Linux for Mainframes

Optimum reliability, scalability, security and utilization. It's what makes Linux for Mainframes Linux for business.

When you consolidate servers with Linux for Mainframes, you benefit from the many inherent features: rock-solid reliability, high scalability, security, and high utilization rates.

Currently, a large percentage of enterprise data, such as business intelligence and transaction data, resides on mainframes in banks, insurance companies, hospitals, etc.

In distributed systems, front-end servers running Linux, UNIX, and Windows applications often access enterprise data stored on the mainframe over a network.

Consolidate many servers onto one resilient, cost-efficient System z server.

High Input/Output Rates

Mainframes permit high input/output rates between front-end applications and back-end applications running on the mainframe because the front-end applications and back-end data are on the same machine.

Increased Utilization

Server consolidation using Linux for Mainframes gives you the ability to run multiple workloads of various types; provides highly reliable and secure environments; and gives you the ability to run at high utilization rates over long periods of time.

In fact, when mainframes are used for server consolidation, typical utilization rates are in the 70 percent to 80 percent range. Customers such as Nationwide say it's not uncommon for a mainframe to run for many hours with a 95 percent or higher utilization rate.

Linux for Mainframes. The savings start with the cost and add up from there.

Linux for Mainframes is a powerful solution for reducing TCO. It reduces the cost of servers, cost of software licenses, cost of floor space and power, system administrators, and so on.

Less Server Space and Power Consumption

Mainframes generally require only about 20% of the floor space and power that equivalent capacity x86 servers require. For example, Nationwide Insurance, a SUSE® Linux Enterprise Server for System z customer, is saving $15 million over a three-year period in floor space, cooling, and hardware costs.

Save on hardware, software, energy and management costs.

IFL Processors

An IBM Integrated Facility for Linux (IFL) specialty processor costs much less than a general-purpose mainframe engine (processor), making it extremely economical to run Linux workloads. IFLs let you purchase a single software license and share it across tens of Linux virtual machines, resulting in potentially huge software license savings.

Reducing Your Average Cost Per Workload

The cost of running incremental workloads on the mainframe goes down as the total workload grows. The cost goes up linearly for distributed systems with added workloads.

So as you add more and more workloads to run on SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for System z virtual machines, the average cost per workload drops. It drops because you do not have to acquire new hardware, purchase new operating system subscriptions, purchase new software licenses, etc. as you add workloads on new virtual machines.

Stop juggling licenses and vendors.

Today's data center has multiple operating system platforms and architectures in use at any given time in various forms. Additionally, these systems are typically acquired from many different vendors.

This means that several hardware and software licensing agreements must be maintained and system administrators with varying backgrounds must be hired to maintain the various hardware and software systems. These issues lead to data center complexity.

Fewer servers. Fewer vendors. Fewer licenses. Fewer headaches.

Linux for Mainframes Simplifies This Complexity

By consolidating many workloads onto a single mainframe, you can reduce the number of hardware vendors and software licenses that must be maintained.

Management of software licenses is easier, and less costly when a single software license can be shared across all Linux virtual machines that use the licensed software.

Management Tools To Make Your Life Easier

Plus, Linux virtual machines on the mainframe can be managed by mainframe tools and ZENworks® Linux Management, greatly simplifying management. Tasks such as backing up systems, updating systems, patching systems, etc. are also greatly simplified.

Respond faster and keep customers coming back.

To maintain a competitive edge, your company needs to respond to changing user demands and market conditions quickly. That means provisioning a new server or provisioning an existing server with new workloads—in seconds and minutes. You need the flexibility provided by Linux for Mainframes.

While availability of workloads is often an issue in maintaining flexibility, Linux for Mainframes users benefit from the large application portfolio available on SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for System z.

Provision servers in seconds and minutes to respond to changing market conditions.

Provision in Record Time

Linux for Mainframes customers are able to provision new servers, virtual Linux servers, in record time. z/VM is able to create a new virtual server running in a Linux for Mainframes environment with the security and reliability inherent in the mainframe. The z/VM hypervisor pools, emulates, and distributes system resources so that Linux virtual machines can share the same resources.

The Importance of Sharing

Sharing is extremely important because it helps reduce redundancy that comes from having multiple copies of applications and data. Sharing also helps simplify disaster recovery because fewer servers are deployed and less data needs to be protected during periodic back-up operations.

Ongoing Development of New Linux Apps and Technologies

Linux offers a growing set of server and middleware products along with open source applications, that in all likelihood, will host many of the next generation e-commerce business applications. Mainframe customers are able to share in these new applications and technologies as they are developed for Linux.

You can also test programs and perform operating system maintenance concurrently with production work.

More uptime, all of the time.

In today's on-demand environment, downtime is costly. Your business suffers when workloads are not consistently available. And the damage due to downtime can also extend beyond financial issues—into key areas such as customer loyalty, market competitiveness, etc. To avoid this, your data center must recover quickly from all downtime, whether planned or unplanned.

Architected for High Availability

No other computing platform has integrated availability-enhancing features throughout its architecture as thoroughly as IBM mainframes. Designed with redundancy in mind, mainframes shift the work from failing components to ones that work to prevent workloads and services from being interrupted.

Guarantee business continuity by reducing downtime and recovery.

Failed components may be removed and replaced while workloads are active and continue to run, eliminating downtime.

RAID Configurations

Mainframes utilize RAID configurations for disk storage, disk-swapping capabilities that keep workloads and data available, journaled file systems for file repair after faults, redundant components to avoid single points of failure, concurrent upgrades of system resources, and failover capabilities to reduce downtime.

Simplified Disaster Recovery

Linux for Mainframes delivers mainframe hardware reliability and when running under z/VM, can also contribute to high availability. For example, z/VM 5.1 provides a HyperSwap function that enables the virtual device associated with one real disk to be swapped transparently to another real secondary disk.

This capability can be used to effect disaster recovery, often costly to implement, in a simple manner in Linux for Mainframes environments.