[Am-info] Scaling The Heights: A Linux-Only Mainframe

[Fred A. Miller]

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Scaling The Heights: A Linux-Only Mainframe

On the eve of the Linux World conference, IBM says it's making 
a Linux-only mainframe. IBM execs say they're aiming at 
businesses that use numerous smaller servers (read: Wintel 
machines). Transferring the computing tasks handled by multiple 
servers onto a single mainframe, the company maintains, will 
help users lower their overall computing costs without 
sacrificing horsepower.

The eServer zSeries for Linux will feature IBM's z/VM 
virtualization software, which allows the machine to be 
subdivided into hundreds of so-called virtual machines that 
operate independently of each other. The Linux-based mainframe 
will sell for less than IBM's conventional models, which run on 
the company's proprietary zOS operating system. But the new 
machine lacks some of its predecessors' high-end security and 
transaction processing features. A basic version of the Linux-
only mainframe will start at about $400,000, including three 
years of maintenance, while the sticker price on an entry-level 
zOS-based mainframe starts at about $750,000.

Bob Sutherland, an analyst with Technology Business Research, 
says that by offering a Linux mainframe, IBM is trying to 
create a new market for the big iron, which once ruled data 
centers but in recent years have given way to less-expensive 
Windows and Unix machines. "It may make them more appealing for 
users that ordinarily would never have considered buying a 
mainframe," Sutherland says.

Despite the overall decline in mainframe use, IBM has managed 
to enlarge its mainframe business in recent quarters, though 
sales were essentially flat in the company's most recent fourth 
quarter. - Paul McDougall

Read on:
IBM Introduces New Unix Server
http://update.informationweek.com/cgi-bin4/flo?y=eFp40Bce7K0V20ZG50Al

IBM Beefs Up ZSeries Mainframes
http://update.informationweek.com/cgi-bin4/flo?y=eFp40Bce7K0V20BVzu0Ai


- -- 
Fred A. Miller
Systems Administrator
Cornell Univ. Press Services
fm@cupserv.org

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