> I'm a MVS systems engineer who is now doing some LINUX work.
> As is the trend these days, Management wants to know what cost savings
> they can achieve by moving workloads to the LINUX partition.
> We are running SuSe 7.0 on a Z67 and Z900 platforms .
> I have been asked in particular whether the following (points below) are
> possible
> on our mainframe LINUX partitions. Apologies if the questions may sound stupid
> or inconsistent ....
>
> 1) A product called VMWARE was used on a LINUX system on PC to successfully test
> Windows 2000
> emulation and running INTEL type work. Will we be able to use VIF on mainframe
> SuSe to achieve
> the same success ?.
> With VIF how many LINUX "images" will I be able to create on one partition on
> the mainframe ?
> Does anybody know the cost of VIF (both monthly and once off...).
VMWare is only for PCs, not for other architectures. There's
bochs, but then the CPU is interpreting the intel instruction
set- not a good use of resources.
VIF, BTW, is passe and has been announced as "withdrawn from
marketing" from big blue.
Linux runs nicely enough in an LPAR. If you have an LPAR
running VM (or z/VM) then you can run more instances of
Linux than the remaining number of LPARs on the system. Of
course, VM pricing is another animal, but it's an enabling
technology.
The big question is...
"Why do you want to run Windows 2000?"
I don't even want to run it on my PC. If it wasn't for the
"groupware" package I hafta run at work, I'd reclaim my Windoze
partition pretty darn fast.
> 2) Can we run NT servers under VIF ??? If so, What is the limit and is it one
> server per "image" ? ...
There's something called "Samba" available on all Linux distros
(that I know of) that I use heavily (and even on AIX boxes, too)
to provide windows-accessible disk shares (and even a few
printer shares, too) so a windows "server" isn't necessary-
unless you need to run M$'s software itself on the server (like
Infection Express or some such).
The problem you're facing is that you don't know what Linux can
really do for you. Download the "Linux for S/390" redbook,
print it, read it, enjoy; There's a link to it on the
http://linuxvm.org/ website (up near the top!). The reason
you can consolidate all (or most) of your servers to an s/390
(using VM for high "body counts", though w/ Linux more than
one service can reside on a server, unlike NT) is that Linux's
environment itself INCLUDES the majority of services you will
need- which can then be made available to the various client
systems.
There are, BTW, Linux-resident mail servers that will mimic
Outlook Express; Unfortunately, it is OE's client that excels
at forwarding e-mail virii, so you're still hosed if you use
that environment. I'd almost recommend Lotus Notes (despite a
lack of s/390 Linux server S/W just now) but it's the worst
example of groupware on the planet- except for ALL OF THE
OTHER groupware packages. Poleshuck's Law of Competition still
applies.
--
John R. Campbell Speaker to Machines [EMAIL PROTECTED]
- As a SysAdmin, yes, I CAN read your e-mail, but I DON'T get that bored!
Disclaimer: All opinions expressed above are those of John R. Campbell
alone and are seriously unlikely to reflect the opinions of
his employer(s) or lackeys thereof. Anyone who says
differently is itching for a fight!
