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Expert Question of the Week
August 27, 2001
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Welcome to Search390's Expert Question of the Week newsletter.
Remember, no question is too simple for Ask the Experts! If you have
a 390-related question, send it to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Selected
questions will be answered by our experts.
This week's question was answered by Jan Lahmann, search390's Linux
on S/390 Expert.
THIS WEEK'S QUESTION:
Q: My company runs a critical application across multiple platforms.
Multiple NT boxes, a Risc600, Open edition and CICS under OS/390.
They are looking to consolidate it under Linux on an S/390 box. We
the technical staff are all for it. I know it can be run in an LPAR
or under VM. I am not clear on the advantages and disadvantages of
each? Management wants to know what kind of support they can expect
if a critical application is run under Linux (SuSE).
A: There are already some companies doing mission critical
applications on Linux for S/390. Maybe you have read the recent
article about Korean Airlines
http://www.zdnet.com/eweek/stories/general/0,11011,2787187,00.html
who are moving their Flight Schedule Enquiry System and Daily Revenue
Accounting System to Linux for zSeries.
As far as support is concerned: several companies are offering
support for Linux for S/390, for example SuSE and IBM (as you
mentioned that you are using the SuSE distribution). Both offer 24x7
support with guaranteed response time. In any case you should get
them involved, not only for support after going live, but also for
the design of the solution and to check the planned setup.
Regarding the choice between installing in an LPAR or under VM: the
major difference is the number of Linux images possible. VM allows
many more images than 15 (which is the current maximum number of
LPARs). So in most of the cases that I have seen, people start with
LPAR and move to VM later on.
There are some further advantages when running under VM. Very good
performance monitors are available, additional fast internal
communication options exist (IUCV, vCTC) and cloning of images is
easier (and faster) as when running in LPAR. Also the main storage
can be shared between VM guests, while it has to be dedicated to
LPARs. On the other hand VM has of course its price and has to be
administrated. Actually, administration of VM is not too hard.
Especially if you keep in mind that you are only using a small part
(mainly the hypervisor) of the whole VM system. If you are thinking
about a new VM installation because of Linux, you should consider
taking the class "VM basics for Linux" (IBM learning services code
ZV050). Please let me know if I can be of any further help.
Do you have a question for Jan? If so, send it in. Go to
http://search390.techtarget.com/ateQuestion/0,289624,sid10_cid367639_tax285124,00.html
What do you think about using Linux on S/390 to run your most mission
critical apps? Think the open source OS can handle the job? Go to
the Operating Systems discussion forum and let us know what you
think. While you're there, check out the other Linux-related posts
such as this one from user Harv0623: "Has anyone out there installed
Linux (any flavor) on an IBM MP2000 machine? I realize this machine
falls under the category of "will also run on" and is not officially
supported, but my experience running SuSE 7.0 under VM/ESA was
excellent until Java came into the picture. I suspect this has
something to do with Linux having to emulate the IEEE FPU
instructions not available on the hardware, but I never expected it
to have such a huge impact.
It all came to light when I installed a trial copy of WebSphere 3.5
and attempted to run startupServer.sh. My Linux guest consumed
massive quantities of CPU cycles, and it took forever before the 'in
business' message showed up in the tracefile. Suspecting something
wrong with my Java runtime environment, I ran a Javac compile of the
HelloWorldApp sample source, and the results astounded me - 4 minutes
to compile a 3-line program! A test execution of the compiled class
took 3 minutes! TOP and my VM monitor both showed huge CPU
utilization during both tests. Now granted, by today's standards, a
25 MIPS machine is not a screamer. On the other hand, we run a very
respectable OS/390 system, 2 VSE's, and about 150 CMS users on this
machine, so it doesn't seem out of line to expect something better
out of Java. Any experiences, ideas, thoughts, or suggestions would
be appreciated."
Share your thoughts now and post your responses here:
http://search390.discussions.techtarget.com/WebX?50@@.ee83ff6
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