On 16/09/2013 2:23 AM, Jon Perryman wrote:
Providing a cloud thru a service is not a requirement. NIST is not the
governing body for cloud computing even though many people use it's definition
http://csrc.nist.gov/publications/nistpubs/800-145/SP800-145.pdf. There have
been 14 major drafts. I was amazed at the difference between the last time I
looked at it and now. They don't look the same. SaaS and PaaS was not in the
earlier drafts.
There are a few traits for the cloud which everyone can agree upon. IBM has not
targeted z/OS as a cloud platform. Instead, their early adoption centered
around being a service provider in the cloud instead of being a cloud
environment. z/OS was actually a cloud environment long before the cloud was
conceived.
I guess by that you mean service bureau type usage patterns. I
understand where you're coming from but it doesn't seem to be the same
thing.
ELASTICITY: z/OS has sysplex which is a tightly coupled environment. Customers
may add/remove systems as needed. In addition, our processors are able to
dynamically add/remove CPU's as needed. z/OS dasd can be dynically
added/removed. HSM, DSM and similar products allow disk migration to alleviate
disk space problems. SMS allows disks allocations to occur according to the
customers needs.
Most mainframe shops are very conservative. Capacity is well planned,
every MB of DASD is budgeted and accounted for. The culture is built
around micro-managing change. Hardware virtualization is fantastic but
it's not so easy to add/remove systems as needed and certainly not
automated. When Instagram released their android app they grew by over
1M users in less than a day. It would take a lot of magic screwdrivers and
reserved COD to scale up to handle that kind of sudden growth. Amazon
EC2 didn't even break a sweat.
PROVISIONING: SMS allows customers to control disk space usage by user if
needed. HSM allows the customer and user to control what remains on disk.
User's can control the size of each file (as oppose to unix directory control).
z/OS has SRM to prioritize workload which gives customers great control over
their system resource usage.
The z/VM z/Linux software stack seems to be the "cloud" platform for the
mainframe. They recently moved to OpenStack for provisioning which
includes cloud storage https://wiki.openstack.org/wiki/Swift. Looks
quite good, has lots of nice stuff like replication etc.
Amazon/Rackspace/Heroku all have similar tooling.
SECURITY: RACF, ACF2 and TopSecret give customers great control over security.
Built in cryptography is available. These easily meet the requirements for
cloud computing
NETWORKING: Internet is not a requirement per se but is now so prevalent that
you no longer can have a cloud without it. TCP was implemented very late in
z/OS as compared to other operating systems (TCP 3.1 - BSD conversion). z/OS
has SNA which is a very robust architecture. It provided the qualities that
meet the requirements for cloud. It's shortcoming was that other operating
systems did adopt this architecture.
The cloud was conceived to resolve a problem otherwise there wouldn't be a need
for the cloud. Unix, Linux, Windows and other platforms don't expand/contract
with a customers needs and customers want to work on their business without
computing controlling their business.
z/OS has performed this very well and for a very long time. It is the best of
breed for a cloud but that doesn't mean customers accept it as a cost effective
solution. Coining the term CLOUD has allowed the other platforms to mask
maintaining loosely coupled server farms to appear like they work in a similar
fashion as z/OS. So far, it seems to be doing well.
Considering the speed of modern x86 servers and that 40gb Ethernet is
now quite common and 100gbe is starting to hit to floor those loosely
coupled distributed servers are starting to look like massive quasi-SMP
systems.
Jon Perryman.
________________________________
From: David Crayford <[email protected]>
To: [email protected]
Sent: Saturday, September 14, 2013 6:22 AM
Subject: Re: Mainframe On Cloud
Are there any real world SaaS offerings on z/OS? The only tangible cloud
solution I've seen is the CICS PaaS applications/bundles and they don't
appear to have much appeal.
As far as cloud (private) is concerned it seems z/VM and z/Linux are the
only in town. OpenStack has been ported to z and that's for provisioning
z/VM instances. z/Manager didn't last
that long in that space. It seems to me that z/VM and z/Linux are the
cloud solutions on the mainframe. I would be happy to be proved wrong.
On 14/09/2013 9:12 PM, Lizette Koehler wrote:
I would say that there is no expectation for the Data Center or Mainframe to
slide into the sunset. The processes on the Mainframe are more robust than
the open systems. Yes, open systems will catch up, but they are now where
we were 15 years ago.
And there are many processes that just perform better on the mainframe.
From an article in 2010 on Saas and the mainframe
http://dancingdinosaur.wordpress.com/2010/05/10/saas-and-the-ibm-system-z/
IBM's mainframe SaaS strategy envisions the mainframe as the center of SaaS
offerings based on mainframe functionality delivered as sets of services.
The goal is to enable IT to provide selected mainframe capabilities as
online services and generate new revenue for the company. In effect, IT
becomes what IBM refers to as rainmakers, using mainframe assets delivered
as SaaS.
Are mainframe managers ready to think this way? Some certainly are. What
mainframe data or functionality will your organization's customers or new
customers be willing to pay for?
In truth, the System z is well positioned to capitalize on the as-a-service
phenomenon. The System z is multi-tenant to the max, which is critical to
play the as-a-service game. Not only can it deliver SaaS data and
functionality but also PaaS (Platform-as-a-Service) and IaaS
(Infrastructure-as-a-Service). And it doesn't take much to do this if you
already have a z in place. Linux on z, WebSphere on z, and z/VM get you
started.
And from Share in March 2009
Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) is garnering a lot of attention these days, and
for good reason - increased operational efficiency, reduced operating
expenses, and extensive market reach is always a good thing. SaaS is most
often associated with commodity servers and open source software
environments, but this session will show how the mainframe is actually the
best platform for your SaaS solutions. The mainframes' 40+ year heritage is
built on the motto LESS IS MORE and it shows. The mainframe is Green. A new
z10 EC can consume 1/24th the energy and 1/5th the floor space of equivalent
x86 Blade environments. Mainframes, as consolidation systems, are uniquely
designed to virtualize and share everything - hardware, network, I/O, you
name it- it's shared, consuming the equivalent of 100s or even 1000s of
servers' workload. By default multi-tenancy, a core SaaS requirement, is
baked into the DNA of the platform, which is valuable for the many customers
who are rearchitecting existing applications to provide as a service.
Lizette
-----Original Message-----
From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List [mailto:[email protected]] On
Behalf Of Jake anderson
Sent: Friday, September 13, 2013 11:30 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Mainframe On Cloud
Hello All,
I am really new to the mainframe on Cloud concept. Just going through some
white papers on mainframe on cloud. I was just curious to know about the
future of current Mainframe sites, Like is it expected to see Mainframe DC
getting shutdown slowly ?
Any thoughts are much appreciated. If my query does not makes any
sense,please do feel free to comment, so that I can put in more precise way.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions,
send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
----------------------------------------------------------------------
For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions,
send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
----------------------------------------------------------------------
For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions,
send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
----------------------------------------------------------------------
For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions,
send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
