SLES 12 toolchain module available for Linux on z

SUSE has released the toolchain module for Linux on System z. This is the first officially supported gcc compiler that supports the z13.
To install you need to add the product and update repository with "yast2 repositories" and then you can install it with

# zypper install sle-module-toolchain-release
Loading repository data...
Reading installed packages...
Resolving package dependencies...

The following 10 NEW packages are going to be installed:
  cpp5 gcc5 gcc5-c++ gcc5-fortran gcc5-locale libgfortran3 libstdc++6-devel-gcc5 patterns-toolchain-gcc5
  sle-module-toolchain-release sle-module-toolchain-release-POOL

The following NEW pattern is going to be installed:
  gcc5

The following NEW product is going to be installed:
  "Toolchain Module"

The following 6 recommended packages were automatically selected:
  cpp5 gcc5-c++ gcc5-fortran gcc5-locale libstdc++6-devel-gcc5 patterns-toolchain-gcc5

10 new packages to install.
Overall download size: 26.2 MiB. Already cached: 0 B  After the operation, additional 136.1 MiB will be
used.
Continue? [y/n/? shows all options] (y): y
.....


As you see you get C, C++ and Fortran. To enable z13 instructions use the -march=z13 option.

SUSE Linux Enterprise 12 Service Pack 1 (SLES 12 SP1) released

On December 22nd just in time for Christmas SUSE has released the latest updated to their flag ship server distribution.

The kernel level for 12.1 is kernel-3.12.49-11.1. As one of the top features this distribution is the first one, which allows full exploitation of the z13. And this distribution is so far the only one that's supported by IBM's version of KVM as well as Docker. SUSE has published a nice summary of the the z specific news.
And of course it has many bug fixes. So after the installation be sure to run an update to install the latest fixes from the maintweb. 

Here is my usual summary of links to more information:

• Complete SLES 12 documentation
• SLES 12.1 release notes (s390x version)
• z Systems / s390x specific information 
• release notes for High Availability Extensions (z Systems / s390x version)  
• release notes for SDK (z Systems / s390x version)
• SUSE tuning guide updated to SP1 
• Whitepaper on SUSE's module concept
• IBM documentation on developerworks
• KVM support statement
• Docker support statement

A frequently asked question is about the location of the older libstdc++ libraries that are needed for compatibility with older software products. There are two locations:

• the oldest ones are in a package called compat, that you can install with zypper directly. It has libstdc++-3-libc6.2-2-2.10.0.so and libstdc++-libc6.2-2.so.3
• the libstdc++33 is part of the Legacy Module that SUSE provides. Add it to your repositories with yast2 repositories and then you can install. It contains the libstc++.so.5

(updated 1/20/2016)

Java OpenJDK and Just In Time Compiler (JIT)

Since a while OpenJDK has been available for Linux on the mainframe as an open source Java. In the last week I had two different performance situations with this. The reason is very simple: OpenJDK for z, doesn't have a JIT. So it can be used e.g. for writing an installer but for everything that's repeating the IBM JDK is the only choice.
The effect varies by workload, but it's usually more that one order of magnitude. In the example above showing relative performance for an average workload  the IBM Java does better even without the JIT and with the JIT it's more than a factor of 50! I had to break up the axis to show it in one chart.

IBM LinuxONE Community Cloud is open

The Community Cloud announced at LinuxCon is accepting registrations and afterwards you deploy and start your Linux image. Please read the quickstart guide before get going - at least read if you get stuck :-)

If you don't do this, then at least read the invitation email. Here are the top hints:

• Access is given using a public key - generate it in the Web GUI and then select it for deployment. This is not selected by default and without that key you don't get into the new system! 
• When you deploy, select the new project assigned to you and not "public" which is the default. You can only work on your project area! 
• You can only have one Linux server there. So if you want to switch between images, you need to delete the old one first. 

There is also a FAQ available which covers general aspects of this.

Happy testing!

(updated 08/12/2015)

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 7.2 released

On November 19th 2015 Red Hat released the next regular update to their flag ship operating system.

The kernel level for 7.2 is kernel-3.10.0-327.el7. The number of technology previews for System z has been greatly reduced, successful testing allows now support for those features.

Here is my usual summary of links to more information:

• Complete RHEL 7 documentation
• RHEL 7.2 release notes
• RHEL 7.2 known issues
• RHEL 7.2 kernel CVE and bugfix documentation
• RHEL 7 installation guide
• RHEL 7 installation guide for z
• RHEL 7 performance tuning guide
• IBM documentation on developerworks
• RHEL limits
• RHEL lifecycle with the end date for the Extended Update Service (EUS)
• RHEL7 package list (now updated to include 7.2)

From a Linux on z Systems perspective this is a major step. This is the first distribution that supports SMT2 natively.So if you install it, you will have twice as many logical CPUs.

