IBM's Newest Mainframe Is All Linux 251
dcblogs writes "IBM has released a new mainframe server that doesn't include its z/OS operating system. This Enterprise Linux Server line supports Red Hat or Suse. The system is packaged with mainframe management and virtualization tools. The minimum processor configuration uses two specialty mainframe processors designed for Linux. IBM wants to go after large multicore x86 Linux servers and believes the $212,000 entry price can do it."
Grammar (Score:4, Insightful)
"Its minimum processor configuration are two specialty mainframe processors designed for Linux."
What the fuck kind of grammar is that?
Re:Mainframe or Server? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:An in-house cloud. (Score:5, Insightful)
To me 99% of this stuff seems to be for places that want to hire total dolts and pay somebody else to make it easy for the dolts.
That's not entirely fair. Sometimes the smartest thing you can do is buy something that already works, not something you have to script to get to work. Boxes you can plug into place. The place for the scripting you're describing is in development. You write a script that works, is flexible and efficient - and then get someone in marketing to put a wrapper around it to convince the buyers it's industry practice. That's what they're doing, anyway.
As good as your solution may be (and I've worn those shoes before myself) you'll be outpointed by the buyers who want it all in a bag taped to the cabinet.
After it's all in place then scripting expertise is needed to keep things working when things need to be changed. Trust me, you don't want a dolt for a sysadmin. I'd rather hire a BOFH [theregister.co.uk] than do that (just remember to keep your own spare key).
Re:Grammar (Score:5, Insightful)
I thought that operating systems were designed to work with the processor(s). When did it get to be the other way around?
When it became easier to design a new processor than to design a new OS (and port all apps onto it.)
Re:Can't wait to see the support (Score:5, Insightful)
I call BS. Perhaps incompetence on your part. 15+ emails? In 6 months? Yeah, that is incompetent. A sysadmin who has a serious problem and only sends 15 emails to the supplier in half a year deserves to be on his ass in the street, no severance.
BTW, the problem with your DS300 Fiber SAN is easy to identify. You are trying to use an iSCSI device as a Fiber SAN device. THAT WON'T WORK.
Re:Can you imagine a beowulf cluster of those? (Score:1, Insightful)
Please never speak again.
Re:Can't wait to see the support (Score:5, Insightful)
but when they learn the game and beat you with their advantages, it's a bitch. It's a two-way street, dude! Learn to live with it, for you have no choice. If every country went back to their protectionist regimes, the american companies would not survive, for their markets are saturated and there is no growth. They depend on the developing countries' markets for growth.
The problem is, they are not beating the US with advantages.. You see, I'm in the customer service game.. The problem with outsourcing things like customer service, is that customer service is about communicating.. You absolutely can not beat someone in the US at communicating with someone in the US.. I know, I have to listen to all the "thank god's" from customers when they get me instead of our overseas counterparts.. I really don't like hearing it much, because it almost sounds racist.. but it's mostly just venting of frustrations that they have had from previous experiences where they could not communicate well with someone.. The advantages of cheaper labor are lost when a customer has to call multiple times because they can not communicate well with the person trying to help them.. no matter how smart that person may be.. and as some companies have learned, there are customers who will switch to companies who have customer service that they can work with..
Re:Can't wait to see the support (Score:4, Insightful)
You brought an eServer and are complaining about the lack of remote management!!!
You do realize that with Dell remote management is an optional extra, and there is a range of dirt cheap hardware that comes with nothing more than basic IPMI just like the eSeries does.
You want remote management you need to pay for it.
traditional mainframe-based I/O (Score:2, Insightful)
That's interesting, tell us more about the differences between Unix and 'mainframe-based' disk I/O.
Re:Mainframe or Server? (Score:1, Insightful)
pSeries was the new name for the previous RS/6000 AIX boxes as of 2000. In 2005 they were rebranded System p.
iSeries was the new name for the previous AS/400 boxes that ran OS/400. In 2005 they were rebranded System i; more recently, in a move stunning in its stupidity, simply i (try finding THAT anywhere -- Google, a document...).
zSeries was the new name for the System/390 as of 2000. In 2005 they were rebranded System z.
xSeries was the new name for IBM's x86 servers as of 2000. In 2005 they were rebranded System x.
Note that at least the mainframe (zSeries) 2000 rebranding coincided with a new 64-bit architecture (backward compatible, of course; nobody does backward compatibility like IBM). The rebranding from "whateverSeries" to "System whatever" was because IBM decided it no longer sold *servers* (cf. "eServer") but *systems*. Marketing, yeah. But if you're gonna discuss it, might as well get it right.
Oh, and System p and i run *exactly* the same (Power) hardware nowadays.
As for "why", RAS, scalability, and I/O performance all come to mind. Being able to provision a guest in seconds, and to wildly overcommit real resources are a big part of it too.
And while it's great to see folks saying "Wow! Cool!", y'all need to get out more -- this has been widely discussed in the trade press and many, many online fora for the last decade, since Linux for System/390 was released in late 1999.