Re: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 - installing problems
Hi, My circunvention to it, is copy the entire DVD as one .iso file to WinXP, mount the .iso as a virtual driver and enable it to FTP server. This preserve all DVD structures. There are a lot of free programs to create the .iso file and to create the virtual drivers. __ Clovis From: Alan Altmark alan_altm...@us.ibm.com To: LINUX-390@vm.marist.edu Date: 06/12/2010 01:41 Subject: Re: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 - installing problems Sent by: Linux on 390 Port LINUX-390@vm.marist.edu On Sunday, 12/05/2010 at 05:44 EST, Bern VK2KAD vk2...@hotmail.com wrote: My next issue was the file structure on the DVD - my FTP server is Filezilla running on XP - I simply copied the DVD contents to a folder on the FTP server - alas this created another problem - the symbolic links for repodata and packages weren't handled properly Actually, the problem is not the file structure, but Windows XP itself. Windows Vista is the first version of Windows to include support for symbolic links in NTFS. Hopefully MS added the support to the CD/DVD drivers as well. Alan Altmark z/VM and Linux on System z Consultant IBM System Lab Services and Training ibm.com/systems/services/labservices office: 607.429.3323 alan_altm...@us.ibm.com IBM Endicott -- For LINUX-390 subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@vm.marist.edu with the message: INFO LINUX-390 or visit http://www.marist.edu/htbin/wlvindex?LINUX-390 -- For more information on Linux on System z, visit http://wiki.linuxvm.org/ -- For LINUX-390 subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@vm.marist.edu with the message: INFO LINUX-390 or visit http://www.marist.edu/htbin/wlvindex?LINUX-390 -- For more information on Linux on System z, visit http://wiki.linuxvm.org/
How many virtual servers per IFL?
Here we go again! Without success, we've been trying to get the IT department here to adopt z/Linux since 2003! Our zVM licence has been recently cancelled, and I have just had a request from our Enterprise Architects for some costing for z/Linux as they need to compare server virtualisation costs with VMware! One problem of trying to get a cost per virtual server was always trying to estimate how many servers an IFL will support. We had a 13 SuSe servers defined in a z800 IFL but as they were hardly used we couldn't measure a thing! So are there any rules of thumb out there on how many production virtual servers would run on a Z10 IFL? Obviously it will depend on server utilisation, guess that will need to be estimated as well? Another question is where do the bulk of the savings come from? From my investigations over the years other success stories suggest most savings come from software licensing, e.g Oracle, Tivoli etc. but also from networking infra-structure by the use of virtual switches. Are there any other areas that provide benefits? Any ideas or constructive suggestions would be gratefully received! Best regards John John Cousins Senior IT Officer Central Support Services ICT Division Bristol City Council Romney House Romney Avenue PO Box 1380 Bristol BS7 9TB Tel : 0117 922 4705 Fax: 0117 922 3983 e-mail: john.cous...@bristol.gov.uk __ 'Do it online' with our growing range of online services - http://www.bristol.gov.uk/services Sign-up for our email bulletin giving news, have-your-say and event information at: http://www.bristol.gov.uk/newsdirect View webcasts of Council meetings at http://www.bristol.gov.uk/webcast Bristol is the UK's first Cycling City. Visit www.betterbybike.info to join thousands of others getting around by bike. -- For LINUX-390 subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@vm.marist.edu with the message: INFO LINUX-390 or visit http://www.marist.edu/htbin/wlvindex?LINUX-390 -- For more information on Linux on System z, visit http://wiki.linuxvm.org/
Re: How many virtual servers per IFL?
