SUSE Linux Enterprise 12 Service Pack 3 (SLES 12 SP3) released

z14

SUSE Linux Enterprise 12 Service Pack 2 (SLES 12 SP2) released

On November 8th 2016 eleven months after the last service pack  SUSE has released the latest updated to their flag ship server distribution. SUSE also has a blog post with some more details.

The kernel level for 12.2 is kernel-4.4.21-69.1. This is a jump in the kernel version from the old 3.12 based kernel. It's the same major kernel level that's being used by Canonical for Ubuntu 16.04. And with that kernel a lot of new functionality is delivered. SUSE and IBM worked hard to ensure that for applications it behaves the same.

What's new (details see documentation and release notes):

• The release notes states that SUSE now fully supports MariaDB. They have version 10.0.27 inlcuded
• Networking:
• For OSA the specification of a portname is no longer needed
• Hipersockets can now be bridged to Erhernet
• Layer2 offloads are enabled
• The 10 GbE RoCE card now also supports the DAPL/OFED stack on
• Encryption and security updates
• Glibc has now the first set of SIMD exploitations for z13
• Toolchain module updates
• Full KVM host support - so you can now run SLES12 as a Hypervisor on System z an Linux boxes 
• ....

Here is my usual summary of links to more information:

• Complete SLES 12 documentation
• SLES 12.2 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 SP2
• Whitepaper on SUSE's module concept
• IBM documentation on developerworks
• Docker support statement

(updated 5/2/2017)

IBM z Systems Processor Optimization Primer

For z Systems optimizations are essential to keep the consolidation ratio high and make the best use of the hardware. As more and more open source software is ported to Linux on z / LinuxONE Kevin Shum has posted his excellent "BM z Systems Processor Optimization Primer" on developerworks.

There is a long version with all the details and a shorter summary presented at last SHARE.

This is a "must read" for everyone working on compilers and inline assembly on z.

Java performance improvements

IBM continues to improve the performance of Java on the mainframe. To show this I've taken a snapshot of the performance improvements during the latest Java releases. The operating system was a SLES 12 SP1 and this was run on  a z13 LPAR with 6 cores and SMT enabled.

As you can see you there is a solid 33% percent improvement going from the first Java 7 version to the latest Java 8 SR3 FP10 version.

So the first recommendation when you are having Java performance problems with Linux on System z is to try a more advanced Java version.

New whitepaper: "High Availability with KVM for IBM z Systems"

There is a new white paper on IBM Techdocs that covers High Availability aspects for KVM on z.
From the abstract: "This white paper focuses on considerations for setting up a highly-available KVM for IBM z environment hosting your business applications. With IBM’s investments in z Systems reliability, availability and serviceability, z Systems is an excellent platform to host a High Availability KVM for IBM z environment."

KVM for IBM z Systems V1.1.1 and KVM survey

Together with the z13s IBM also announced the next version KVM for IBM z Systems V1.1.1 (search for 1.1.1 in the announcement). It will be available March 18, 2016. Here are some of the enhancements it will offer:

• Simultaneous multi threading (SMT) support in the host. The guests don't see the difference
• Support for the Vector Facility introduced in z13(s) (SIMD) to accelerate string operations and calculations
• Hypervisor enhancements including support for iSCSI and NFS
• Unattended installation capability of hypervisor for ease of installation

As this new product is continue to evolve at a fast pace, IBM has put up a survey for everyone interested to provide their input.

For the popular UI virt-manager a "howto build" is available. 

(updated 2/25/2016)

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)

z/Architecture Principles of Operations