July 6, 2016

z13 feature exploitation - which distribution levels are required

In this post I'll try to summarize which distribution levels, packages, APARs, PTFs etc are needed to exploit a given z13 (performance) function. I expect this to change over time, so please revisit for updates.

For the virtualization layers I use the label "(guest)" for enablement of guest exploitation. So you need at least the given version of the Hipervisor to exploit a certain function in the guest. Of course you also need the respective guest support.

All version levels in the table are minimum levels.

 Feature  Red Hat  SUSE  Ubuntu  z/VM
(host)
 z/VM
(guest)
 KVM
(host)
 KVM
(guest)
SMT 7.2 12 SP1 16.04 6.3+
1.1.1
SIMD: kernel support – compiled SIMD apps can run 7.2 12 SP1 16.04 6.3+(3) 1.1.1 1.1.1
z13 tool chain support (compiler, binutils) tbd 12 SP1 16.04 6.3+ 1.1.0
PCI: RoCE 10 Gb Ethernet 7.2(1) 12 SP1 16.04
6.3+
PCI: RoCE 10 Gb OFED stack 7.2(1) 16.04
6.3+
PCI: zEDC Java(4) 7.2(1) 12 SP1 16.04
6.3+
PCI: zEDC zlib preload library (1)(2) (2) 16.04
6.3+
-
-
-

(1) fixes coming, maybe in next fix pack
(2) RYO lib from https://github.com/ibm-genwqe/genwqe-user
(3) z/VM APAR VM65733 required
(4) Java 7 SR9FP30, Java 7.1 SR3FP40, Java8 SR3

(updated 9/30/2016)