My 2 cents:
There is a cloud purveyor that used (and may still be using) z/VM
to spin up systems (Linux). As I recall, from the time you
ordered a system, to the time it was up and running, was less
than 15 minutes (had REXX code to issue all the commands to get
the VM guest live). I don't recall if they offered different
distros or just one (Redhat | Suse | Debian(?))
Speaking of sabotaging -- from my personal experience, it was IBM
marketing that was cannibalizing the MVS|z/OS accounts to sell
AS/400s and AIX boxes pushing Sieble and such migrations.
I still say, when Amdahl was around, IBM was healthy. Per Bob
Rogers, he killed off Amdahl by getting IBM to not renew TIDA
(the Tech Disclosure Agreement). This happened right at the time
the change from TTL/ECL to CMOS was in progress as I recall. We
(at Amdahl) knew the CF was coming, but we didn't know how IBM
was going to implement it and so my understanding was, we decided
to wait and see, so we would not have to support two different
implementations.
Steve Thompson
On 10/23/2025 3:21 PM, Jon Perryman wrote:
exactly what the mainframe marketing people are trying to fight?
It's time to be brutally honest. z/OS marketing could not sell water to a
thirsty man. IBM has not sold 1 z/OS to Google.
Why has z/OS marketing sabotaged z/OS for decades? z/OS is decades ahead of
Linux but the computing experts are clueless. If z/OS is to survive, it will
require the z/OS community to educate the world but first, the z/OS community
needs to understand what Linux is NOT.
Isn't "Linux in the cloud is cheaper and easier than Z in the cloud"?
ROTFLOL, "easier", absolutely not. 25 years of cloud and the computer industry
is still clueless about the cloud.
There's a reason public clouds (e.g. Google cloud, Amazon AWS and Microsoft
Azure) thrive. Setting up and maintaining robust Linux private cloud can be
tricky.
Setting up z/OS private cloud services is absurdly simple. The only required change is
"VIPA load balancing". In less 5 minutes, you configure an IP address that is
distributed among the systems in a SYSPLEX. For instance, consider DB2 for z/OS running
on 3 LPARS in a sysplex. Nothing complicated because database requests to LPARs where DB2
is active. You easily add more disk, CPU, network or other resources. They are
automatically added to the z Cloud without thinking nor must you learn something new.
z/OS is a cloud before the cloud became an idea.
On the other hand, try setting up a private cloud database on 3 Linux
computers. Disks are not shared so you must implement NAS. By default,
databases are unique to each Linux and you must configure them to run from NAS
and locking. Networking becomes a challenge. Ask yourself why public clouds are
so popular.
Don't forget that public clouds are not compatible. Switching to Google cloud,
Amazon AWS, Microsoft Azure or ... requires conversion. It's not as simple as
moving the data.
why is mainframe hybrid cloud a great solution for IBM's customers but not for
IBM?
This statement is wrong in so many ways. I'm surprised that no one has brought
this up.
1. Hybrid clouds combine public clouds with private clouds. Public cloud
providers such as Google cloud, Amazon AWS and Microsoft Azure used along with
a customer's private cloud.
For instance, I worked on the implementation of SAP High Availability (which
required database service, SAP Application services and SAP enque services).
SAPAS and SAPES easily use the customer's private cloud. For those customers
without z/OS, using a public cloud greatly reduces the cloud database headaches.
For z/OS customers, DB2 for z/OS eliminated the need for a public cloud
database.
2. Public, private or hybrid clouds have nothing to do with hardware nor
vendor. Services are provided by a cloud and those services are defined by that
cloud.
3. As for customers and IBM use of private, public or hybrid, this depends on
needs.
instead. Seems nothing new, but... the cloud *won't be based on System Z
hardware*. It will be emulation under Linux.
The idea behind the cloud is that you don't know about the hardware and
software. Is it z? You don't know and you don't care.
That "it's not a real mainframe" thing put me off at first but then I realized
that a zPDT
is not a real mainframe either, right? It too is Z emulation under Linux.
Maybe some are real and some emulated. Externally it will be difficult to
determine.
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Regards,
Steve Thompson
Make Mainframes Great Again
They use far less Electricity than Clouds and can do more work
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