Moving To Mainframe Can Be Cheaper Than Sticking With VMware (theregister.com) 31
Gartner says some VMware customers may find it cheaper to move certain Linux VM workloads to IBM mainframes than to adopt Broadcom's new VMware licensing, especially for fleets of hundreds of Linux VMs and mission-critical apps needing long-term stability. The Register reports: Speaking to The Register to discuss the analyst firm's mid-April publication, "The State of the IBM Mainframe in 2026," [Gartner Vice President Analyst Alessandro Galimberti] said some buyers in many fields are comparing mainframes to modern environments and deciding Big Blue's big iron comes out ahead. "I can build a multi-region cloud application, but things like data synchronization and high availability are things I need to build into application logic," he said. "The mainframe has that in the platform, which shields developers from complexity." He also thinks mainframes are ideally suited to workloads that need many years of transactional consistency and backward-compatibility.
That said, Galimberti doesn't recommend the mainframe for all applications. He said mission-critical applications that are unlikely to change much for a decade are best-suited to the machines, as are Linux applications because the open source OS runs on IBM's hardware. IBM also offers the z/VM hypervisor, which he says can make Linux "even better and more enterprise-ready." Which is why Galimberti thinks IBM's ecosystem is attractive to VMware users, especially those who operate a fleet of 500 to 700 Linux VMs. [...]
Committing to mainframes therefore means planning "to spend time negotiating price and renewal protections, rather than prioritizing the business value these solutions can deliver." Another downside is that mainframes pose clear lock-in risk, so users may hold back on useful customizations out of fear they make it harder to extricate themselves from the platform. Access to skills remains an issue, too, as kids these days mostly don't contemplate a career working with big iron. Galimberti sees more service providers investing in their mainframe programs, which might help. So does the availability of Linux.
That said, Galimberti doesn't recommend the mainframe for all applications. He said mission-critical applications that are unlikely to change much for a decade are best-suited to the machines, as are Linux applications because the open source OS runs on IBM's hardware. IBM also offers the z/VM hypervisor, which he says can make Linux "even better and more enterprise-ready." Which is why Galimberti thinks IBM's ecosystem is attractive to VMware users, especially those who operate a fleet of 500 to 700 Linux VMs. [...]
Committing to mainframes therefore means planning "to spend time negotiating price and renewal protections, rather than prioritizing the business value these solutions can deliver." Another downside is that mainframes pose clear lock-in risk, so users may hold back on useful customizations out of fear they make it harder to extricate themselves from the platform. Access to skills remains an issue, too, as kids these days mostly don't contemplate a career working with big iron. Galimberti sees more service providers investing in their mainframe programs, which might help. So does the availability of Linux.
Cheaper options (Score:5, Insightful)
Broadcom have shot themselves in the foot with the new pricing ambitions. Why do I need to pay 300-500% increase to run the same stuff on my own hardware?!
ProxMox doesn't have the 24/7 support but for whatBroadcom charge you might as well pay a 3rd party to provide the cover. You'll still be better off.
Broadcom doesn't expect customers to stay (Score:3, Interesting)
They got rid of most of VMware's engineering team. VMware is basically where Solaris is now. Yes technically you can keep renewing but this is not a product with a future. They are just shaking down customers on the way out the door.
I'd laugh if IBM got any new labels from this, I mean come on nobody really thinks that tying yourself to mainframes is the path to long-term cost savings. Though the fact IBM is still somewhat investing in its mainframes versus POWER is slightly impressive. Telum II got a die s
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"Shot themselves in the foot" is relative; it was never about sustainability. It's about extracting the most they can as fast as they can, then selling the dregs at a discount.
That includes pursuing legal action against other vendors once their cash cow starts drying up.
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The reason they (Broadcom) did this is clear, Hock E. Tan, Broadcom's CEO is the 4th highest paid CEO @ $767M / year.
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Also, Proxmox VE has a complete API, as well as many 3rd party integrations for being able to do infrastructure-as-code work with it, using Terraform or Pulumi.
I've used it quite nicely to make ephemeral VM test environments for CI/CD and remote contractors that our company doesn't deem rate a laptop or AWS access.
Re: Cheaper options (Score:2)
I had a strong dislike for VMWare, stack was buggy, support tools were left unmaintained and a lot of features just did not work as advertised by marketing. I'm not sorry to see the VMWare platform go away. Having more open alternatives being worked on is a good thing.
Now we need more of that with consumer OS. I'm very glad Microsoft lost, and lost big time, with the handheld devices market. Maybe we'll be able to get rid of Windows and Outlook/Exchange in the next 20y.
and BE locked to IBM with overseas call centers? (Score:4, Interesting)
and BE locked to IBM with overseas call centers?
Re: and BE locked to IBM with overseas call center (Score:2)
Not happening much. Proxmox & Nutantix better (Score:5, Interesting)
Proxmox and (especially) Nutanix have a much better sales pitch. They can support ESXi natively and provide the management layer. When they want to abandon the last VMware server they just V2V migrate the machines from ESXi (works pretty seamlessly in Nutanix AHV and there are some good orchestration bits for Proxmox that do it, too).