And this is the first Red Hat distribution that supports the High Availability and Resilient Storage Add-Ons. So far some restrictions apply, but they hopefully can be lifted in later releases.

(updated 4/26/2016) 

Fedora 23 for IBM z Systems released

The new Fedora 23 for z Systems / s390x was released 11/10/2015. Thanks to the Fedora team for making this available! The kernel level is kernel-4.2.3-300.

As usual the download is available from the Fedoraproject site and the respective mirrors and known issues  are covered in the wiki.

How long is a mainframe in service?

One of the really nice things about Linux on z is the fact that the underlying hardware has a long life. This means that for complex software solutions that need extensive and expensive testing you can keep the system going over a long time period. The Linux distributions on the mainframe are supporting this model with their long term support contracts.

But how long can you get service? There is a now updated summary presentation out on TechDocs called "IBM Mainframe Life Cycle History" (PPT, PDF). It has a nice overview chart which gives the answer to this question: the average support cycle over the past 21 years has been 11.3 years!

IBM Storage Support Matrix (SSIC) updated for Linux on z

This week there has been a major update on the  IBM System Storage Interoperation Center (SSIC). Now in addition to the high end boxes and Flash Systems also many entry and mid range boxes are supported like a V3500, V3700, V5000, V7000. To get a quick view select under connection "FCP (z Systems)":

So for all those systems no SVC is needed any more!

And as a side remark: all the supported tapes are also documented in the SSIC, 

Random number generators for Linux on z Systems

KVM for IBM z Systems

KVM 1.1.1 (new version) blog post

After the announcement in August, KVM for IBM z Systems is now generally available.  This takes the open source approach for virtualization to the mainframe. 

Here are a few links for further details:

• Announcement letter
• Supported in LPARs on zEC12, zBC12, z13 and newer machines (see announcement letter)
• Documention at the IBM Knowledgecenter and on Developerworks (pdf) 
• Redbook "Getting Started with KVM for IBM z Systems"
• LSPR numbers for KVM
• SUSE blog entry for the GA
• SUSE support statement for the upcomin SLES 12.1 in another blog entry: "With the next service pack release of SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for System z, full support for KVM for IBM z Systems will be provided."
• KVM for IBM z Systems presentation from LinuxCon
• Jens Freimann: Pushing the limits: 1000 guests per host and beyond and the presentation on YouTube
• Software support (expect this to grow over time)
• SAP application server
• IBM Software Product Compatibility Reports - select KVM for z as the hipervisor

If you encounter any problems, please open a PMR with IBM. 

(updated 12/07/2015) 

The Virtualization Cookbook for IBM z Systems - updated

The Redbook "The Virtualization Cookbook for z/VM 6.3, RHEL 6.4 and SLES 11 SP3" and the corresponding code examples got an update to the latest distribution levels. They have also reorganized the material into three different books, which I personally don't like that much - but others say this is the way to go.

• Volume 1 - z/VM 6.3 -- pdf
• Volume 2 - RHEL 7.1 -- pdf
• Volume 3 - SLES 12 -- pdf 
• code examples as tgz 

Minecraft on the Mainframe

LinuxCon video - Joran Siu

Joran Siu from the IBM Java team installed Minecraft Server on the mainframe. In this entertaining talk he shows the results and the optimizations used, some of them only available on zEC12 and z13.

Linux on System z - Financial Trading demo from LinuxCon

Donna Dillenberger is showing a pure open source demo on the mainframe combining all the new technologies like Spark, MongoDB, Postgres, MariaDB, Node.js, Docker, Chef etc.
It's using live analytics for streams from Twitter and S&P financial data, showing the power of realtime analysis on the mainframe.
She is also providing a look at the infrastrucure driving this and even shows a fail over from one site to another using Hyperswap.
Towards the end she is providing real performance data for some of the components used.
During this presentation your probably want to pause and playback to get all the information she packed into those 18 minutes. Here is a breakdown (minutes:seconds) for reference:

• 0:00: demonstration
• 7:48: a look at the infrastructure
• 11:22: failover by killing one storage subsystem
• 13:45: performance data
• 17:00: agility & summary

(updated 8/19/2015)

LinuxCon announcements for Linux on z

Today IBM made some interesting announcements at LinuxCon. I'm going to cover more of the technical stuff in separate posts - this is for the overview.

