It is important to also understand that Linux is not capable (at least today) of directly exploiting many of those hardware benefits, especially in terms of the mainframes RAS features. That is to say, there can be instances where the mainframe is up and chugging along, VM is doing just fine, but Linux is dead in the water for example.
Unfortunately the original question is simply too vague. Comparing Linux on zSeries to x86, pSeries, SPARC, etc. (if that was question) is as much a philosophical exercise as it is technical. What really needs to be focused on is the task that you wish to run, how it works and what it needs to perform its job(s). Then we can evaluate the pros and cons to running that task on each of the OS/architecture combinations. -Sam -----Original Message----- From: Linux on 390 Port [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Adam Thornton Sent: Thursday, February 10, 2005 12:39 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: Why Zseries On Feb 10, 2005, at 10:58 AM, Levy, Alan wrote: > Actually, I probably phrased my question wrong. > > What I was looking for is why choose Zseries Linux over ANY OTHER > operating system's Linux ? > We're getting closer, but: zSeries is an architecture, not an operating system, and Linux doesn't generally run *on* an operating system[0], it *is* an operating system. That said, this looks like Question 2, if you substitute "architecture's" for "operating system's". In which case: hardware reliability and fault tolerance, excellent sustained I/O capacity, potential for in-the-box really-high-speed interconnect with (usually z/OS) big databases in another LPAR, humongous consolidation opportunities if you have lightly-loaded guests, and incredibly rapid deployment of machines for testing and development. Adam [0] Unless run in a virtualization environment, like z/VM or VMware or Virtual PC, or Hercules, which is an emulation environment running under some OS. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For LINUX-390 subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: INFO LINUX-390 or visit http://www.marist.edu/htbin/wlvindex?LINUX-390 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For LINUX-390 subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: INFO LINUX-390 or visit http://www.marist.edu/htbin/wlvindex?LINUX-390
