Dave Gibney writes: >That's good to know (the 22.5K). The other issue for my site is the >"ease" of finding Windows people vs. even Unix people, let alone z/OS.
Google is your friend. :-) http://lug.wsu.edu I'm assuming that WSU is your employer based on your e-mail address -- or at least that you have some sort of affiliation with WSU. I've also found several references to WSU using Linux in its courses (e.g. CompSci 223). I'd be shocked if LUG members at WSU would turn down the opportunity to work with Linux on z as a pilot project. (You'd hear words like "cool" and "wow" in copious amounts. :-)) Give 'em the keys to an IFL, a little direction, and let them work their magic. :-) >Windows apps (.NET) don't convert quickly to z/Linux "Quickly" as in snap your fingers, maybe not, but not really rocket science either. There is Mono (as somebody else already mentioned) along with Mainsoft (http://www.mainsoft.com). Using .NET as an ongoing application environment may not be such a swell idea for a variety of reasons, but you've got options for stuff you already wrote. I should also mention that you can ask your friendly IBM or business partner rep for a Linux loaner/trial. As mentioned upthread, many shops got IFLs during a promotion. For those that didn't, it may be possible to arrange a loaner. If you're a university it could get even more interesting. The Linux folks are pretty good judges, in advance, about what you ought to consider running there. It's not difficult to figure out. If you have a complete server inventory and utilization data, by middleware/application, then you've probably got enough for a Linux specialist to make an informed estimate. If you don't have such data, you've got bigger problems. :-) Re: Bruno's point about VMware, VMware does have value and should be part of the financial calculation. But if all you can consolidate is test/development -- and you can't consolidate all of it, because final testing has to be the same as production -- that probably isn't going to do much for the financials. Not to mention that you can't overpower X86's limitations with processor horsepower, and modern IFLs are pretty decent in sheer number crunching ability anyway. z/VM and z/Architecture are very good at what they do and, while VMware is quite a step forward, it still has very real limitations. Even with VMware we're just not seeing processor utilizations going up all that much in real world experience (as evidenced perhaps by Bruno's 240 servers :-)). There are also some vendors, notably Microsoft, that have recently increased their software license charges for virtualized environments. (See Microsoft Windows Vista for some onerous new licensing rules.) And some vendors demand that you replicate any problem outside VMware before they'll agree to look into it or fix it. No question, though, that in many enterprises both technologies should play a role. It depends on the workload of course: blade servers, AIX LPARs, and z/VM all exist because they have different characteristics. And I disagree with the WebSphere remark, by the way. Take WebSphere Commerce Server as an example. You're sitting happy if you run that on IFLs. (It's well into the six dollar figures per CPU to buy those licenses. Worth every penny of course for what it does, but you might as well run it as economically as possible.) Another interesting case is Oracle RAC. Can you run Oracle RAC nodes in VMs on one VMware system? Yes, but that offers little advantage for high availability, which is the point of RAC. Under z/VM you get the benefits of RAC communications across Hipersockets (i.e. very, very fast) while preserving the high availability benefits of RAC because you're on hardware that protects you. And that's unique. It depends on the workload, but if your Oracle servers have high-ish rates of simple inserts/updates, that's probably going to be an excellent match for Oracle RAC on Linux on z.... if you have to run Oracle. :-) - - - - - Timothy Sipples IBM Consulting Enterprise Software Architect Specializing in Software Architectures Related to System z Based in Tokyo, Serving IBM Japan and IBM Asia-Pacific E-Mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