• Announcement recording on Youtube  
• Open Source & ISV Ecosystem Enablement for LinuxONE and IBM z presentation with quite interesting performance results
• IBM press release
• Ubuntu is coming for the mainframe (Mark Shuttleworth joined Ross Mauri on stage today for this announcement)
• KVM for IBM z Systems
• Linux Foundations announces Open Mainframe Project 
• A cloud for ISVs to test their applications called Linux Test Drive Program
• A community cloud hosted at Marist and Syracuse university
• White paper Delivering Business Agility with Open Source Solutions on IBM LinuxONE and z Systems
• MongoDB support
• MariaDB blog post

(updated 2/12/2015)

Node.js 1.2 for Linux on z is available on developerworks

IBM has updated the Node.js environment for the mainframe (SDK) to the latest stable community release (version 0.12.7).  You can find it here on developerworks. Besides functional enhancements it also contains an important security update for openssl. The release notes and the updated documentation are also available.

The Linux on z Systems downloads are now also linked from the official download side at nodejs.org right at the bottom of the page.

International Oracle on z Systems SIG Conference 2015 - presentations available

The presentations and some demos from the recent conference are availble for download. Besides the general overview presentations, there have been a few more specialized ones this time:

• Migrating to Oracle 12c database on Linux for z Systems
• Oracle System z Customer support and z Systems Support Update
• Oracle on z Systems CPU Reduction Tips 
• Oracle Databases on Linux for z Systems - PoC and beyond

You can also find the presentations from previous years on this site. 

Example for using Apache Spark on the mainframe

This YouTube video from Paul DiMarzio shows an interesting analytic example from the Hack Spark contest. Thanks Paul for creating this!

z/VM 6.3 achieves common criteria certification at EAL4+ level

Earlier this year z/VM 6.3 including SSI (single system image) has achieved the EAL4+ certification from the German BSI (Bundesamt für Sicherheit in der Informationstechnik).
All z/VM certifications can be found at the "z/VM Security and Integrity Resources" site.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.7 released

On July 22, 2015 Red Hat has announced the availability of RHEL 6.7. The kernel level is now kernel-2.6.32-573.el6, for the main bug fixes see the kernel update description.

As usual there are the release notes and the technical notes in two separate documents. The complete documentation can be reached from the Red Hat documentation page (you need to select "6" on the left bar).

For System z this has been a mainly a fix release. Only a few small enhancements have been added all described in the technical notes. Here are some of them:

• s390utils update
• crypto updates: libica, opencryptoki (including EP11 support)

The IBM documentation for RHEL 6.4 on developerworks still applies for this release.

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 Service Pack 4 (SLES 11 SP4 ) released

On July 16th 2015 SUSE has announced the availability of the latest service pack to their SLES11 distribution. This release is a maintenance release, keeping the major kernel version stable. Here is the usual collection of links:

• release notes (s390x version) 
• z Systems spcific information for SLES 11 SP4 (11.4)
• release notes for High Availability Extensions (System z / s390x version) 
• release notes for SDK (System z / s390x version)
• kernel level: 3.0.101-63.1
• Here are some interesting features with links to the respective release notes entry:
• QSAM Access Method for Data sharing with z/OS
  This is the first stage - allowing read only access to offline devices
• 10GbE RoCE Express support
• Crypto enhancements:
• Support of Enterprise PKCS#11 (EP11)
• libica 2.4.2 available
• src_vipa: IPv6 Enablement 
• Keywords for ipl and console device for use in cio_ignore (ipldev, condev)
• Documentation
• SUSE page updated to SP4 level
• documentation as large zip file  (updated to SP4 level)
• IBM documentation for SP3 on developerworks
• SUSE tuning guide updated to SP4

Linux on z Docker demo at DockerCon

Since a while there is an experimental version of Docker available for Linux on z. This has now been demoed at DockerCon. Here is the video link: the demo starts around 15:40. Of course they could have run everything on System z and some more visual bells and whistles could have been added fro marketing.
However from a technical point of view it shows the prototype running and integrating with all the cool cloud stuff from Docker :-) 

New Whitepaper "z/VM 6.3 HiperDispatch - Polarization Modes and Middleware Performance"

This white paper looks at the effect of using the HiperDispatch feature (introduced with z/VM 6.3) with a mixed Linux workload. It also provides results for applying the scalability APAR VM65586.
 The improvements in the mixed workload including Websphere and Oracle DB shows that this APAR is not only valuable for z13, but rather for everyone with a larger number of IFLs. And if you are still running an old pre 6.3 z/VM release, now is the time to upgrade!

Support information for IBM storage products

All the supported combinations for IBM storage can be found in the IBM System Storage Interoperation Center (SSIC).
For Linux on z the best way to get the number of combinations down is to first select "IBM z Systems" as the host platform and then continue with the storage family.

Very important: if your combination isn't listed there, please get a "Request for Price Quotations (RPQ)" submitted by your IBM rep as described on the SSIC start page.

