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IBM to Support Linux on Model 270s, Along with Model 8XXs
by Timothy Prickett Morgan
High-level sources within IBM's Mid-Market Server Division have confirmed that the company has stepped up its efforts to bring the Linux operating system to the iSeries platform and that it will announce its support of Linux as an adjunct operating system on iSeries Model 270 machines, starting with OS/400 V5R1, which is expected to be announced at the end of April and to be delivered at the end of May or in early June. IBM had long been planning to support Linux within logical partitions in the iSeries Model 8XX servers, but it has come under fire in recent months for not supporting Linux across the entire iSeries product line.
Support for the Model 270s is a 180-degree change in direction for the Rochester development team and appears to be the direct result of Buell Duncan taking over as general manager of the Mid-Market Server Division last October. When I talked to product managers at the Fall COMMON tradeshow in October, just as Duncan was promoted to his position, they said that IBM had no plans to support Linux on Model 270s. I ventured that IBM could support Linux on the Integrated xSeries Server card for Model 270s, or that it could put a Linux runtime environment within OS/400 V5R1 akin to the Portable Application Solutions Environment AIX runtime. I said that as a bare minimum, IBM could put the Linux APIs within OS/400 V5R1 and provide a recompilation (rather than a runtime) environment within OS/400 so companies could compile Linux applications and run them on Model 270s. I was told that these were all sound technical approaches but that there were no development budgets behind such projects at the time.
Like many, I was somewhat shocked and frustrated by this admission. The Model 270s represent the highest-volume portion of the iSeries market, and by supporting Linux only within logical partitions on high-end Model 8XX servers, IBM was severely limiting the appeal of Linux to the AS/400 and iSeries community. Perhaps more importantly, the fact that Linux was being relegated to a logical partition environment for a select set of iSeries customers--perhaps numbering only a few thousand in potential size--seemed a bit unfair, especially since IBM had been talking incessantly for more than a year that all of its server platforms would support Linux. While I am still not entirely sure how useful Linux will be for AS/400 and iSeries customers, I am nonetheless jealous and greedy enough to want the best and fullest support for Linux to be on the OS/400 platform. That Linux will be supported on the Model 270s gives IBM some much-needed credibility in the AS/400 community, which has felt betrayed by what it perceives as Big Blue's ineffective marketing of the AS/400 and, now, the iSeries platform. I am hopeful that IBM putting Linux on the Model 270 signals a change in the management style of the Mid-Market Server Division. IBM seems to be listening for a change. I don't know about you, but this simple fact makes me a whole lot less grumpy and puts a spring in my step.
The fact is, somebody has lit a fire underneath the OS/400 developers, according to my sources, while freeing up the money to do a blazingly fast implementation of Linux on the Model 270s. The word I hear is that Linux support was brought to the Model 270s in under 90 days and that it will be delivered alongside the partitioning support in the iSeries Model 8XX servers. My sources say that the Linux support on Model 270s borrows heavily from some of the Linux partitioning technology first developed for the eServer zSeries and 9672 mainframes. The Linux environment that IBM's mainframers created allows hundreds or thousands of Linux operating system instances to be run within a virtual partition on each zSeries or 9672 mainframe processor. My sources at IBM Rochester say that a Model 270 with a single Pulsar processor will be able to run OS/400 V5R1, as well as up to three Linux operating system instances. The dual-processor Model 270s will be able to run an instance of OS/400 V5R1, as well as up to seven Linux instances.
In both the Model 8XXs and the Model 270s, the Linux supported is a full version of Linux tailored for the PowerPC that you can download off the Web or get through one of the commercial Linux distributors. Applications that have been compiled for the Linux implementation for Intel's X86 family of processors will have to be recompiled to run on the iSeries Linux partitions. It is unclear whether companies such as IBM, Oracle, and a whole slew of independent software vendors will offer Linux for PowerPC compilations of their code. But the large number of open-source applications will be available for the iSeries Linux environment. My sources tell me that IBM intends to provide an OS/400 Toolkit for Linux that will provide the complete GNU compiler environment, so Linux developers can use the same exact environment to program in C, Perl, and other Linux languages. They won't even know they are on an iSeries box, except when they realize that the support IBM is offering for iSeries customers is better than that offered for its pSeries, RS/6000, and xSeries NUMA-Q servers. AIX-5L, the forthcoming release of AIX for pSeries and RS/6000 servers, only has a Linux API environment, while the NUMA-Qs have a Linux emulation environment. The iSeries machines have a full-blown implementation of Linux.