If you are comparing VM and VMware, I would estimate that 1 IFL will support about the same load as 5-10 HP blades running ESX. How many virtual severs will VMware support? Depending on the workload sometimes only 1 sometimes 70 per ESX. How many will VM support? Between a few and a thousand per IFL. On 12/6/2010 11:07 AM, John Cousins wrote: Here we go again! Without success, we've been trying to get the IT department here to adopt z/Linux since 2003! Our zVM licence has been recently cancelled, and I have just had a request from our Enterprise Architects for some costing for z/Linux as they need to compare server virtualisation costs with VMware! One problem of trying to get a cost per virtual server was always trying to estimate how many servers an IFL will support. We had a 13 SuSe servers defined in a z800 IFL but as they were hardly used we couldn't measure a thing! So are there any rules of thumb out there on how many production virtual servers would run on a Z10 IFL? Obviously it will depend on server utilisation, guess that will need to be estimated as well? Another question is where do the bulk of the savings come from? From my investigations over the years other success stories suggest most savings come from software licensing, e.g Oracle, Tivoli etc. but also from networking infra-structure by the use of virtual switches. Are there any other areas that provide benefits? Any ideas or constructive suggestions would be gratefully received! Best regards John John Cousins Senior IT Officer Central Support Services ICT Division Bristol City Council Romney House Romney Avenue PO Box 1380 Bristol BS7 9TB Tel : 0117 922 4705 Fax: 0117 922 3983 e-mail: john.cous...@bristol.gov.uk -- Stephen Frazier Information Technology Unit Oklahoma Department of Corrections 3400 Martin Luther King Oklahoma City, Ok, 73111-4298 Tel.: (405) 425-2549 Fax: (405) 425-2554 Pager: (405) 690-1828 email: stevef%doc.state.ok.us -- For LINUX-390 subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@vm.marist.edu with the message: INFO LINUX-390 or visit http://www.marist.edu/htbin/wlvindex?LINUX-390 -- For more information on Linux on System z, visit http://wiki.linuxvm.org/
Re: How many virtual servers per IFL?
In my SHARE user experiences presentation I usually warn people against even answering that question. Stephen has a good approach to an answer. My boss thinks I'm a smart xxx when I turn it around and ask him How many rocks can you carry? Obviously, not all rocks are created equally. I've had 2 z9 IFLs running about 100 servers (test/dev). I've had 6 z10 IFLs running 12 servers (prod). The answer is probably between 2 and 50 (although now with a 196 it's probably more like between 2 and 150). Is that helpful? Yeah, I thought not. Marcy This message may contain confidential and/or privileged information. If you are not the addressee or authorized to receive this for the addressee, you must not use, copy, disclose, or take any action based on this message or any information herein. If you have received this message in error, please advise the sender immediately by reply e-mail and delete this message. Thank you for your cooperation. -Original Message- From: Linux on 390 Port [mailto:linux-...@vm.marist.edu] On Behalf Of Stephen Frazier Sent: Monday, December 06, 2010 9:56 AM To: LINUX-390@vm.marist.edu Subject: Re: [LINUX-390] How many virtual servers per IFL? If you are comparing VM and VMware, I would estimate that 1 IFL will support about the same load as 5-10 HP blades running ESX. How many virtual severs will VMware support? Depending on the workload sometimes only 1 sometimes 70 per ESX. How many will VM support? Between a few and a thousand per IFL. On 12/6/2010 11:07 AM, John Cousins wrote: Here we go again! Without success, we've been trying to get the IT department here to adopt z/Linux since 2003! Our zVM licence has been recently cancelled, and I have just had a request from our Enterprise Architects for some costing for z/Linux as they need to compare server virtualisation costs with VMware! One problem of trying to get a cost per virtual server was always trying to estimate how many servers an IFL will support. We had a 13 SuSe servers defined in a z800 IFL but as they were hardly used we couldn't measure a thing! So are there any rules of thumb out there on how many production virtual servers would run on a Z10 IFL? Obviously it will depend on server utilisation, guess that will need to be estimated as well? Another question is where do the bulk of the savings come from? From my investigations over the years other success stories suggest most savings come from software licensing, e.g Oracle, Tivoli etc. but also from networking infra-structure by the use of virtual switches. Are there any other areas that provide benefits? Any ideas or constructive suggestions would be gratefully received! Best regards John John Cousins Senior IT Officer Central Support Services ICT Division Bristol City Council Romney House Romney Avenue PO Box 1380 Bristol BS7 9TB Tel : 0117 922 4705 Fax: 0117 922 3983 e-mail: john.cous...