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from the bringing-the-mainframe-into-the-21st-century dept.
IBM Introduces Two Open-Source-Only Mainframes
IBM is introducing two mainframe servers that run only on the open-source Linux operating system.
The new hardware will make it easier to run technology like the MongoDB database and the open-source software Spark. Presently more than a third of IBM's mainframe clients are running the Linux operating system. IBM also said it will release mainframe code to the public and join a new cohort of less than a dozen academic, government and corporate entities in what's called the Open Mainframe Project, an open source endeavor devoted to helping companies using mainframe computers.
IBM is sweetening the pot by contributing 250,000 lines of mainframe code to the Linux community, hoping to attract a new generation of developers to their platform. To help coax new users, IBM will be offering free access to the LinuxOne cloud, a mainframe simulation tool it developed for creating, testing and piloting Linux mainframe applications.
Some of the specs for the machines can be found in this article from Reuters, including a partnership with Canonical Ltd. to distribute Ubuntu on the LinuxONE and zSeries systems.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by mendax on Tuesday August 18 2015, @08:15PM
Oh, now let's be fair. IBM invented hardware-assisted machine virtualization in the late 1960's! The operating system as we understand it today was still being invented. ALL operating systems, even the venerable but unsuccessful Multics which inspired the development of Unix, were terrible to use at that time. Furthermore, the computers of that day were god-awful slow by today's standards. z/VM may be "some of the most awful crud ever created" but it's also some of the most successful crud ever invented, and the hardware it runs on has a similar legendary history. How many computers do you know of that can run programs written in 1965 without being recompiled? Only descendants of the IBM System 360 series mainframes can make that claim.
Yes, IBM's mainframe operating systems are awful, and unfortunately JCL, originally designed to start up programs using decks of punched cards, is still alive and well and still the only way to go using IBM's ancient operating systems. But they have done an excellent job in hiding that ugliness. I remember seeing a demo of an IBM-branded IDE for COBOL. When you ran the program, it created the JCL "card desk" and submitted them without any additional user intervention.
So, you may ask why people tolerate these ancient and out-of-date things? It's simple. The code is old and rock-solid, changed infrequently, rigorously tested, and extremely reliable. The mainframes also are also rock-solid and extremely reliable. These OSes and the ancient utilities that use them are also blindingly fast. CICS, the transaction service for IBM mainframes, is written in assembly language. How many more cycles more do you think they could squeeze out of CICS? Also, a lot of old and well-established companies have been using these machines and their predecessors for decades. Their IT culture is comfortable with them. That comfort means a lot to companies.
It's really quite a simple choice: Life, Death, or Los Angeles.