Replying to myself... Now that the "full" doc is available (Thanks, Timothy!) it becomes pretty clear that this *is* largely zPDT running on zLinux, IOW my Option (1) below. Experienced zPDT users will quickly recognize a whole lot of things in the setup and config, not least of which is the AWS prefix for everything. But there seem to be some new and non-zPDT orchestrating tools in the picture, so I guess a mix of options (1) and (2).
The big question is obviously performance. Of course it's "not for production", but even IFL MIPS are very expensive compared to commodity Intel MIPS. On the matter of why Intel Linuxes are in the Software requirements, I think this must surely be just a mistake. I can see no reference to anything Intel in the doc. Maybe the biggest question is why the only supported zLinux is Ubuntu - no Red Hat to be seen, nor Suse for that matter. Tony H. On Thu, 16 Jun 2022 at 12:36, Tony Harminc <[email protected]> wrote: > > On Thu, 16 Jun 2022 at 04:46, Timothy Sipples <[email protected]> wrote: > [...] > > Now there's yet another great option: the IBM Virtual Dev and Test for > > z/OS, generally available THIS FRIDAY. The announcement letter is available > > here: > > https://www.ibm.com/downloads/cas/US-ENUS222-251-CA/name/US-ENUS222-251-CA.PDF > > And the landing page is here: > > https://www.ibm.com/products/virtual-dev-and-test-zos > > > > This product also provides virtualized z/OS instances on IFLs for > > development, unit testing, and training. You will need at least 2 IFLs (on > > an IBM zSystems or LinuxONE server), although they can be potentially > > shared with other > > workloads. Of course you'll need some memory and disk space. The latter can > > be any reasonable Linux-attachable storage. (It does not have to be > > specifically ECKD/FICON-attached.) IBM Virtual Dev and Test for z/OS > > licenses > > are available via IBM Passport Advantage in your choice of one-time charge > > license (with annual Subscription & Support) or monthly license (with > > monthly Subscription & Support). You can start with monthly then switch to > > one-time > > charge if you wish. > > It would be really nice if IBM would explain what this product *is*. I > appreciate that a certain amount of marketing fluff is always > necessary, but even for IBM this is remarkably heavy on the fluff and > light on the details. > > All we really know is that IBM seems to be doing what it went to court > with Neon Systems over - running arbitrary z/OS work on "specialty > engines" on z. > > Seems to me it's roughly one of two things (but doubtless there are > many possibilities I haven't thought of): > > 1) It's zPDT compiled for a target of zArch rather than Intel i64. > 2) It's some other virtualized - probably container-based way of > dispatching z/OS work on IFLs, with user-friendly infrastructure to > provision (dare I say "orchestrate") VMs and their content. > > I think (1) is the more likely based on what can be seen. We know that > IBM has the JIT compiler infrastructure to target zArch, so presumably > it wouldn't be a huge thing to just recompile zPDT and go. The > problems most commonly heard about zPDT are with the licensing > infrastructure and Linux library versions, and not with the emulation > itself, which seems to be very robust. Of course no amount of JITting > is going to run as fast as just dispatching on the native iron, but > presumably the tradeoff of cheap and fast IFLs vs some overhead works > out well. > > If it's (2), then this must play into the zCX and related container > stuff that would otherwise seem to be plugging along in a parallel > universe. But the obvious question that arises is why not use one of > the several existing schemes for spinning up virtual machines on z - > whether zVM and its many tools, or UNIXy tools to do the same? These > are fairly mature at this point - certainly the zVM-based ones. > > I think (2) is far more the Future than running zPDT on zArch. Maybe > it's just the traditional IBM Way of having competing teams with a > periodic Winner and some Losers, and this battle isn't over yet. > > One more little confusing item I noticed: In the announcement letter under > Software requirements > Operating systems > we see: > • Ubuntu Server 22.04 LTS for IBM Z and LinuxONE; IBM z/Architecture(R) > • Ubuntu 16.04 LTS, 18.04 LTS, and 20.04 LTS; x86-64 hardware > • Red Hat(R) Enterprise Linux (RHEL) Server 7 and 8; x86-64 hardware > > This is just weird. What are those two Intel Linuxes doing there? > Surely, surely this doesn't in any way involve i64 emulation on real > zArch hardware? > > Tony H. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