@bristol.gov.uk -- Stephen Frazier Information Technology Unit Oklahoma Department of Corrections 3400 Martin Luther King Oklahoma City, Ok, 73111-4298 Tel.: (405) 425-2549 Fax: (405) 425-2554 Pager: (405) 690-1828 email: stevef%doc.state.ok.us -- For LINUX-390 subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@vm.marist.edu with the message: INFO LINUX-390 or visit http://www.marist.edu/htbin/wlvindex?LINUX-390 -- For more information on Linux on System z, visit http://wiki.linuxvm.org/ -- For LINUX-390 subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@vm.marist.edu with the message: INFO LINUX-390 or visit http://www.marist.edu/htbin/wlvindex?LINUX-390 -- For more information on Linux on System z, visit http://wiki.linuxvm.org/
Re: How many virtual servers per IFL?
How about savings in power consumption. If configured correctly a virtual server won't cost you anything. Well, hardly anything. Running a dedicated server you must size the server for it's peak load. In VM you run multiple servers and if their peak load doesn't overlap you don't need to size for the total peak load. So 10 '1 IFL' servers can run in perhaps only a 2 IFL LPAR. It also means that you can add servers without the immediate need for additional hardware. Note that the utilization is both CPU and storage. You should monitor both CPU and storage (page) loads. Those two will determine the numbers. IMHO, size an LPAR for peak load of a large, high CPU guest, such as a busy DWH machine. Then look at small low utilized servers you can add without the need for additional hardware. For instance some small apache or samba servers etc. Actual numbers is very hard. 2 to 50 perhaps. But we do have a dozen guests that could be 100 per IFL since they are paged out 95% of the time. Obviously these are not running large production loads. Regards, Berry. Op 06-12-10 18:07, John Cousins schreef: Here we go again! Without success, we've been trying to get the IT department here to adopt z/Linux since 2003! Our zVM licence has been recently cancelled, and I have just had a request from our Enterprise Architects for some costing for z/Linux as they need to compare server virtualisation costs with VMware! One problem of trying to get a cost per virtual server was always trying to estimate how many servers an IFL will support. We had a 13 SuSe servers defined in a z800 IFL but as they were hardly used we couldn't measure a thing! So are there any rules of thumb out there on how many production virtual servers would run on a Z10 IFL? Obviously it will depend on server utilisation, guess that will need to be estimated as well? Another question is where do the bulk of the savings come from? From my investigations over the years other success stories suggest most savings come from software licensing, e.g Oracle, Tivoli etc. but also from networking infra-structure by the use of virtual switches. Are there any other areas that provide benefits? Any ideas or constructive suggestions would be gratefully received! Best regards John John Cousins Senior IT Officer Central Support Services ICT Division Bristol City Council Romney House Romney Avenue PO Box 1380 Bristol BS7 9TB Tel : 0117 922 4705 Fax: 0117 922 3983 e-mail: john.cous...@bristol.gov.uk __ 'Do it online' with our growing range of online services - http://www.bristol.gov.uk/services Sign-up for our email bulletin giving news, have-your-say and event information at: http://www.bristol.gov.uk/newsdirect View webcasts of Council meetings at http://www.bristol.gov.uk/webcast Bristol is the UK's first Cycling City. Visit www.betterbybike.info to join thousands of others getting around by bike. -- For LINUX-390 subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@vm.marist.edu with the message: INFO LINUX-390 or visit http://www.marist.edu/htbin/wlvindex?LINUX-390 -- For more information on Linux on System z, visit http://wiki.linuxvm.org/ -- For LINUX-390 subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@vm.marist.edu with the message: INFO LINUX-390 or visit http://www.marist.edu/htbin/wlvindex?LINUX-390 -- For more information on Linux on System z, visit http://wiki.linuxvm.org/
Re: How many virtual servers per IFL?
