This may be a bit weird. At present, we are running on a z9BC with two CPs. My boss is talking with _someone_ about upgrading to a z10 of some sort with 2 CPs. Apparently the vendor is willing to sweeten the deal by throwing in an IFL. I don't know how powerful an IFL is on a z10. We had one long ago on a z890 and it was OK. My manager is thinking that one possible use of the IFL would be to move some Linux systems off of a Power570 onto the IFL. I don't know if he means under z/VM or in an LPAR. Given how cheap we are, I'd bet the later.
I am ASSuming that z/Linux would likely have most, if not all, of the packages which run on Linux on the Power570. I think we run RHEL on them. I would hope that things like shell scripts, Perl, awk, and other interpreted scripts would "just run". I would be shocked if any C/C++ (or even FORTRAN) didn't run after recompilation on the z. Does anybody know where I might be able to compare performance of z/Linux on a z10 versus Linux on a Power570? I know nothing about the Power570 machine; what is running on the Linux instance(s); or even if there are multiple instances under PowerVM. I basically know nothing. I'm the resident "Linux guru" on the z team (we're all z/OS people) because I run Linux/Intel on a PC here at work and on most of my machines at home (one Windows, one Mac, 4 Linux). From some of what he has said, I get the impression that he thinks that it is a simple "copy the files, boot the system, and GO!". He also wanted to run AIX on the IFL. I think I convinced him that is not a possibility. He was a bit shocked. And he is an intelligent z person (ex OEM developer). To be honest, I am not sure if it would be worth the effort on the political front. But that is his problem. Personally, I would really prefer a "free" zIIP so that I could use it to run Java code "for free" on my z/OS system. I am thinking that the vendor is throwing the IFL in "for free" because the z10 under consideration already has one enabled. BTW - the higher IT management is anti-everything not Microsoft/Intel, so they don't really care so long as the budget costs are not increased. My boss hopes that removing the Power570s might save a bit of money for the company and so be a plus. Of course, this doesn't help the z people because the Power570 machines' budget is from the distributed side. So they would get the praise for reducing IT cost while we got any "hit" that might occur. A win-lose (them-us) situation IMO. Thanks for any thoughts, links, or condolences. -- John McKown Systems Engineer IV IT Administrative Services Group HealthMarkets(r) 9151 Boulevard 26 * N. Richland Hills * TX 76010 (817) 255-3225 phone * [email protected] * www.HealthMarkets.com Confidentiality Notice: This e-mail message may contain confidential or proprietary information. If you are not the intended recipient, please contact the sender by reply e-mail and destroy all copies of the original message. HealthMarkets(r) is the brand name for products underwritten and issued by the insurance subsidiaries of HealthMarkets, Inc. -The Chesapeake Life Insurance Company(r), Mid-West National Life Insurance Company of TennesseeSM and The MEGA Life and Health Insurance Company.SM ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 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 more information on Linux on System z, visit http://wiki.linuxvm.org/
