Hi, folks.
Jim Marshall, of the Office of Personnel Management (U.S.A. Federal
Government) just posted the following over on the IBM-MAIN list:
---------------------------------------------------------------
I have seen some requests lately for a positive zLinux experience. I am
running zLinux under z/VM today with 2 production applications, 45 Virtual
Servers in three LPARs providing Production, User Acceptance Test,
Development, and SYSPROG TEST. Each application is isolated within a
number of V-Lans protected by “Defense in Depth”. Users come through the
Corporate Firewall and then must pass through the first Firewall running
in a Virtual Machine in z/VM. From there they start the process to get
access to the application. Throw in a Web Server, Websphere Application
Server, DB2, and a product for user sign-on and it all runs pretty well.
The z900 was in place and we had an IFL to contribute. All zLinux DASD is
running within z/VM mini-disks.
I just returned from an IT Financial conference where I contrasted the
costs between running the 45 servers on Intel versus the z/900. I took
very conservative costs for the Intel machines ($2K per server), Switches
($10K), and Firewall’s ($10K) and all with no support (this $0). On the
Intel side I had Linux for $0 and on the zSeries, I bought SuSe Linux,
Novell e-Maintenance, and IBM 24/7 “Support”. The Middleware software was
from IBM and it is licensed per processor. This is true of most all
Distributed products including Oracle. Using Oracle in this would driven
the numbers sky high for it is $40K per processor. Thus on the IFL it is
$40K and on Intel it would be $200K and that premised 1-engine Intel
machines. So I used the DB2 solution for the comparison. In the end the z-
Solution was about $240K and the Intel solution was $840K.
As an aside, remember I kept the Intel side of the costs very, very low as
possible and the zSeries side I bought Linux with full 24/7 Support. Thus
my gut says the number in the Intel side is closer to about $1M+ if one
factors in support, increasing the speed of the connections for Switches
and Firewalls plus including support for their software and upgrades. The
beauty of z/VM is getting all the V-Lans, V-Routers, and V-Firewalls you
want for nothing and then all that “V-Cabling” running at memory speeds
and also Hypersockets for LPAR connections.
It is my conclusions there are a number of reasons why one does not hear
many stories about it. One story is those who do it quite well do not want
to reveal the competitive advantage they have. Another, is the company is
ashamed to admit they get benefit out of the mainframe when there is such
a bias against the mainframe. I know of other places who admit the facts,
but IT management wants no part of it; this is not what the trade press
and their background says is so. Then in most places, Windows and Linux
would be done by the Distributed or Network side of IT and not the
mainframers; so why give up turf. Besides more and more servers to manage
increases the size of management and their paychecks. Lastly why would
those who have Windows machines (MSCE) and Cisco hardware (CISCO
certified) turn things over to mainframe systems type to replace them.
They will fight to the death to hang onto all their turf.
Another argument is z/VM is so tough. Back in the late 1980s I was forced
over into VM (Dark Side for an MVS Bigot) of IBM systems and mastered the
work much, much less than a year where MVS takes years to be able to do
most all of it. IBM has a free 4 day z/VM and SuSe Linux school which I
sent my z/OS Bigots and they came back able to install, implement and get
things running. Bringing up a z/VM system only to run zLinux is by far
easier than have many, many VM users using CMS, etc. There are enough
zLinux Cookbooks to get things up and running quite quickly.
I am not sure what the future will be but with an upgrade to a z9BC my one
IFL goes from 238 MIPS to 480 MIPS and my software charges stay exactly
the same as they are today. A very interesting situation. The strategy is
to run what makes sense over on the zSeries and there is no way I would
want to take over 400+ Windows Servers. Once I get a processor license for
a piece of software I can bring up many of them virtually with no
additional charges. Oh yes, the z/900 IFL is not even breathing hard yet.
Jim Marshall
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Just FYI.
DJ