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How is mainframe experience markedly different than vmware experience? I'd argue it's more relevant, these days, with a much bigger (and growing) foothold, as opposed to vmware experience, which is effectively legacy experience - like being a "Windows Certified Systems Administrator" in most regards.
I do agree with your prognosis, though. I'd rather go with either proxmox or nutanix before IBM. Most Microsoft shops without skilled technical people will go HyperV.
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I cannot imagine anyone choosing to get into bed with Broadcom/VMw
Better than qemu-kvm? (Score:2)
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For workstation stuff? QEMU/KVM is just fine. What you get with VMware is their "enterprise-y" features that aren't necessarily easy or available with QEMU, such as high availability, failover, backups, shared storage, software defined networking, templating, PCI / USB passthrough, etc.
However, there's already a good solution that leverages QEMU/KVM as the engine, giving you all that stuff as well as a nice web console for configuring it all, and an API you can use for automation: Proxmox VE [proxmox.com] - basically D
Oh come on (Score:5, Insightful)
Look, the VMWare debacle was one thing, but you should not aim to replace any already modern systems with IBM products in 2026.
If not for the obvious technological reasons, just look at how IBM has been run the last few years.
Gartner: Advertising Posing as Research (Score:5, Insightful)
This is IBM trying to advertise that they're still viable, when in reality, nobody is going to move from Linux in VMWare to an IBM mainframe.
Now, it's not *COMPLETELY* outside the realm of possibility that Gartner is simply too unaware to understand that VMWare is/was not the only platform available for virtualizing Linux. They are, after all, notoriously unidimensional in their thinking on tech, and often seem to present information as if they were forced to wear blinders when doing their research. But it's really hard to believe they've remained *COMPLETEL* ignorant of the other possibilities available that are anything other than, "Spend a fortune on VMWare licensing" or "Spend almost as much on IBM licensing + Hardware."
One would almost think they're goal was to promote spending ridiculously too much money to accomplish a business goal.
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Actually, mainframes give you a level of reliability and other things you basically get nowhere else. But the cost is high. Even big banks only use them for critical things.
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They're talking about companies using on the order of 500 virtualised machines. You bet they're going to look at alternatives to VMWare.
The mainframe solution like all others has its pros and cons, you'd be silly not to include it in a comparison table.
bruv (Score:2)
"..things like data synchronization and high availability are things I need to build into application logic. The mainframe has that in the platform, which shields developers from complexity."
Most IBM customers have been running the same system for 40 years or more and don't need to migrate to a new platform that has none of that mainframe goodness.
This doesn't make sense (Score:2)
You can't lift and shift workloads from VMWare (or any hypervisor) to an IBM platform in any similar way that you could from VMWare to, say, Hyper-V or ProxMox. The IBM move would require significant re-engineering at the application level. Not an apples-to-apples comparison at all, and moving to the IBM platform would just make you beholden to IBM instead of Broadcom. No point.
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That Raspberry Pi is enterprise grade! (Score:2, Insightful)
IBM’s mainframes have powered the world’s largest banks, airlines, and retail giants for decades with bulletproof reliability, built-in high availability, seamless data synchronization, and ironclad transactional integrity that keeps multi-billion-dollar operations running flawlessly—exactly the kind of rock-solid fit Gartner flagged for those big fleets of stable Linux VMs that don’t change much. When trouble hits, IBM’s elite engineers are literally on-call 24/7 and will para
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When trouble hits, IBM’s elite engineers are literally on-call 24/7 and will parachute in to fix your crisis in under an hour
Ex-IBM engineer here.
- "Elite" is being far too generous. I've met an equal number of brilliant and utterly incompetent engineers at IBM. Same is true for most companies I've worked for.
- The on-call 24/7 is true for purchased IBM hardware/software. Its a legal contract signed at the time of purchase and the terms are publicly stated in the IBM Support Guide.
- Severity1 issues qualify for 24/7. Per the guidelines - https://www.ibm.com/support/pa... [ibm.com] - severity1 "usually applies to a production envir
That pendulum keeps swinging... (Score:4, Interesting)
2006: fed up with IBM, everyone starts buying 64-bit x86 servers to load VMware on, cluster up, and migrate application loads from IBM mainframes to virtualized environments
2026: fed up with Broadcom, everyone starts buying IBM Z-series mainframes to migrate application loads from VMware to IBM mainframe environments.
We've been doing the "tick-tock" thing from distributed to centralized and back since the 1960s. This is not new.
Or... (Score:2)
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IBM and Broadcom are more similar than you think (Score:2)
If you think you can escape transactional money grabs and lock-in by moving from VMWare to Big Blue as a hypervisor platform, you're kidding yourself. It doesn't matter if it's Z/OS or Openshift...it'll be a similar experience to getting gouged by Broadcom.