Open Source? WHY NOT s390x in your efforts? Part 1.

Photo by LUM3N on Unsplash

I have a thought to throw out there (well a few but just one this week) to the open source communities at large.

In my day job, I work with different software vendors to assist them with porting their software offerings to run on Linux on IBM zSystems and IBM LinuxONE. Some of them face challenges (even ones inside IBM) where they have a dependence on open source community software where the community did not take on the challenge of porting their open source code to run on the platforms. This means we have to take on a project to deal with open source code before we can even get to their actual code.

Write what you know. I know. But… let me throw this out there. Write for a platform that has better performance, security, and sustainability for the future of our planet and you’re hitting win-win-win all the way around. There are 3 huge reasons why it just makes sense:

1. Performance: IBM mainframes are known for their scalability and performance. In particular, the s390x architecture provides excellent support for large-scale data processing and analytics workloads. By supporting s390x-based Linux systems, open source communities can take advantage of this performance to run their software faster and more efficiently.
2. Market share: While IBM mainframes may not be as widely used as other computing platforms, they still have a significant presence in certain industries, such as finance and healthcare. By supporting s390x-based Linux systems, open source communities can tap into this market and reach a wider audience.
3. Diversity: One of the strengths of the open source community is its diversity. By supporting a wide range of computing platforms, including s390x-based Linux systems, open source communities can ensure that their software is accessible to as many people as possible.

Read my other blog post to learn about sustainability and how IBM zSystems and LinuxONE work to reduce our energy spent on IT so that more energy is available for other needs and we don’t have to create energy to offset what we never use!

This blog post will tackle the first one, performance. Think of a zSystems box (or LinuxONE) as a giant computer with all these specialized processors to handle offloading of I/O from the main CPUs, hundreds of CPUs running at 5Ghz or better, and the ability to service a single Linux image with all that capability if you so chose to do so.

Suddenly you’d be like, wait, that can really happen? Well yes, it could. You may not want to use all these resources for a single system, but you could. Which means, hey, I’m not constrained by the 1U, 2U, 3U or whatever form factor you are currently working with in your computing. You can suddenly see the potential of say working with a giant database being handled by very efficient processors that cuts licensing costs at the same time that it cuts other resource requirements.

While a typical off the shelf or vendor designed server may be a monster, it’s not even in the same genre of the IBM beast currently with z16 as it’s number. Tack onto that the idea that the system is designed to run at 100% utilization and you get the idea. Running other kit from other vendors probably would result in melted slag if you tried to run it at 100% really close to 100% of the time.

In fact, a z16 is designed around just about 3 seconds of downtime per year. So yeah, this is a beefy box and your application can run circles around itself if you wanted for other instances running on other platforms. Add onto it the sustainability I talked about in the last post and it’s faster and helps to save energy and thus be better for the planet at the same time and well, it’s really a great choice.

So you’re in the open source community for a piece of software. Where can your code go that it has not gone before if you were to take full advantage of the hardware? That’s a great question, one that you should explore.

You can start to look at this question by checking one out. There’s something called the IBM Community Cloud. You can get a free system running on an IBM zSystems box (or LinuxONE) to do your development work and kick the tires.

Tack onto this the fact that IBM bends over backwards to help out open source projects with a whole team of people dedicated to assisting with porting open source software, and there is a lot to get you going. Not to mention, but thousands of IBMers openly participate in open source projects. There’s a whole lot of love for open source at IBM. Google it.