IBM Systems Magazine, Mainframe - March/April 2009 - 16

IT Today The System z platform is engineered for virtualization from the silicon up; everything is shared and virtualized, providing a unique experience. In a CNET inter view, IBM Software Group Senior Vice President Steve Mills offers the following observation about cloud computing: “We have been running multitenancy [running multiple customers on a single machine with a single application instance] for decades and decades. It’s a mainframe model where things run together but in isolation. … You need reliability, security, auditing, privacy, data integrity, automation and full isolation.” Indeed, the mainframe is the original delivery system for shared computing, and has been supporting multitenancy since the Time Sharing Option was introduced in 1962. Every generation of the mainframe since the 1960s has continued to build upon the basic concept of multi-tenancy, resulting in more than 40 years of shared-system engineering. Virtualization is the building block for shared resources in mainframe environments. With the most recent release of z/VM*, the mainframe hypervisor is an unchallenged industry leader. Charles King, Pund-IT president and principal analyst, says the “new virtualization product (z/VM 5.3) release can host more than 1,000 virtual images on a singe hypervisor—topping any virtualization solution in the industry.” On Intel and RISC platforms, virtualization lets you spread OS images across multiple servers, helping improve hardware utilization. Mainframe virtualization goes much further. The overhead for VMware is roughly 30 percent, as opposed to almost nothing for z/VM, which supports multi-dimensional mainframe virtualization. All hardware can be virtualized (e.g., processor, memory, I/O). The System z platform is engineered for virtualization from the silicon up; everything is shared and virtualized. At a physical level the mainframe supports cloud computing by enabling: s Hardware and software be maintained and enhanced while in production, which supports the expectations of cloud users for zero downtime, without requiring the cloud provider to deploy costly redundant solutions. s An efficient network solution, which eliminates network delays and network hardware costs by virtualizing and sharing network resources across potentially hundreds of Linux images in a single partition. This also enables a more secure network as it resides in a virtual environment “in the box.” In a cloud environment, networking is a critical component that can raise overall costs and pose a security concern if not on a reliable network like the mainframe. s A separation between physical and virtual CPU and memory provides significant over-commit rates of actual resources without degradation in performance, reliability 16 M A R C H/A PRIL 2009 or ser vice-level agreements. This is significant to cloud computing, as it allows for a granular breakdown of physicalto-virtual assets, enabling the consistent maintenance of high utilization levels across large volumes of users who will access and use resources at different rates and times. s Transparent multitenancy of application assets allows for the sharing of program executables across tenants without the knowledge or appearance of a multiuser environment and creates a multitenant capability without requiring rearchitecture of existing applications. s Parallel Sysplex* technology virtualizes multiple systems— up to 32 mainframes—that can be made to look as a single, logical image, enabling large-scale, multisite support of cloud environments without adding undue complexity. The Future is Here As the mainframe transitions into hybrid systems architecture it’ll continue to become uniquely qualified to meet the needs of cloud-computing providers. Consider Hoplon Infotainment, which created Taikodon—a massive multiplayer online game that runs on an IBM “gameframe.” This is a combined cell processor and mainframe environment that executes a modern, realistic virtualworld game environments in real time. The integration of cell architecture into the mainframe allows for cutting-edge graphical rendering for the full gaming experience, combined with the more traditional qualities of the mainframe: management, scalability, security and reliability. Hoplon CEO Tarquinio Teles says Taikodon relies on social interaction. For this strategy to pay, it’s central to have more people. “We really wanted to have tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, being able to share the same universe,” he says. “To get this experience to the users, we need to be able to grow unpredictably; we need to have a very reliable system that’s always available; and of course, we have to do that for a price we can afford.” Andrea Greggo is the mainframe cloud initiative leader. She can be reached at agreggo@us.ibm.com. Resources Cloud 101: “IBM perspective on Cloud Computing: the next big thing or another fad?” ftp.software.ibm.com/software/tivoli/ brochures/IBM_Perspective_on_Cloud_Computing.pdf IBM Redbooks publication, “Using Discontiguous Shared Segments and XIP2 Filesystems With Oracle Database 10g on Linux for IBM System z” (SG247285, www.redbooks.ibm.com/redbooks/pdfs/sg247285.pdf) ibmsystemsmag.com/mainframe

ftp://ftp.software.ibm.com/software/tivoli/brochures/IBM_Perspective_on_Cloud_Computing.pdf ftp://ftp.software.ibm.com/software/tivoli/brochures/IBM_Perspective_on_Cloud_Computing.pdf http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/redbooks/pdfs/sg247285.pdf http://www.ibmsystemsmag.com/mainframe

IBM Systems Magazine, Mainframe - March/April 2009

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IBM Systems Magazine, Mainframe - March/April 2009