Glenn Nicholas wrote: > A question about Linux on z/VM and scalability. > > Early tests of Linux on 390 (Test Plan Charlie and Omega) > demonstrated that thousands/tens of thousands of virtual Linux > servers could physically be supported by z/VM (and I note with > respect that Sine Nomine has a presence in this forum). These days > IBM steps up to the plate in public for 'hundreds' of virtual servers > (ibm.com), and Charlie/Omega aren't referred to as frequently. > > There is a big gap between hundreds and thousands. My question ... > is zVM (with up to 16 engines) really capable of supporting thousands/ > tens of thousands of servers in the real world, and IBM just being > coy? Or is it really hundreds? If it is in the thousands, is this > theoretical, or are there really customers using it at this level? > For the purposes of this question, let us assume a 'server' is used > by a small business of 10-20 employees with several hundreds of > customers, supporting web site services and email (in a penguin > colony with non-uniform resource demands). Vague, but hopefully a > pointer to something useful. > It is thousands. We have an airline doing exactly this. That is, we've seen support requests from a rather large airline which is setting up such a system. Surprisingly few, though.
So z/VM is capable of supporting such a workload. It may be at its limits, but it does the job. With tens of thousands I'd be a bit skeptical. You're reaching the physical limits of _any_ machine quite quickly, so you'd need some very elaborate resource management / setup quirks in doing this. We do have some ideas, though, so if anyone has a 4-book z990 to spare we could surely give it a go ... Cheers, Hannes -- Dr. Hannes Reinecke [EMAIL PROTECTED] SuSE Linux Products GmbH S390 & zSeries Maxfeldstraße 5 +49 911 74053 688 90409 Nürnberg http://www.suse.de ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 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
