SUSE linux would work fine in this sort of environment, but it would need to have the desktop customised considerably to remove any 'single user' gadgets and the like. As noted above there may be issues getting Evolution on S390x. Also, Evolution and the Ximian desktop are coded in Mono, which give you memory issues similar to Java.
Didn't Evolution used to be open source? Did Novell make it closed source when they took over Ximian? If it's open source, then it should be possible to get someone to port Mono (which is open source) and Evolution (which is written in Mono) to S390x. That's the advantage of open source. Matthew On Thu, May 14, 2009 at 6:13 AM, Ward, Mike S <[email protected]> wrote: > Wow it does give me food for thought. Sounds like you’re well versed in > these types of environments. Another question if you don’t mind. In this > environment would SUSE linux work? And would they be able to use Ximian and > Evolution to connect to an exchange server for email/calendar and those type > of office functions? > > > > *From:* The IBM z/VM Operating System [mailto:[email protected]] *On > Behalf Of *Matthew Donald > *Sent:* Wednesday, May 13, 2009 2:07 PM > *To:* [email protected] > *Subject:* Re: Virtualized Desktop > > > > Firstly, you need to know the expected environment before you can work out > anything. Lets assume that you want to provide Firefox for browsing, Lotus > Notes for email, Symphony for office and x3270 for mainframe access. All of > these run under Linux and, in addition, Notes and Symphony are Eclipse-based > which means JVM's. > > What I *wouldn't* do is give each user a separate Linux guest. I'd > probably look at around 4 Linux guests. These guest would have all 1000 > users logged onto them. > > One guest would provide the desktop. That is, every user would log onto a > single guest using X-Windows and maybe Gnome (but I'd look at Enlightenment > as it has a lower memory footprint). The desktop would have icons for > Notes, Symphony etc. Clicking an icon would run a remote app on one of the > other guests. Any user running Firefox or x3270 would run the app on this > guest. > > A second guest would run Notes. Every time a user clicked the Notes icon, > it would start it would start the Notes app on the second guest. > > The third and fourth guests would have Symphony workload spread between > them. When a user clicked the Symphony icon, half would run the app on the > third guest and half on the fourth guest. > > Essentially, the model is to have the basic desktop and the non-java apps > on one guest and the java workload spread over the other three guests. > > I know a config along these lines would work, since the State of Florida > did something like this in the late-90's. They were using four 8-way Intel > P3 boxes running Linux with Netscape, Wordperfect and Quattro. I'm pretty > sure they were supporting more than 1000 users. > > As to resources, I don't know of any benchmarks, so the following is based > on my experience with z/VM +z/Linux + Websphere. My gut feel is that you > could probably run this sort of workload with 4 IFL's and somewhere between > 96G and 128G, depending on the number of simultaneous users. I may be > over-estimating the CPU workload. Most of the memory requirement would be > for JVM's. I'd allow somewhere between 128M and 256M per JVM. So long as > the GC was running no more frequently than every 8 seconds or so and each GC > run was freeing at least 30% of the heap on each run then the sizing would > be adequate. > > Another problem you are likely to hit is in networking. The X-Windows > protocol has outbound connections from the Linux guest to the terminal. I > don't know about your environment, but many site use VPN's internally with > each group being restricted to a single VPN sandbox. The problem is that > many VPN clients (such as Aventail) only allow connections from the terminal > to the server, and not the other way around. > > Hope this gives you food for thought > > Matthew Donald > > On Wed, May 13, 2009 at 7:30 AM, Ward, Mike S <[email protected]> wrote: > > Hello, all. I have a question. It seems that we are looking into a > virtualized desktop environment (Single Image) on our distributed side. > I kind of laugh at this because that's where we came from with VM and an > OS running under VM (Green Screen) long ago and now it's making full > circle. In VM how do you determine the amount of hardware MIPS, Disk, > Etc... for let's say 1000 users? Is there any kind of formula to go by? > I know in the distributed environment, it will probably take a lot of > disk space, and as far as performance I don't think it would be as > snappy as a real VM system. I used to work at a shop where we had 2500 > users and a few with APL, that's right APL. Anyone that's been around > knows what APL programmers did for VM. And in that shop response time > was good even under MVS/CICS under VM. Anyway any comments, suggestions, > criticisms are welcome. > > > Thanks. > ========================== > This email and any files transmitted with it are confidential and intended > solely for the use of the individual or entity > to which they are addressed. If you have received this email in error > please notify the system manager. This message > contains confidential information and is intended only for the individual > named. If you are not the named addressee you > should not disseminate, distribute or copy this e-mail. 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