Alan -- What Rob said. (Which I know that you know, but which bears repeating and deserves to be heard by your architect.) Don't make out like z/VM is a silver bullet, but be clear that z/VM is a powerful weapon in his arsenal.
Also: I like to draw illustrations from other platforms. Even the most die-hard PC person recognizes that "embedded systems" are NOT THE SAME as desktops machines and xSeries servers. We've been doing "embedded systems" on VM for several decades: RSCS, VTAM, TCP/IP. Do you have any Visara systems? They are probably running embedded Linux and they don't work like PC Linux. Make a point to FIND someone at your shop who has a Linux based hand-held. (I myself flashed QPE Linux onto an iPAQ twice and would be using that device today had it not developed unrelated hardware problems (things like a worn out power button, etc).) See the web site http://www.handhelds.org/ for more information. Heck, anyone with satellite television at home is likely to find Linux under the covers of the receiver (if they are inclined to look). Linux on z/VM is "more normal" than the three examples I have cited. But z/VM brings added value in that DCSS, NSS, shared disk, VSwitch, and the rest of our bag-o-tricks are vital when you scale up the number of virtual penguins. DCSS is operationally just like CD-ROM. NSS is very much like a Linux kernel on a hand-held. You could do shared disk in SAN land. And VSwitch is ... shucks ... just an approximation of network switches "they" already are familiar with. None of this is foreign except that it is harder to achieve in a PC-only shop. I hope this helps. -- Rick; <><
