The following link makes it sound like you can run Linux and MS
Windows virtual servers on z/VM 5.3. Is this the case? We are looking
for a Main Frame / Enterprise Server that will run x86 based OSs like
Linux and MS Windows.
You cannot run Intel binaries efficiently on System z hardware.
You can run Windows applications based on the portable subset of .NET
(using Mono) or applications which you have source code and can
recompile for System z hardware. There are also suites that allow some
ASP applications to run. Pure Java should run if you have the right
combination of JVM and environment. The major Java container
applications (WAS, BEA, jboss/tomcat) run well (with a bit of tuning).
You technically can run Windows in a z/VM virtual machine using
a Intel emulator like bochs, but the overhead CPU cost is horrendous
(75-100 to 1). You wouldn't want to do it for production work unless you
have lots of money to burn, but it might be OK for testing stuff.
If you need dense numbers Windows servers, look at the newest
quad and octo-core blade servers with lots and lots of RAM running
VMWare. They're about the best available option for the typical Windows
application server sprawl. You should look at whether some of your Intel
Linux apps could be moved, though, or pieces of infrastructure like
Oracle or DB/2 servers could be moved. There are substantial savings to
be had in terms of licensing for infrastructure pieces.