I will shot gun some of them... 1. Disaster recover is much easier on the mainframe. In effect, no matter what hardware is replaced with what hardware, it is all the same. With PC type servers, the hardware, hence the software drivers are constantly changing. This may force you to reinstall the software instead of just restoring. 2. Our I/O subsystem. Mainframes with ficon/FCP, can drive (per IBM documentation) drive hundreds of thousands of I/Os per second. If you only need a few hundred I/Os per second, well, that is within PC ranges. 3. Licensing is a two edge sword. Putting 5 copies of Oracle on an IFL...you only pay for one copy. However, if you have many, one copy products, you end up needing more engines on the IFL, which (if you get charged by the engine), causes those product charges to increase. 4. Disk is disk. It costs the same whether your DS8100/DS6800 is configured for CKD or SCSI disk. 5. Mainframe memory is more expensive, but it is more effectively used. When an application states that it needs 4 GB to run, I start around 500 MB and increase it when needed. 6. When a server application needs more resources, many times you have to go out and buy a newer, bigger server. When a mainframe server needs more resources, you may have options to rob other servers. Also for larger shops, Capacity on Demand. 7. Green. There is an application on z10s and above, that will show you your footprint and the incremental footprint for additional loads. I seem to recall something about you can plug in data from servers you are migrating from, to show the incremental decrease in the footprint of the datacenter. There hasn't been much chatter about this on the listservs so I don't know how well this has been received. 8. Internal network speed. If a function requires the use of several servers and they are network attached, things are slowed up by the network. No such problem with Hypersockets or Guest Lans/VSWITCH (under VM) and can have large packets also. 9. We don't, but we should have performance tools. You buy one for the LPAR and you know what is going on. Rather than buy one per server. You still might need specialized performance tools on some servers. Oracle OEM to measure internal Oracle performance, for example. 10. The serious problem with PC servers is context switching. There a dog. Mainframes are great at this, as CICS transactions really drive this. If your load tends towards transactional instead of batch (data mining), PC type servers were not designed for this. I assume that RS6000 and Sun type servers are pretty good at context switching, but I have no direct knowledge of this. Back when Linux started hitting mainframes and IFLs were announced, there was discussions of 100 images per engine. A lot of the servers at that time were routers, DNS, Samba, NFS and some web. Now I seem to here 10-20 real workloads per engine. BTW, there was/is an MES upgrade from one box to another. In the case of the MES upgrade from a z/890 (our box) to a z10 (hopefully/maybe ours), the license for the IFLs transfers. Which means that we would not have to pay for the Linux side again. And the new IFLs are faster per engine than the older IFLs. That is no longer a cost on the mainframe that you still have on the other server platforms. Know that I think of it, I may be thinking of the MES upgrade that pulled cards (and you license and CPUID) from one box and installed it on the newer box. I'm now thinking that the IFL engine transfer will happen with any upgrade to a new box. I've been looking at the MES upgrade option for so long, that I have MES on the mind G. Tom Duerbusch THD Consulting John Cousins john.cous...@bristol.gov.uk 12/6/2010 11:07 AM Here we go again! Without success, we've been trying to get the IT department here to adopt z/Linux since 2003! Our zVM licence has been recently cancelled, and I have just had a request from our Enterprise Architects for some costing for z/Linux as they need to compare server virtualisation costs with VMware! One problem of trying to get a cost per virtual server was always trying to estimate how many servers an IFL will support. We had a 13 SuSe servers defined in a z800 IFL but as they were hardly used we couldn't measure a thing! So are there any rules of thumb out there on how many production virtual servers would run on a Z10 IFL? Obviously it will depend on server utilisation, guess that will need to be estimated as well? Another question is where do the bulk of the savings come from? From my investigations over the years other success stories suggest most savings come from software licensing, e.g Oracle, Tivoli etc. but also from networking infra-structure by the use of virtual switches. Are there any other areas that provide benefits? Any ideas or constructive suggestions would be gratefully received! Best regards John
Question about booting root on a multipathed, LVM'd volume on Debian 390.