IBM to Support Linux on Model 270s, Along with Model 8XXs
by Timothy Prickett Morgan
High-level sources within IBM's Mid-Market Server Division have confirmed that the company has stepped up its efforts to bring the Linux operating system to the iSeries platform and that it will announce its support of Linux as an adjunct operating system on iSeries Model 270 machines, starting with OS/400 V5R1, which is expected to be announced at the end of April and to be delivered at the end of May or in early June. IBM had long been planning to support Linux within logical partitions in the iSeries Model 8XX servers, but it has come under fire in recent months for not supporting Linux across the entire iSeries product line.
Support for the Model 270s is a 180-degree change in direction for the Rochester development team and appears to be the direct result of Buell Duncan taking over as general manager of the Mid-Market Server Division last October. When I talked to product managers at the Fall COMMON tradeshow in October, just as Duncan was promoted to his position, they said that IBM had no plans to support Linux on Model 270s. I ventured that IBM could support Linux on the Integrated xSeries Server card for Model 270s, or that it could put a Linux runtime environment within OS/400 V5R1 akin to the Portable Application Solutions Environment AIX runtime. I said that as a bare minimum, IBM could put the Linux APIs within OS/400 V5R1 and provide a recompilation (rather than a runtime) environment within OS/400 so companies could compile Linux applications and run them on Model 270s. I was told that these were all sound technical approaches but that there were no development budgets behind such projects at the time.
Like many, I was somewhat shocked and frustrated by this admission. The Model 270s represent the highest-volume portion of the iSeries market, and by supporting Linux only within logical partitions on high-end Model 8XX servers, IBM was severely limiting the appeal of Linux to the AS/400 and iSeries community. Perhaps more importantly, the fact that Linux was being relegated to a logical partition environment for a select set of iSeries customers--perhaps numbering only a few thousand in potential size--seemed a bit unfair, especially since IBM had been talking incessantly for more than a year that all of its server platforms would support Linux. While I am still not entirely sure how useful Linux will be for AS/400 and iSeries customers, I am nonetheless jealous and greedy enough to want the best and fullest support for Linux to be on the OS/400 platform. That Linux will be supported on the Model 270s gives IBM some much-needed credibility in the AS/400 community, which has felt betrayed by what it perceives as Big Blue's ineffective marketing of the AS/400 and, now, the iSeries platform. I am hopeful that IBM putting Linux on the Model 270 signals a change in the management style of the Mid-Market Server Division. IBM seems to be listening for a change. I don't know about you, but this simple fact makes me a whole lot less grumpy and puts a spring in my step.
The fact is, somebody has lit a fire underneath the OS/400 developers, according to my sources, while freeing up the money to do a blazingly fast implementation of Linux on the Model 270s. The word I hear is that Linux support was brought to the Model 270s in under 90 days and that it will be delivered alongside the partitioning support in the iSeries Model 8XX servers. My sources say that the Linux support on Model 270s borrows heavily from some of the Linux partitioning technology first developed for the eServer zSeries and 9672 mainframes. The Linux environment that IBM's mainframers created allows hundreds or thousands of Linux operating system instances to be run within a virtual partition on each zSeries or 9672 mainframe processor. My sources at IBM Rochester say that a Model 270 with a single Pulsar processor will be able to run OS/400 V5R1, as well as up to three Linux operating system instances. The dual-processor Model 270s will be able to run an instance of OS/400 V5R1, as well as up to seven Linux instances.
In both the Model 8XXs and the Model 270s, the Linux supported is a full version of Linux tailored for the PowerPC that you can download off the Web or get through one of the commercial Linux distributors. Applications that have been compiled for the Linux implementation for Intel's X86 family of processors will have to be recompiled to run on the iSeries Linux partitions. It is unclear whether companies such as IBM, Oracle, and a whole slew of independent software vendors will offer Linux for PowerPC compilations of their code. But the large number of open-source applications will be available for the iSeries Linux environment. My sources tell me that IBM intends to provide an OS/400 Toolkit for Linux that will provide the complete GNU compiler environment, so Linux developers can use the same exact environment to program in C, Perl, and other Linux languages. They won't even know they are on an iSeries box, except when they realize that the support IBM is offering for iSeries customers is better than that offered for its pSeries, RS/6000, and xSeries NUMA-Q servers. AIX-5L, the forthcoming release of AIX for pSeries and RS/6000 servers, only has a Linux API environment, while the NUMA-Qs have a Linux emulation environment. The iSeries machines have a full-blown implementation of Linux.
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