Hello Florian, IMO it is the other way around. Microsoft doesn't build it's software for zseries therefore it will not run on zseries. Perhaps IBM would sell zseries machines to run windows, just like they do for linux, but then Microsoft would have to build the software for this CPU. And also other vendors would have to build their software for z too.
I too don't consider x86 emulation to meet business needs. It would be interesting to see if it will run from a specialist point of view. But for production loads I want the software to run with as little overhead as possible. Emulating an x86, or emulating any type of CPU for that matter, to run mission critical software will just be too expensive. Therefore, you'd be better off moving the workload to a native zseries application than to run an emulated processor to do the same thing. There are indeed a lot of applications that are out there for x86. But there is a choice. If you want a database you can select Access. But then you'd also select the hardware and OS it must run on. You could also select DB2 or MySQL and in that case you can decide upon the platform you can run it on, depending on the capabilities of the platform. Most applications you can buy for windows do have alternatives, either for x86 or for zseries. And now that we have linux on zseries a lot more applications have become available for zseries. If only there were more vendors that would offer (build/compile/support) their products for zseries too. We offer our clients an option with linux on z. If they want a database, we support MySQL, Postgresql, DB2 and oracle. A webserver will be Apache. A fileserver, Samba or NFS. Just what they can run on linux, we are willing to offer. O, btw, it will run on z (notice we don't say mainframe ;-)). But if a client insists on running IIS or MS-Access, too bad, we can not run that on our linux on z as well as you cannot run it on a x86 linux. As for cost, yes, a mainframe will cost you more than a PC, but can you run as much workload on a PC? You would need more PC's to run the same workload and that would increase the cost to the same level or even above that. The problem is that you can't compare a single PC with a single mainframe and then say that the mainframe is more expensive. It is just like comparing a car with a truck. I wouldn't buy a car and then expect it to move 40tons of freight. So why then expect a PC to run the workload of a mainframe? Unfortunatly, most decision makers only know a PC and compare the price for a PC they buy at whatever discountstore with the price they must pay for a zseries machine. They ignore the fact that a mainframe can run much, much more workloads and is much more scalable than a PC. It is just a matter of choice and what choice you begin with. If you select windows then you have selected x86 by default and also have selected the range of products you can run on that platform. If you select an application, you are limited by the options that this application will bring you. But if you select the hardware that will support your workload first then you are free to select the OS and applications that will run on the type of hardware. Regards, Berry. Florian Bilek schreef: > Hello Alan, > > I would like to come back on your statement: > <snip> > It's certainly > interesting from an academic perspective, but it doesn't meet the needs of > business. > </snip> > > I would really like to understand IBM's view on this issue. Is it from a > business point of view that Windows or Intel (x86) is not considered as a > serious environment for running mission critical applications?? > > Unfortunately there are hundred thousands of applications out there that > exist only on Windows and unfortunately not on Linux. And even when they > would exist on Linux it does not mean that they would run on z/Series. So > since long time I wonder myself what is the reason to simply ignore the fact > that in a lot of organisations consider the costs of z/Series compared to > WinTel Servers as terrible high and then this platform does not run Windows > applications. (I do not want to discuss if this is true or not but this is > what I hear from my management). I have all the time problems with my > management to justify the costs. If x86 programs would run naively also on > z/Series I would never had such problems any more. So I would see indeed a > urgent need in solving this issue. > > > Best Regards, > > Florian > > > > > On Tue, Nov 11, 2008 at 5:57 PM, Alan Altmark <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>wrote: > > >> On Tuesday, 11/11/2008 at 11:24 EST, jose raul baron >> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >> >> >>> Certainly I agree the proper thing would be to migrate the workload >>> >> instead >> >>> of keeping the same philosophy but... the customer is always right. >>> >> (cough) >> >> As many customers who have talked to me can attest, no, they are not >> always right. :-) They can have good intentions and excellent ideas, but >> the technology is sometimes simply not there to support those ideas. And, >> occasionally, it's just a Bad Idea. >> >> In this case, it is technically possible to run Windows servers on System >> z today using Bochs, the Linux open source IA-32 emulator, but it >> qualifies as a Bad Idea due to the performance. It's certainly >> interesting from an academic perspective, but it doesn't meet the needs of >> business. >> >> So we await Mantissa's offering with bated breath - to see if we can get >> the utility of x86 with the management characteristics and scalability of >> System z, at a cost people can afford. >> >> Even the Xen solutions do not do cross-architecture virtualization. If >> you run Xen on x86, you get x86. If you run it on Power, you get Power. >> If it were to run on System z, you would get z/Architecture. I keep >> waiting for an operating system written in Java with a >> byte-code-interpreting CPU! >> >> Alan Altmark >> z/VM Development >> IBM Endicott >> >> ---------------------------------------------------------------------- >> 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 >> >> > > > > -- > Best regards > > Florian Bilek > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > 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