Back in October I asked a question about multipathing in z/Debian. I've since resolved my problem with getting the multipathing device definitions to hold across an IPL, but now I'm having trouble booting with root mounted on a multipathed, LVM'd volume on z/Debian. It appears to be within the order of things. Of course, multipathing should come first, then LVM, then the mounting of root, but what I always get is the message mounting root on /dev/mapper/system-ROOT (in other words, I've coded /etc/zipl.conf correctly), then unable to find volume group system, then it drops into initramfs. I try to issue a vgchange -ay system, but it can't find the volume group system, nor can it find the multipath'd volume (/dev/mapper/mpath0 or mpath1) to use as its PV's. ALERT! /dev/mapper/system-ROOT does not exist. Dropping into shell! cat /proc/cmdline root=/dev/mapper/system-ROOT ro rootdelay=10 BOOT_IMAGE=0 cat /proc/modules dasd_eckd_mod zfcp scsi_transport_fc scsi_mod dasd_fba_mod dasd_mod dm_multipath dm_snapshot dm_mirror dm_mod How do I get my multipath definitions and LVM configuration to run before root is mounted? Mark Wiggins University of Connecticut -- For LINUX-390 subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@vm.marist.edu with the message: INFO LINUX-390 or visit http://www.marist.edu/htbin/wlvindex?LINUX-390 -- For more information on Linux on System z, visit http://wiki.linuxvm.org/
Re: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 - installing problems
Hi all Is there a public FTP or HTTP server somewhere I can source this distribution?? I downloaded the DVD image and have tried to serve it up via windows FTP (Filezilla) and Ubuntu flavoured FTP but all I get is problems after a couple of hours into the install phases. I also tried to serve it via NFS but that really sent me down a rabbit hole. My last installs of Debian and Centos were much less troublesome as they came from the 'cloud' ;) Here's hoping And I still haven't tried to do this same process with SLES11 - more joy to come. Bern... -- For LINUX-390 subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@vm.marist.edu with the message: INFO LINUX-390 or visit http://www.marist.edu/htbin/wlvindex?LINUX-390 -- For more information on Linux on System z, visit http://wiki.linuxvm.org/
Re: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 - installing problems
Hi I was encouraged to try this technique - I can see the file structure but the symbolic links are still unresolved. I copied the iso to a USB thumb drive which found a home at H: - I then mapped an E: drive from the ISO using a free Mount'n'Drive manager from DAEMON tools lite. The iso contents are successfully shown on the E: drive but the symbolic links just look like empty datasets - a 0KB file. I then tried a linux ftp server called vsftpd which I installed using apt-get.Everyting looks fine - ftp'ing into the ftp server gives the expected results and the install tree looks correct and the symbolic links actually work. Unfortunately, when I try to connect to this server via the RedHat installer, all I get on the log is Couldn't connect to server My next attempt is work out how to create a NFS connection - more reading needed. B. -- From: Clovis Pereira gclo...@br.ibm.com Sent: Monday, December 06, 2010 10:47 PM To: LINUX-390@VM.MARIST.EDU Subject: Re: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 - installing problems Hi, My circunvention to it, is copy the entire DVD as one .iso file to WinXP, mount the .iso as a virtual driver and enable it to FTP server. This preserve all DVD structures. There are a lot of free programs to create the .iso file and to create the virtual drivers. __ Clovis From: Alan Altmark alan_altm...@us.ibm.com To: LINUX-390@vm.marist.edu Date: 06/12/2010 01:41 Subject: Re: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 - installing problems Sent by: Linux on 390 Port LINUX-390@vm.marist.edu On Sunday, 12/05/2010 at 05:44 EST, Bern VK2KAD vk2...