A little bit of rationale on the question and why I think this is important.

As everyone has demonstrated there is deep z/OS skill in shops and it will be 
needed now and into the future.  All of us plan to retire so to keep Z relevant 
we need to transfer our skills to the up and comers.  There is a boatload of 
skill that most of the up and comers have in the form of Linux and cloud based 
deployments using technology like containers and their deployment and 
orchestration on a Kubernetes infrastructure.  I believe that we (z/OS and 
operations) need to marry the technologies together.  This has been done before 
and probably the most successful merge of technology was the creation of 
OpenEdition and later USS.  Arguably, without that innovation Java, Python, 
Node and a host of other capabilities would not be possible on z/OS and the 
platform would be relegated to hospice to run the existing workloads (CICS, IMS 
and batch) as there would be no way to include modern languages and tech on the 
platform.  Its the same issue with scheduling and orchestration.

Incorporating Linux around z/OS and in zCX or zLinux allows for workloads based 
on those technologies to run alongside to platform.  This isn’t just for 
applications but for me and other ISVs its about providing new capabilities 
that use open source software, common languages and the container runtimes to 
deliver products and updates using the cloud paradigm.  Without the surrounding 
capabilities to host these containers around z/OS would be like trying to run 
Java without USS.

We are all proud of what z/OS has been and it is the only game in town for high 
volume ACID transactions that drive the worlds businesses and economies.  That 
doesn’t mean that expanding its scope to embrace Linux and Kubernetes 
diminishes its value; it enhances it.   

Did USS suck in terms of performance and utility when it first came out?  Yes 
it did.  Can you say Fooooooorrrrrrrrrrkkkkkkkk?  Today, its been refined and 
you don’t even know its there but now the system won’t even function without it.

I believe that the same infection point is here with Cloud Native.  Without it 
on the platform, a lot of new support software for machine learning, 
capabilities like Splunk, Elastic, … and so many other capabilities are related 
to Intel Kubernetes farms.  I think the longer adoption takes the less relevant 
z/OS becomes.  Its not Z or Cloud, it’s both exist in the Hybrid Cloud and must 
work together.

/endSoapBox

Matt Hogstrom
[email protected]

“To achieve great things two things are needed: a plan, and not quite enough 
time.”
- Leonard Bernstein

> On Apr 21, 2022, at 4:55 PM, Mike Schwab <[email protected]> wrote:
> 
> Early 2001.  Possibly included to run VSE in a z/OS address space to
> aid migration?
> 
> On Thu, Apr 21, 2022 at 6:52 PM PINION, RICHARD W.
> <[email protected]> wrote:
>> 
>> Does anybody hear remember a software product from a Russian company that 
>> allowed one to run Linux as
>> an address space under OS/390?  If memory serves me correctly, I think this 
>> was in the 1990's, possible early
>> 2000's.
>> 
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List <[email protected]> On Behalf Of 
>> Phil Smith III
>> Sent: Thursday, April 21, 2022 2:26 PM
>> To: [email protected]
>> Subject: Re: Use of zCX
>> 
>> [External Email. Exercise caution when clicking links or opening 
>> attachments.]
>> 
>>> It likes a LOT of real memory and it appears that the running instance
>> consumes the full amount of real memory allocated to it for the duration, 
>> making it unavailable to zOS for paging or any other use.
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> Well, sure-that memory use is Linux caching files in memory. This has all 
>> been explored, analyzed, and solved under z/VM years ago; alas, z/OS doesn't 
>> have the same kinds of controls, so it's going to be a problem with zCX 
>> until and unless IBM adds some knobs.
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> I'm with Dave Jones re "Where's the real value?" I remember when IBM first 
>> proposed what became zCX, I asked what the point was. The answer I got was 
>> "It's politically hard/impossible to get an LPAR created to run z/VM (not to 
>> mention paying for z/VM) or to run Linux on the bare iron". A technical 
>> solution to a political problem is painful to contemplate, but is sometimes 
>> necessary, and it appears that's what zCX is.
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> Running an entire operating system under z/OS that isn't acclimated to doing 
>> so is inherently problematic. Things like Db2 and CICS have spent many, many 
>> years being made into good z/OS citizens (OK, since CICS has always been 
>> under z/OS and predecessors, that's obvious-but Db2 started as SQL/DS on 
>> VM). Sure, IBM can make Linux behave under z/OS, but it's gonna take a 
>> while! And the real value is still unclear to me, beyond the political 
>> hurdles. You're sure not going to run hundreds of zCX containers under z/OS, 
>> I don't think, as you can Linuxen under z/VM.
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> TonyH: My information is that z/OS (MVS) only uses SIE for zCX, so I think 
>> that's just two levels of SIE, which presumably/hopefully means vSIE, which 
>> isn't that bad?
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> ...phsiii (who spent four years doing Linux provisioning under z/VM at 
>> Linuxcare and then a few years doing performance of Linux under z/VM, so 
>> feels he has some qualifications to make the above assertions)
>> 
>> 
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> 
> 
> -- 
> Mike A Schwab, Springfield IL USA
> Where do Forest Rangers go to get away from it all?
> 
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