IBM Linux Line
November 11, 2015
A concise monthly report of news and insight of interest to IT managers responsible for Linux deployments and the hands-on Linux community.
Linux News
Spark, the open source in memory analytics framework, has come to the IBM mainframe. In a new IBM Systems magazine article, Mythili Venkatakrishnan, IBM Senior Technical Staff Member and the z Systems Architecture and Technology Lead for Analytics, explains what Spark is, what IBM has done to enable it for the mainframe, what it means for mainframe analytics going forward and a glimpse into where we expect it to head.
To help organizations take advantage of the API economy, IBM has announced API Harmony with intelligent cloud-based API matchmaking technology for developers as part of a series of technology, product and services announcements to advance the growing API economy.
The new Real-Time Linux (RTL) Collaborative Project has been announced by The Linux Foundation. RTL will bring together industry leaders and experts to advance and maximize technologies for the robotics, telecom, manufacturing, aviation and medical industries, among others. Member organizations include Altera, ARM, Google, Intel, IBM, National Instruments, OSADL, and Texas Instruments.
Credit card fraud is on the increase and identity theft is growing. In a new white paper about fraud in the modern world, Mike Ferguson of Intelligent Business Strategies writes about the business impact of fraud, how to develop a fraud-protection strategy and how IBM z Systems analytics solutions and predictive models can help reduce risk exposure and loss from fraud.
A new white paper from IDC highlights the importance of assessing big data and analytics requirements not as a single, homogeneous requirement but as a range of potential use cases.
As the open source ecosystem grows, open standards are increasingly important, writes Shirley S. Savage in IBM Systems magazine.
In a new SUSE Conversations blog, Meike Chabowski, Product Marketing Manager for Enterprise Linux Servers at SUSE, writes about IBM and SUSE's longstanding partnership and how the companies work together to innovate technology and business solutions to address evolving business-critical enterprise needs while controlling IT infrastructure and budget.
A new report from the Securities Technology Analysis Center (STAC) demonstrates the performance value of McObject's SQL-based eXtremeDB Financial Edition database management system (DBMS), running on IBM POWER8 S824L Linux server, executing a time-series data analytics workload. The STAC-M3 Benchmark suite is the industry standard for testing solutions that enable high-speed analytics on time series data such as tick-by-tick market data.
Neo Technology, creator of the Neo4j graph database, has formed a partnership with IBM to offer Neo4j on IBM POWER8. This partnership offers a number of benefits to enterprises by combining real-time graph processing with the capabilities of IBM hardware to scale up.
IBM has opened up a new online cloud marketplace for its new line of IBM Power8-based Linux servers - the Power LC (Linux cluster) Line, which was introduced last month. The new Power Systems LC servers are the first to be based on technologies and development efforts contributed by OpenPOWER Foundation partners.
A new developerWorks blog post looks at the benefits of POWER combined with Juju Charms.
The history between SUSE and the IBM mainframe goes back more than 15 years, observed Michael Miller, SUSE's Vice President of Global Alliances, Marketing and Product Management, and Ross Mauri, General Manager, IBM z Systems, during a keynote conversation at SUSECon 2015. The bottom line, Mauri said, is that Linux is a phenomenon that has changed the world, is growing rapidly everywhere, and it is in enterprise and in mainframe computing, Mauri said.
Inside Linux at IBM
In a Mainframe Insights blog post, Marcel Mitran, IBM DE and CTO IBM Systems Software Performance and Linux Ecosystem, discusses the performance and cost benefits of running MobileFirst Platform on IBM z systems, collocated with critical Systems of Record mainframe applications and data.
Linux on IBM z Systems provides high levels of performance, scalability and security. A rich open source ecosystem is growing on the platform—from Node.js to MongoDB to Docker—which combines with IBM z's speed and other unique features to deliver business agility—the ability of an organization to get to market quickly and effectively in order to solve the business problems it faces.
To keep pace with consumer demand for the latest mobile technology, companies want to develop secure cutting-edge applications at high speed—and without major investments in extra infrastructure. Previously, enterprises had no way to harness the cutting-edge power of Node.js technology alongside systems of record on their mainframes.