@hotmail.com wrote: My next issue was the file structure on the DVD - my FTP server is Filezilla running on XP - I simply copied the DVD contents to a folder on the FTP server - alas this created another problem - the symbolic links for repodata and packages weren't handled properly Actually, the problem is not the file structure, but Windows XP itself. Windows Vista is the first version of Windows to include support for symbolic links in NTFS. Hopefully MS added the support to the CD/DVD drivers as well. Alan Altmark z/VM and Linux on System z Consultant IBM System Lab Services and Training ibm.com/systems/services/labservices office: 607.429.3323 alan_altm...@us.ibm.com IBM Endicott -- For LINUX-390 subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@vm.marist.edu with the message: INFO LINUX-390 or visit http://www.marist.edu/htbin/wlvindex?LINUX-390 -- For more information on Linux on System z, visit http://wiki.linuxvm.org/ -- For LINUX-390 subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@vm.marist.edu with the message: INFO LINUX-390 or visit http://www.marist.edu/htbin/wlvindex?LINUX-390 -- For more information on Linux on System z, visit http://wiki.linuxvm.org/ -- For LINUX-390 subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@vm.marist.edu with the message: INFO LINUX-390 or visit http://www.marist.edu/htbin/wlvindex?LINUX-390 -- For more information on Linux on System z, visit http://wiki.linuxvm.org/
Re: Question to smsgiucv
Malcolm, Over the weekend I took a look at VMUR.CCP source to insert FD_ZERO(), FD_SET() and select(). I thought adding would be trivial. However, when I took a look at the device driver VMUR.C on the internet, I found that the OPEN calls diag_read_next_file and if there are no data(no reader file) it will returns ENODATA(No data). That means when I open the /dev/00c to get the file descriptor it will come back NO data thus no file descriptor for the select(). Also I notice that it does not allow OPEN in write mode as well. -Original Message- From: Linux on 390 Port [mailto:linux-...@vm.marist.edu] On Behalf Of Malcolm Beattie Sent: Wednesday, December 01, 2010 4:47 PM To: LINUX-390@VM.MARIST.EDU Subject: Re: Question to smsgiucv Florian Bilek writes: I am looking for a possibility using the Virtual Reader under z/VM in z/LINUX. The idea is to process files received from a z/OS via RSCS. Off course I could regullarily start VMUR to poll the RDR but couldn't that be done much smarter with an event starting VMUR ? I've kept meaning to add select() support or similar to vmur since I wrote the original but it's never quite made it to the top of my priority list. It should just be a few lines of code (catch the unsolicited interrupt and wake any waiters) in the right place. I'll try to take a look soon if nobody gets in there first. --Malcolm -- Malcolm Beattie Mainframe Systems and Software Business, Europe IBM UK -- For LINUX-390 subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@vm.marist.edu with the message: INFO LINUX-390 or visit http://www.marist.edu/htbin/wlvindex?LINUX-390 -- For more information on Linux on System z, visit http://wiki.linuxvm.org/ Please consider the environment before printing this email. Visit our website at http://www.nyse.com Note: The information contained in this message and any attachment to it is privileged, confidential and protected from disclosure. If the reader of this message is not the intended recipient, or an employee or agent responsible for delivering this message to the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution or copying of this communication is strictly prohibited. If you have received this communication in error, please notify the sender immediately by replying to the message, and please delete it from your system. Thank you. NYSE Euronext. -- For LINUX-390 subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@vm.marist.edu with the message: INFO LINUX-390 or visit http://www.marist.edu/htbin/wlvindex?LINUX-390 -- For more information on Linux on System z, visit http://wiki.linuxvm.org/
