Sat 30 Aug 2008
Most Mainframe MIPS Installs are Linux
Posted by Greg under General
I found this surprising (if true): More than half the mainframe MIPS IBM sells are Linux
By some estimates, since this past February when the z10 was introduced, Linux has accounted for more than half the total mainframe MIPS IBM has sold since the z10 was introduced last February.
That seems to go against the trust of IBM’s marketing push.
4 Responses to “ Most Mainframe MIPS Installs are Linux ”
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September 1st, 2008 at 9:05 pmMost Mainframe MIPS Installs are Linux…
over on the ibmeye blog Greg makes this observation: “I found this surprising (if true): More than half the mainframe MIPS IBM sells are Linux” and “That seems to go against the trust of IBM’s marketing push.”
I have no idea i…
August 30th, 2008 at 4:17 pm
Greg, why do you think that ? We’ve been on an Intel and general server drive for almost 15-years now. Back in the mid-90’s it was much harder, we were trying to convince organisations to move their Unix workloads to OS/390, aka MVS, aka z/OS, using the Unix Systems Services, but it was a tough sell. Even before that a few of us, primarily in Europe were driving to get customers to consolidated underutilised and unreliable file servers to MVS or VM using either LANRES(for Novell Netware) or the LAN File Services for MS and OS/2 LAN Servers.
I think the current trend to migrate to Linux on the mainframe is entirely consistent with organizations efforts to make the most of the environmental benefits of a large centralized server, along with the ease and openness of Linux.
Can you provide examples of where you think it’s inconsistent?
No that I can confirm or deny the sales numbers, I have no idea if its true.
August 31st, 2008 at 8:44 pm
I am not surprised, zLinux is just more flexible and cheaper than z/OS. The IFL software licensing is cheaper, the disk storage is cheaper and IBM is doing a lot of marketing of Cognos and Information Server products that now run on zLinux.
October 9th, 2008 at 4:05 pm
I agree with Mark. I don’t find that inconsistent at all. As an IBM System z person, I believe we are probably pretty even across z/OS and Linux on z. I suppose if I had a preference, it would be z/OS, but I don’t think that’s universal by any means. It really depends on the customer’s requirements. I’m actually doing a presentation on that very topic next week in Las Vegas…