Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 7.5 released

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 7.4 released

z14

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 7.3 released

On November 3rd 2016 Red Hat released the next regular update to their flag ship operating system.

The kernel level for 7.3 is kernel-3.10.0-514.el7.

Here is my usual summary of links to more information:

• Complete RHEL 7 documentation
• RHEL 7.3 release notes
• RHEL 7.3 known issues
• RHEL 7.3 kernel CVE and bugfix documentation
• RHEL 7 installation guide
• RHEL 7 installation guide for z
• RHEL 7 performance tuning guide
• IBM documentation on developerworks (7.2 version)
• RHEL limits
• RHEL lifecycle with the end date for the Extended Update Service (EUS)
• RHEL7 package list

From a Linux on z Systems perspective the major enhancements are in the tool chain. The compiler can now can exploit the SIMD instructions of z13.

Also in September Red Hat achieved EAL4+ / common criteria certification for RHEL 7.1:

• Red Hat press release
• Red Hat certification overview
• BSI certification report  

 (updated 4/11/2016)

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) 

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) 

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)

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. 

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.