Independent industry experts and consultants--both at COMMON and beyond--made it crystal clear that the new i5 announcements bode well for Linux. In fact, the enthusiasm from these independents resembled the sound of IBMers gushing effusively on stage at an iSeries Nation Town Hall meeting! When asked about the direction of Linux on iSeries, person after person raved about the benefits of consolidation, ease of management, dynamic allocation of resources, application integration--it went on and on!
Linux running on iSeries LPARs has come a long way from its beginnings just three years ago, when the first Linux-for-iSeries distributions appeared. Today, according to IBM's Web site, Linux partitions are being used or being seriously considered by some 45% of all iSeries installations. Regarding IBM servers in general, IDC states that IBM's sales of servers for Linux grew 63.1% in 2003. Industry-wide, according to IBM, $4 billion is expected to be spent on Linux servers during 2004.
With the i5 now supporting AIX environments in addition to Linux and i5/OS (formerly OS/400), it's just one more reason to consider iSeries as an enterprise computing commodity of choice. Of course, if you are already running OS/400 workloads, it just makes sense to use iSeries for your Linux environment(s).
The benefits of the powerful open-source Linux operating system on the iSeries are hard to ignore, particularly with new enhancements announced along with POWER5:
Server Consolidation
An enterprise can consolidate all of their disparate Linux servers on a single iSeries machine in separate LPARs, thus simplifying their infrastructure. And unlike some other server manufacturers, this has always been available on single-processor machines. Actually, with i5, Linux environments will have the capability to consolidate up to 254 separate environments on as many partitions on a single iSeries. That's because up to 10 Linux partitions can be assigned to a single processor. Prior to i5, 10 partitions could be assigned per processor, but only to a maximum of 40 per machine. It is clear that one can consolidate a staggering number of workloads on some of the new i5s that are coming down the road later this year with 24-, 32-, and 64-way processors. All Linux LPARs can use any of the IO adapters in OS/400 partitions to leverage these resources. This means that individual disk drives, LAN adapters, tape drives, etc. are accessible by any and all partitions.
Resource Allocation
Each Linux LPAR can be assigned portions of processor, memory, and disk--all of which can be dynamically adjusted. In other words, it is not necessary to end and start partitions. As little as 10% of a processor can be assigned to a Linux partition and incremented by 1% of a processor. Memory can be assigned in 1 MB increments, and virtual storage spaces can be established within the overall disk capacity. New to i5 is a function called Automatic Processor Movement, which automatically moves processor resources based on the activity of a partition. Essentially, each partition is given a priority to ensure the highest priority partitions get the juice they need.
Also new to i5 is an adjustment to the maximum size of virtual storage spaces, which has been increased from 64 GB to 1 TB. The maximum total amount of virtual storage that can be associated with a Linux partition also increased, going from 2 TB to 64 TB.
And let's not forget that Capacity Upgrade on Demand (CUoD) allows you to turn processors on and off as needed. Of course, these "standby" processors can be enabled and disabled for Linux workloads as well as your OS/400 workloads. Keep in mind that additional processors can be purchased and installed on your iSeries to be used exclusively for Linux workloads, without incurring any increase in OS/400 license fees. Plus, selected i5 machines that are purchased with Enterprise Edition actually come with an extra Linux-only processor at no additional charge.
Centralized Management
A huge advantage of Linux environments on iSeries is central management: a single point of resource allocation, monitoring, and backup. With i5, you won't even need a primary partition defined with OS/400 because of a new feature ported over from the pSeries called Hardware Management Console (HMC). HMC, a pre-installed Linux-based workstation with an Ethernet connection, can now manage all Linux environments, even across multiple POWER servers. In addition to Linux, HMC provides a local console to access i5/OS (5250) and AIX 5L partitions with the ability to change them dynamically as well as enable and disable CUoD features. Although HMC replaces the primary partition, it probably wouldn't make much sense to buy a new i5 and not run an OS/400 environment, since you are automatically charged for OS/400 when you buy the box.
i5 also brings new enhancements for iSeries Navigator that provide a single interface to manage the disk storage for hosted Linux partitions and integrated xSeries servers (IXS). There's even a wizard to walk you through the process of creating Linux partitions. You can also create virtual storage spaces for your Linux partitions and link/unlink them as needed. Essentially, iSeries Navigator lets you manage all iSeries storage from a single console.
Resiliency
Certainly, the exceptional reliability of iSeries is nothing to overlook when considering the best way to avoid unplanned downtime in Linux environments. Plus, when you need to upgrade your hardware, you don't have to go through the cumbersome porting, recompiling, and downtime costs associated with upgrading a raft of separate Linux servers.
Integration
Of course, having OS/400, Linux, Intel, and now AIX environments available on the same machine mens you can very easily cross-access your data. For instance, a Web site running on a Linux environment can easily access inventory information residing in a DB2 environment in an OS/400 partition via the Power Linux ODBC driver (included in select Linux distributions). IBM has also enhanced OS/400 NetServer with the open-source Samba file and print server application to support the exchange of files between OS/400 and Linux systems. With this technology, you can even send print files in Linux to OS/400 print queues.
Linux Fever!
Oh no, what's happening to me? I'm starting to sound like everyone I talked to last week about the convergence of iSeries and Linux! It's a disease! The closer you get to it, the more likely you are to catch it. Trouble is, once you look closely at the facts about the direction that iSeries and Linux are headed together and what POWER5 is bringing to this alliance, you have no choice but to sport a silly grin and take your place among "the believers."
Bill Rice is a freelance technology writer and marketing consultant. He can be reached at
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