> I don't really understand what Flex-ES is - I have some idea it's some > hardware-plus-software imitation mainframe.
FlexES is a software mainframe processor and I/O system emulation product that has historically been the only emulated mainframe solution blessed by IBM, ie that you could legally license IBM operating systems and applications on the platform. You get a legitimately registered guaranteed-unique CPUID, and you can get support for products, etc from IBM and others. > With Hercules, one can in principle choose an 8-way however-many-core > Opteron, or a big Power (or Sparc64/UltraSparc) or other selection from > top500.org. How then would performance compare with Flex-ES? About the same, realistically (albeit throwing more hardware at a Hercules solution is a LOT cheaper). The key issue is that you can legally license IBM software on FlexES; you can't do that on Hercules. -- db ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For LINUX-390 subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: INFO LINUX-390 or visit http://www.marist.edu/htbin/wlvindex?LINUX-390