Middleware / application testing - operating system, hypervisor and hardware

After the IBM statement of directions to support KVM on System z I've been asked many times for a criteria if a certain ISV software or customer solution needs to be retested or not. As in performance the answer is: it depends. Basically there are two / four different types of applications / products to consider

1. No retesting needed - certified and tested towards the operating system:
   Applications that use a standard API only, like Java or standard library functions that don't need and exploit the visibility of the underlying (virtualized) hardware.
2. Retesting recommended - certified and tested towards the operating system:
   Applications that do interact with virtualized hardware to a certain extend e.g. accessing raw devices.
3. Retesting and some coding needed - certified and tested towards the operating system and the virtualization layer:
   Applications that actively interact with the hypervisor, e.g. by vmcp commands under z/VM. They then needs an equivalent implementation of that kind of functionality for every type of virtualization. Other examles are the use of zLinux hypfs (hypervisor file system) or using the hypervisor details surfaced in /proc/sysinfo.
4. Retesting and additional code for the hypervisor needed - certified and tested towards the operating system and the virtualization layer:
   Applications that need hooks and special interfaces into the hypervisor e.g. for monitoring or systems management. Every new hypervisor will require new code as e.g. the reported performance metrics and systems management interfaces are different

For Linux on the mainframe today there is only z/VM and LPAR. And z/VM is really virtualizing the hardware in a 1:1 fashion as good as possible (with a lot of firmware and hardware support to keep the overhead to minimal levels).  For such a hardware virtualization the category #2 is nearly not existent. If there is no active interaction with hypervisor, no retesting is needed.
KVM has the concept of new virtual devices with new device names, so some products from #1 are going to slip into category #2.

(updated 4/15/2015)

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 12 (SLES 12) released

In November last year SUSE has announced the availability of their next major distribution release SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES 12). It's an interesting change in strategy that SUSE chose to release it after the competing RHEL 7 distribution. In the past SUSE has always been first to the market.

Here is a the usual list of interesting information links:

• release notes (s390x version) 
• release notes for High Availability Extensions (System z / s390x version) 
• release notes for SDK (System z / s390x version)
• kernel level for GA: 3.12.28-4.6
• this new distribution will only run on z196 and later systems:
• IBM tested platforms
• SUSE certifications: z196, z114, zEC12, zBC12, z13
• Documentation
• SUSE documentation
• IBM documentation on developerworks
• SUSE tuning guide
• SUSE® Linux Enterprise Server 12 for System z presentation at GSE
• SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for System z Current & Future Features presentation at SHARE

SUSE has released the first maintenance web kernel for SLES12  (kernel-default-3.12.36-38.1.s390x.rpm)
It contains quite some fixes that you really want to have on your system.

z13

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.1 released

On March 5th 2015 Red Hat released the first update of their RHEL 7 operating system. 

The kernel level for 7.1 is kernel-3.10.0-229.el7. The number of technology previews for System z has been greatly reduced, successful testing allows now support for those features.

Here is my usual summary of links to more information:

• Complete RHEL 7 documentation
• RHEL 7.1 release notes
• RHEL 7.1 known issues
• RHEL 7.1 kernel CVE documentation
• RHEL 7 installation guide
• RHEL 7 installation guide for z
• RHEL 7 performance tuning guide
• IBM documentation on developerworks
• RHEL limits
• RHEL lifecycle - note that there is no EUS support for RHEL 7.0
• RHEL7 package list (now updated to include 7.1)

As this is a brand new release there are some hick ups aka bugs to be expected. If you are hitting one, please open a bug report with Red Hat and/or IBM.

(updated 3/18/2015) 

Problem with the latest crypto device driver updates on RHEL 6.6 / SLES 11.3 on older hardware

With the introduction of the code for more crypto domains (required for z13) into the service streams of RHEL 6.6 (kernel 2.6.32-504-3.3 and 2.6.32-504.8.1), SLES 11.3 (kernel 3.0.101-42-1) and SLES12 (kernel 3.12.32-33.1) an unfortunate regression has been introduced. The crypto card support for z196 / z114 and older machines is no longer working with the new code. If you are in that situation, please update to the levels below.

This has been fixed in the following kernel levels.

• SLES12 (kernel 3.12.36-38.1 and later)
• SLES11 SP3 (kernel 3.0.101-0.47.50.1 and later)
• RHEL 6 (kernel-2.6.32-504.16.2 and later)

(updated 4/23/2015)

Fedora 21 for IBM System z released

The new Fedora 21 for System z / s390x was released 12/18/2014. Thanks to the Fedora team for this time adding additional packages! 

The download is available from the Fedoraproject site and the respective mirrors and known issues  are covered in the wiki.