processing team and are borrowing technologies from each other. This does not, however, mean that IBM is creating a converged processor that can sup
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They are not 'going down the road'. Linux on Z, and the IFL (Integrated Facility for Linux) has been around for 15 YEARS. This is not something new. I don't know why you think there is some sort of incompatibility between mainframes and Linux.
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I'm starting to suspect we're in violent agreement here. :-)
I've physically, with my eyeballs, seen Linux running on some sort of z series a couple years ago. I saw AIX/370 running on some sort of box around 1990-92-ish, so I know it can be done (parenthetically, I was told it shared no code at all with AIX/6000). My entire point with virtualization is not to suggest there's a problem with the mainframe. Whether it makes sense to or not is completely beside the point.
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Somehow I completely missed the fact that you were talking about the virtualization aspect of it. Sorry about that.
Even so, I don't think it that big of a deal. Linux on Z has it's own drivers, for DASD, OSA, etc. The virtualization layer only needs to trap the 'start subchannel' instruction and translate the CCWs into the 'real' CCWs then do it's own start subchannel. There is no need for the virtualization layer to emulate things like the channel controllers because that is all invisible to the OS any
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Z has plenty of custom hardware - I think it's fair to say it's predominantly custom - the branch predictor would have to be pretty different, and of course power doesn't have a BCD arithmetic unit.
Actually, it does have IEEE decimal floating-point, as does z/Architecture. z/Architecture has decimal fixed point, but, these days, it might just trap to millicode doing tricks such as excess-6 for carry propagation [uiowa.edu]. (And the PowerPC processors in at least some AS/400 machines added some instructions to assist BCD arithmetic [google.com].)
Anyway, I'll argue that they're spiritually and economically related, and there's more than a passing family resemblance. Kind of like power and modern ("advanced server") iSeries,
There is no iSeries any more, there's just the IBM Power Systems [ibm.com], which are the successors to both RS/6000^WpSeries^WSystem p and to AS/400^WiSeries^WSystem i; they can run both AIX
Re:No it hasn't (Score:4, Informative)
And that's where Dell will come in and put thousands of cores in a 42U rack for you...
We're getting to the point where all that matters is how much performance can you get from an assemblage of nodes, and how much does it cost to buy and support it?
If IBM can provide a lower TCO than Dell with different technology and the "containers" are compatible, many customers will be interested.
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Linux on a Mainframe is a neat party trick, but it doesn't really make a lot of sense.
That "party trick" is generally credited [computerweekly.com] for reviving IBM's mainframe business.
Modern Z Series hardware is heavily derived from Power. Why not just run Power Linux? Mainframe I/O design is intentionally about as un-PDP-like as possible, so it's a bad match for Unix, Linux, or even Windows for that matter (NT ran on MIPS, so it theoretically could be ported to S/390).
Not sure what you're concerned about. Linux sees the mainframe hardware through drivers like any other architecture. Who cares if the DASD driver using a channel is organized differently from a memory mapped driver for some other arch? It just looks like a block driver to the rest of the kernel.
Mainframes get their performance by pushing computation into the channel controllers, and while you could do something like that in Linux, are any of your applications ready to treat your database like a device driver?
Even more puzzled by this comment. S390 applications never need to bother with channel controllers or know they exist.
Because that's what you'll have to do.
I doubt it.
And, incidentally, it's why every attempt from AIX/370 to Linux on Z Series has required virtualization and a ton of independent kernels to get anything resembling decent performance.
Citation
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Yup - first thought that ran through my mind: "Oh, they're selling Z Series with crippled Firmware."
They've been selling z Series with crippled firmware since time immemorial - when special "z Application Assist Processors" were introduced as core options, they allowed to speed up Java and XML processing using extra copies of exactly the same hardware as the general purpose CPU cores...that was locked out (using microcode or something) from running the regular z Series software. The same goes for the "Integrated Facility for Linux" core options that only ran Linux. And the "z Integrated Information Proces
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Specialty processors like AAPs and ZIPs exist for one reason - saving the customer money. IBMs own software is mostly priced by workload - the more you use it the more you pay. But most ISV software is priced by the capacity of the machine. Since ISV software will not be dispatched on the specialty engines, those engines do not count towards the machine capacity, thereby lowering software costs.
I am not sure exactly how 'IBM sells you more than you bought'. Perhaps what you meant is that under certain c
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Specialty engines are not crippled in any way, they always run at full speed. Even when the CPs are not full speed. And they cost less than full speed CPs. As for why don't the ISVs change how they license or bill, you would have to ask the ISVs. My guess is they don't want to do extra work and make their code more complicated for the sole purpose of getting paid less.
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Re:No it hasn't (Score:4, Insightful)
...of all the things that Linux isn't designed for, is a mainframe OS, because either the mainframe hardware will have to be changed to support Linux's "view" of the world, or Linux has to get a ton of drivers.
Now I'm stumped by your comment. Linux has no problem with "a ton of drivers", but the fact is, only a few drivers are actually needed.
