IBM and an Open Source Milestone
March 30, 2010
I think the buzz about open source is interesting. I had forgotten that IBM had grabbed the tailgate of the open source bandwagon years ago. “IBM Celebrates a Decade of Linux on Its System Z Mainframe” reminded me that that IBM saw an opportunity to use open source to address some of the objections to the z/OS operating system and its interesting idiosyncrasies. The article said:
Since opening the mainframe to run popular open source Linux applications 10 years ago, there are today 3,150 Linux applications enabled for System Z and 70 per cent of the top one hundred global mainframe customers run Linux. Rosamilia [IBM manager for mainframes] described the mainframe as middle-aged because “it’s come a long way and has a long way to go.” And it’s timeless. “We made compatible changes so that stuff that ran a long time ago still runs today and yet we’ve still invested in brand new architectures so that we can take advantage of lots of things,” said Rosamilia. He named two top drivers for Linux on System Z. The speed with which it allows new server provisioning, and the control IT administrators have to maintain over servers while lowering risks in the data centre environment. [Emphasis added]
I love IBM mainframes because there is not as much competition to keep these puppies alive and well. IBM loves them too, and I think these comments indicate that open source is more than chopping licensing fees. Open source makes it possible to use “middle-aged” and quite expensive in today’s code-and-run world. STAIRS III, anyone?
Stephen E Arnold, March 30, 2010
A freebie. An unsponsored write up.
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[…] Since opening the mainframe to run popular open source Linux applications 10 years ago, there are today 3,150 Linux applications enabled for System Z and 70 per cent of the top one hundred global mainframe customers run Linux. (READ MORE) […]