z/VM 6.3, z/VM 6.2 and z/VM 5.4 are approaching end of service

SHARE 2016 San Antonio

Last week I'be been at SHARE in San Antonio. There was a good turnout and lots of good discussions. Here is the complete agenda. I've already blogged about the best session. Here are a few more:

• Introduction and Positioning of KVM for IBM z Systems
• KVM Concepts and Components for z/VM Lovers
• What's New in the z/VM Hypervisor
• How Do You Spell SMT on z/VM?
• A Look at SMT Performance
• What's New in Linux on z Systems?
• Docker and z Systems
• Linux Performance Tools in 60 Minutes
• z13 Performance with Linux - A One Year Journey

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, 

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)

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)

New Whitepaper "IBM Cognos Business Intelligence 10.2.1 for Linux on System z - Performance and z/VM Resource Management"

IBM Cognos Business Intelligence is an interesting workload for zLinux environments. This new whitepaper covers setup and some of the performance and tuning aspects for this in a zLinux / z/VM environment.
As an add on it also takes a look at the z/VM resource manager (VMRM) for helping to distribute the CPU capacity between competing workloads.

IBM General Parallel File System (GPFS) available for Linux on System z

IBM has announced the availability of the General Parallel File System (GPFS) aka Elastic Storage for Linux on System z. It's the new 4.1 version and for zLinux the minimum distribution requirements are

• RHEL 6.5 + latest z stream patches
• RHEL 7.0
• SLES 11 SP3 + latest maintenance patches 

 There is also a short Redbook solution guide available.

zBC12

On July 23rd IBM has announced the new business class model of the mainframe the zBC12. This is the successor to the z114 and is as you probably already guessed by the naming scheme build with the zEC12 technology.

From a Linux perspective the IBM tested platforms has been updated to include zBC12. Also Red Hat and SUSE updated their web sites to include the certifications:

• Red Hat certifications: RHEL5.8, RHEL 6.3
• SUSE certifications: SLES10 SP4, SLES11 SP2

Other useful links:

• IBM zEnterprise BC12 Technical Guide (Redbook) 
• zEC12 and zBC12 FAQ
• Red Hat promotion, SUSE promotion
• z/VM required service 

(updated 8/8/2013)

z/VM 6.3

After a long waiting time IBM released the latest version of z/VM. Now there is way more information available than just the little bit I described in my preview. 

• z/VM 6.3 general information (including all new features)
• announcement
• data sheet
• statement of direction
• special z/VM 6.3 resources page  
• "z/VM Version 6 Release 3: Making Room For Your Growing Business" in Enterprise System Journal 
• Updated z/VM performance report
• z/VM platform update Live Virtual Class and charts

The major items haven't changed from the preview - it's CPU scalability using Hiperdispatch and support for 1 TB per z/VM instance.

The announcement also has a statement of direction for z/VM 5.4.  Basically it says that the current System z generation (EC12 /BC12) will be the last one that's supported with z/VM 5.4. And support for z/VM 5.4 will end whenever the z9 hardware support ends. So it's time to plan for the upgrade to z/VM 6.3.

(updated 9/21/2013) 

Linux and VIPA - white papers

In the past month a few questions regarding the use of OSPF and VIPA on Linux have been raised. This is especially important to clients combining z/OS and Linux and System z. So here are a two references to start with:

• Business Continuity for SAP on IBM System z (SC33-8206-05): This book has a comprehensive description of a combined z/OS and Linux solution. VIPA and OSPF is covered in the networking chapter. This is a must read before starting any deployment!
• A Reference Implementation Architecture for Deploying a Highly-Available Networking Infrastructure for Cloud Computing and Virtual Environments using OSPF: This paper provides a reference architecture for networking HA with VIPAs on a Linux and z/VM system together with Tivoli System Automation for Multiplatforms
• Validation of OSPF on IBM Linux on System z at Scale: This paper is an extension to the one above. The focus is on configuration and medium scale up. 
• z/VM Single System Image Cluster Live Guest Relocation with HiperSockets: Exploitation via Dynamic Routing: This paper covers the combination of live mobility and dynamic routing

(updated 9/30/2013)

How to find software solutions for Linux on System z

There are multiple sources for finding middleware and solutions for Linux. As the web sites get updated this may change - let me know then I adapt the description.
Please note that none of those catalogs is complete, they are all snapshots. 

IBM Global Solution Directory (GSD)
Here you can create complex searches. To select Linux on System z select "IBM System z (Mainframe)" under platform configurations and then all the operating systems you are interested in. Finally click on "search" without entering anything else.
 
IBM Software (SWG) product compatibility
The most important reports are the operating system reports. When generating searches please be aware that their are two different entries for RHEL. The base one has RHEL2 - RHEL5 whereas the one titled RHEL server has RHEL6.
SUSE Enterprise Linux server is all under SLES.

IBM System z page (unfortunately discontinued by IBM end of 2013)
This page lists the ISV solutions updated in approximately the last year.

Red Hat Product Catalog
All the products registered with Red Hat. After you've searched for a specific product you can check the platform and see where it's running.
Note that Red Hat is still using the search term "zSeries" for referring to "System z". So you may want to try this search term as well.

SUSE Linux Enterprise Software Catalog
SUSE has a catalog that can be searched quite easily. Click on "advanced search" and select "IBM System z" as the platform and you get all the vendors offering products for the mainframe that registered with SUSE.

Which Distribution is supported on which hardware?

A frequently asked question for Linux on System z is which distributions are supported with what hardware. There are two different sources for this:

1. IBM is publishing tested platforms
2. The distributors publish their hardware certifications
• On the Red Hat page select "s390x" as the platform and the distribution you are interested in
• On the SUSE page in the lower box select the distribution for zSeries that you are interested in and press search.