I understand IBM's mainframe division is trying to stay relevant, but they need to focus on getting people to use a mainframe, not trying to make a mainframe act as a PC.
What makes you think Linux makes a mainframe act as a PC? Linux runs on many disparate architectures, some of which look very little like a PC. Sure, Linux forces every architecture to present a page table abstraction derived historically from intel's model, but is that is mainly because that simple model makes sense, and not particularly inefficient for architectures with a different approach to emulate it. Other than that, life in mainframe land is much like any other architecture, especially now that with virualization rampant, everything looks a lot more like a mainframe inside today.
Things like lockstep CPUs and such, leave that to the hypervisor, and let Linux view it as one CPU in /proc unless there are critical exceptions that need to be passed to the client OS.
Why would you think it works any differently than that?
However, what really needs to be done is sell what a mainframe does best, and that is reliability.
How do you imagine IBM sells mainframes? There was a time when customers had a lot of idle capacity siting around that could be recycled as Linux servers, but now IBM's only compelling argument is reliability. But that argument is a cruncher for some customers.
What IBM needs to do is have a case for having the hardware be expensive and reduce the number of man-hours needed to be put in to code a solution.
The mainframe proposition is not about maintenance cost, it is about the business cost of even temporary interruption or failure.
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Isn't there still software buried in the I/O stack that is kind of emulating a punch-card reader?
Well, in your IBM PC compatible, there could be an SSD disk kind of emulating a 512B block device. ;)
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Linux-only mainframes (all IFLs, no CPs) have been available for years. This is not a new type of machine, it is more of a 'solution'. The major new thing is that you can use KVM to manage virtual images instead of z/VM.
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Thanks, I was thinking that there had been an L part number z series box for at least a decade and was wondering what the news was. In fact slashdot covered their first linux only part 13 years ago [slashdot.org]
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Those "linux only" mainframes still had LPARS under PR/SM first layer hypervisor, this new machine will allow KVM along side of PR/SM
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It doesn't allow KVM along side PR/SM. Before this announcement you could have Hardware->PR/SM->Linux or Hardware->PR/SM->z/VM->Guests. Now you can also have Hardware->PR/SM->Linux->KVM->Guests.
This announcement is not a new machine. The machine is z13. The announcement is the ability to virtualize with KVM instead of z/VM.
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What exactly is so awful about z/VM?
THIS is the kind of story... (Score:2)
THIS is the kind of story /. was designed for..... VERY cool!!
Ubuntu?! (Score:2, Insightful)
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!
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Ubuntu is a popular Linux distribution among developers. While I personally prefer Debian, there are plenty of people using Ubuntu to do some very interesting work.
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None of which is realy to go onto big iron.
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you wouldn't know you're running on a "mainframe"
Your accountant would know if it were really running on a mainframe. Your users and developers wouldn't notice any benefit, but your accountant can painfully feel the weight of the mainframe.
This is IBM grasping at relevance of their mainframe platform to a wider audience. The problem is that it's not an appealing architecture for those workloads. If anything this may be making some hardcore mainframe shops wonder more strongly if they should be moving off, since even IBM seems to be legitimizing the 'no
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You are spewing without knowledge, mainframe the most cost effective solution for many enterprise workloads
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If they tasked me with deploying Ubuntu to a mainframe by the end of 2018 I'd quit right now.
Ubuntu... used by windows users who think it's Linux.
that said.... It's nice to see the forward thinking here, sure we've got solutions in place but this can lead to some very interesting projects in the next few years.
Oh come on. I'm mainly a Red Hat person, but, excepting Suse, there's no other Linux distro that's more server-friendly than Ubuntu, whose work in that area goes back a decade.
Right now, the cutting-edge work on clouds and containers is mainly being done on Red Hat and on Ubuntu. And sometimes the more advanced stuff is coming from Ubuntu. If Ubuntu hadn't also corrupted itself with systemd, I'd be seriously considering converting a couple of RHEL boxes.
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Yes it does, RedHat are major contributors to that bloated rubbish. Sadly all the distros that are "enterprise certified" for various common wares are going to systemd. A good argument for pressuring vendors to certify on BSD I say...
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You are confused, Ubuntu Server is inferior how from Redhat or SLES? Since I admin hundreds of servers running all of those (plus Debian and CentOS), I can definitely tell you in what areas Redhat/CentOS and SuSE are inferior
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That's like saying Debian and Red Hat are for illiterate cell phone users because they have GNOME 3.
Ubuntu Phone is real. No Red Hat Enterprise phone (Score:3)
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.
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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.
Ubuntu adware/spyware? (Score:3)
Scale out with Ubuntu Server [ubuntu.com]
@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 tr
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It does happen, although I'm not sure it happens with Ubuntu server. Canonical does allow you to turn it off, but I have no idea how hard it is to do so.
Citation [gnu.org]
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Eh, there is not much difference between Debian and Ubuntu Server, and Debian was the best server Linux distro until the systemd twats ruined parts of it the same as the other major server distros
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Isn't that just Debian?
