You may know that I’m part of the Windows Server Platform Strategy team and am involved with Open Source engagement at Microsoft.  I do my best to keep up to speed with the comings and goings of Open Source and Linux in enterprises, and how Windows can best be used by organizations in cost effective and efficient ways.

In my news feed review this week, I was stunned by the title and byline of an article I saw up on the Enterprise Systems website yesterday:

Big Blue Serves up Linux-Only Big-Iron Gift
Late last year, IBM gave Linux-on-System z boosters a big gift: a new Linux-only System z Solution Edition, priced at just $212,000

What?  You mean that you can spend $212,000 for the privilege of running Linux on an expensive, proprietary mainframe?  Most Linux applications run on x86, so even with that big price tag, you likely have to recompile your programs to run on IBM’s proprietary Z10 line of mainframe hardware.  The economics of moving distributed workloads to an expensive, proprietary mainframe don’t make sense to me – even with the use of so called “Specialty Processors”.  To make matters worse, IBM recently announced that it is withdrawing it’s System z9 mainframe from the market, meaning that existing z9 customers look for more compute capacity later this year have to migrate to a z10! 

Based on the recent sales numbers for IBM mainframes mentioned in the article, demand for mainframes continues to decline, so many enterprises (just like me) realize moving to a mainframe doesn’t make sense. 

The success of distributed (x86) computing is based on the value it provides.  Smaller, x86-based systems have been shown time and time again to offer more flexibility and value than a large, monolithic mainframe.  Still, some organizations are experimenting with consolidating distributed workloads to expensive, proprietary mainframes.  Often the argument is made that the investment in the “central” mainframe has already  been made, and consolidating (adding) workloads will ultimately save costs.  With IBM forcing upgrades to a new generation of proprietary hardware, it makes even less sense to consolidate to a mainframe.  As The Register noted in a similar article, IBM “has to close the pricing gap that is widening as x64 server makers are cramming more CPUs, memory, and I/O into 2U and 4U rack boxes.”

Windows Scales Up! Consolidate With Windows!

If you need to scale an application up, remember that Windows Server 2008 R2 supports up to 256 logical processors and 2 Terabytes of RAM per system! A system with all that in it would be awfully beefy – much more capable than any mainframe I used (back when I used them!).  You could put huge databases and applications on a system like that! 

If you have disparate workloads, consolidating workloads to a large centralized x86 server is made simpler with Hyper-V.  Virtualizing other operating systems on Windows (Linux / UNIX) can reduce your costs and improve operation efficiency as I noted in an earlier post.

What If Your Are Already Running Linux on An Expensive Mainframe? 
How Can You Save Money and MIPS?HerculesGUI (2)

Did I mention I try to follow some of the goings on in open source?  You know that there is an open source software implementation of the mainframe System/370 and ESA/390 architectures (as well as the newer z/Architecture)?  You can actually install the Hercules System/370, ESA/390, and z/Architecture Emulator on top of Windows!  It is capable of running z/OS, z/VM, and z/VSE, OS/390, VM/ESA, VSE/ESA, MVS/ESA, MVS/XA, VM/SP, VSE/SP, and others – but those are all IBM Licensed Program Products, so you likely would not be able to legally run them in Hercules on Windows.  What’s interesting is that 3rd party operating systems like Linux/390 and z/Linux are covered under their own free license.  These can typically be run under Hercules on Windows without legal problems. 

I downloaded and installed a recent build of the Hercules emulator this week on a Windows Server 2008 R2 system at home in just a few minutes along with the easy to use (and open source) Hercules Windows GUI – here’s a screen shot of the virtual S390 I have running under my desk.  If you look closely, you’ll see information about the host machine:

image

It’s 64-bit Windows Server 2008 R2 with a nice Intel i7 quad core processor in it!

So how does Hercules perform on Windows?  I really couldn’t say – I don’t have any mainframe workloads or benchmarks to run (I’m a Windows Server geek!).

The FAQ on the Hercules site does mention performance for a range of processors including an i7 (similar to the one I’m using in my desktop at home):

“there are reports that a sustained 300+ MIPS has been achieved on an Intel Core i7 processor running at 3.75GHz using all four cores plus hyperthreading (8 CPUs).”

I know this is many many times fewer MIPS than the i7 is capable of natively, but remember my little desktop PC is emulating an IBM mainframe.  300 MIPS would be about the same processing as 300 IBM System/370 model 158-3 systems!  I don’t really know what that might mean to me, but for customers that pay for compute capacity per MIP, it seems like there’s an awful lot of value packed into my Windows Server under my desk!  Can you imagine the number of mainframe MIPS (as well as the associated cost and headaches) you could save by running an emulator like this on an actual x86 server class system?!?!

-John