> We are a OS/390 shop with ZERO VM skills. The distributed > group does not > want to learn z/VM for many reasons, among them are the lack > of any usable > intro/how-to documents to get started with - the existing > pubs assume a > firm foundation or knowledge gained from attending a class.
Hmm. While true, I don't see how this is different from supporting ANY platform other than the one you've already got. If you went out and bought a Sun E15K (probably the mainstream device closest to this sort of environment), you'd have to go to a Sun class to learn how to run the partitioning tools -- in fact, Sun won't sell the machine to you without it. You can't buy books at Borders or Barnes & Noble about managing E15K domains (or at least not in my local bookstores) -- you've got to invest in learning how to use the tools you've been given. Sun doesn't publish this sort of information, nor does HP/Compaq -- or any other HW vendor I'm aware of. I really don't see how or why IBM is expected to be any different in that respect -- it'd be nice, but I can't say it's unexpected or unreasonable to expect someone to put some study time into this. > If you want z/VM+Linux to be successful you (IBM) need to > publish a simple > HowTo type document with step by step instructions, with > explanation, for > setting up and managing this new environment. This sounds more like a SHARE white paper than an IBM document (maybe the first useful SHARE WP in the last decade or so...sigh). Perhaps this is the wrong forum, but I would think that tapping the VM talent in SHARE to describe "best practices" is much more likely to get you a maintainable and useful document. The people with the skills to do this do exist; but we also have real jobs, too. I would suggest contacting Neale Ferguson offline and asking the SHARE VM and Linux projects to take this on, rather than beating IBM up about it. It's more productive, and probably would produce a more useful result.