I don't see any real advantages of using Ubuntu server over Debian? Is there any?
So it competes with SUN. (Score:2)
Large, fast, massive IO, and extremely reliable computers running a POSIX or POSIX like OS.
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Don't forget that Z series is even more stupid expensive than Sun gear. I get that there's a bunch of R/D that goes into mainframes and keeping a non x86 CPU alive (Sparc/PPC/Zseries). But, if you want new things to be built for them, there has to be a reasonable level of entry for small shops.
$20k+ (Sun) or $100k+ (Zseries) is not a low enough entry level that I'd going to develop anything for it.
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You do realise you can emulate a z/Series using Hercules and use that for development, right?
No need to fork out $100K+ (also since these Linux-only z boxes won't have any CP's, just zIFLs, I think the base price might come down)
And since it's pretty easy to set up virtualised instances (either using LPARs or say z/VM), you could always share one of these boxes amongst multiple users.
And what might this cost? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: And what might this cost? (Score:2)
Is it mainframescale?
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Mainframe runs on Linux (Score: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?
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There used to be a Windows ad along the lines of "the software that runs forfty percent of the world's computers." They later changed it, either to "runs on" or "is run by" or something like that.
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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?
Will Hercules [hercules-390.eu] run on an Raspberry Pi? If so, then, yes, you can run that server on a Raspberry Pi running Linux.
(But, yes, it should have said "that only run Linux".)
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People are misreading the announcement (and, yes, a lot of it has to do with bad reporting). The annoucement is not a MACHINE that is only capable of running Linux. The announcement is about SOFTWARE, namely that you can now have a virtualized mainframe (ie 'cloud') environment using ONLY Linux. Previously the virtualization had to be provided with z/VM. Now it can be provided by Linux running KVM.
It's Kind of Like That One Time (Score:2)
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"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.
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It's not the mainframe that's so bulletproof. It's MVS. And, as you noted, an extremely risk-avoidant culture.
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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?
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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.
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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
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AIX has nothing to do with mainframes. AIX runs on POWER systems.
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I know AIX is a holdover from RS/6000, but isn't the zSeries based on a highly modified POWER core?
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No, not at all.
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Looks like you're correct, although z/architecture does share some of the same components (in the same way all CPU's share some of the same technologies).
http://speleotrove.com/decimal... [speleotrove.com]
It makes sense considering POWER is RISC whereas z/Series is CISC. I should have been able to put two-in-two together.
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IBM mainframes were commonly virtual machines. Unlike their predecessors, which had their instructions hard-wired into them, the System/360 and later boxes usually had some sort of "Initial MicroProgram Load" phase that kitted out the machine's NVRAM with the microcode that made them all run the common S/360 instruction set, regardless of underlying hardware, which could be quite radically different, depending on the make and model. Not unlike what Project Hercules provides, but on a much dumber level. In f
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IBM mainframes were commonly virtual machines. Unlike their predecessors, which had their instructions hard-wired into them, the System/360 and later boxes usually had some sort of "Initial MicroProgram Load" phase that kitted out the machine's NVRAM with the microcode that made them all run the common S/360 instruction set, regardless of underlying hardware, which could be quite radically different, depending on the make and model.
For System/360, only the Model 85 and Model 25 had microcode in RAM rather than ROM (the Model 75 and Model 91 didn't have any microcode, the instruction set was implemented in hardwired logic). The hardware was, as far as I know, primarily designed to implement the System/3x0 instruction set; different machines may have been friendly towards other instruction sets to different degrees (emulators existed for some 140x and 709x machines, but they only needed to run those instruction sets as well as the orig
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Mainframes run zOS, a prosperity OS.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z/OS
Considering their license fees, it certainly should be a prosperity OS. But I think you meant "proprietary".
Actually, mainframes have run many different OS's, some proprietary, some custom, a few open-source. Although up until about 1986, the source code for most IBM OS's was freely available.
Mainframes these days are most likely to run zOS, zVM and/or zVSE. These are the primary IBM licensed OS products. But as I said, other OS's have been implemented as well. I think a number of universities and military
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IBM has a software layer called UNIX System Services to provide an AIX environment on most of their Z-mainframes - apparently it won't be supported on this new one though. From my limited experience, I think the Linux implementation was more seamless and better regarded than USS, which had sort of a '90s-compatibility layer feel.
Because it is a compatibility layer atop OS/VS2 Multiple Virtual Storage. a/k/a MVS, or, as it's called these days with its 64-bitification, z/OS - complete with EBCDIC being the native character set (so watch out for those UN\*X programs that assume 'a' through 'z' or 'A' through 'Z' are contiguous!). If the new machines don't support z/OS, they won't support USS, either.
Re:Really? (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Re:Really? (Score:5, Informative)
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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).
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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.
Re:Really? (Score:5, Informative)
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.
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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.
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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.
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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/... [computerweekly.com]
...which is talking about add-on x86 processors running NT (and other x86 operating systems).
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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 [ibm.com]. 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
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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