IBM LinuxONE is a portfolio of hardware, software and services solutions for an enterprise grade Linux environment. IBM LinuxONE brings together the flexibility and agility of the open revolution with the industry's most advanced, trusted and performance enterprise system.
A new video demonstrates how the combined power of Linux, IBM z Systems, the hybrid cloud, and IBM Cloud Manager with OpenStack enhance the benefits of each part to provide the most powerful and reliable enterprise solution.
The IBM LinuxONE channel is expanding to meet global demands and address the increasing growth and requirements of Linux in the market. IBM Business Partners that are looking to add LinuxONE to their sales portfolio can get started today.
IBM LinuxONE provides a portfolio of hardware, software, and services that combine the flexibility and agility of the open revolution with the industry's most advanced trusted, efficient and performant enterprise system for business critical applications. An increased emphasis on mobile, big data, and cloud is not only in sync with new industry trends it also responds to client demands for greater reliability, security, performance, and cost savings.
KVM for IBM z Systems provides open source virtualization for the IBM mainframe. Using a combination of KVM virtualization and IBM z Systems provides the performance and flexibility to address the requirements of multiple, differing Linux workloads.
Open source software brings a broad set of new capabilities to LinuxONE and z Systems in the form of more solutions that are optimized for use on an enterprise-grade platform that leverages inherent strengths—speed combined with ultra-security application uptime, limitless capacity for growth, in addition to an inventive and collaborative ecosystem of developers and practitioners - all of which gives enterprises an important edge in improving their business agility.
In a three-part blog, Luis Carlos Silva, Continuous Integration Lead for z Systems and Product Manager for Compilers on POWER Systems at IBM, writes about unleashing the full potential of Linux, and how Docker complements and works on IBM LinuxONE and z Systems, making the lives of developers and release engineers easier.
Using Linux containers and Docker radically changes the way applications are built, shipped, deployed and instantiated. A new IBM white paper explains how using Docker, IBM UrbanCode Deploy or Linux on IBM z Systems can help you quickly develop cloud-centric applications or micro services.
Inside IBM's Linux Partners
The sixth survey of OpenStack users since April 2013 has been released to better understand attitudes, organizational profiles, use cases, and technology choices across the community's various deployment stages and sizes.
SUSE has launched beta testing of SUSE OpenStack Cloud 6, giving customers an early look at the latest enterprise-ready technology for building Infrastructure-as-a-Service private clouds. Based on the OpenStack release Liberty, SUSE OpenStack Cloud 6 delivers high availability enhancements and non-disruptive upgrades along with Docker and IBM z Systems mainframe support to ease the transition of business-critical applications and data to the cloud.
Microsoft and Red Hat have announced a partnership to provide Red Hat solutions on the Microsoft Azure cloud service. Microsoft is offering Red Hat Enterprise Linux as the preferred choice for enterprise Linux workloads on Microsoft Azure.
SUSE has announced enhancements and additions to its training programs for users of enterprise Linux, storage and cloud solutions. They include new courses for SUSE OpenStack Cloud and SUSE Enterprise Storage, the availability of online technical certification training and exams, a cross-certification agreement with the Linux Foundation, and an improved, SUSE-focused worldwide training partner network.
Linux and KVM Events
With the confluence of disruptive new forces, including big data, cloud, high performance computing, and new engagement technologies, organizations must innovate in terms of how they build their infrastructure, Doug Balog, General Manager, IBM Power Systems, emphasized in his keynote at Red Hat Summit 2015.
The dates of next year's Red Hat Summit have been announced. The 12th annual Red Hat Summit will take place at the Moscone Center in San Francisco from June 28-July 1, 2016.
Delivering the opening keynotes at LinuxCon North America for IBM, a Diamond Sponsor of the event, Dr. Angel Diaz, Vice President, Cloud Architecture and Technology, IBM, and Ross Mauri, General Manager of z Systems, IBM, reflected on the change taking place in the IT world.
Linux and KVM Success Stories
Seismic data processor Earth Signal has deployed IBM Power Systems S822L servers with IBM POWER8 CPUs running Linux to maximize core- and thread-count within the physical limits of its data center, enabling extremely fast delivery of seismic results to industry clients and 20 times greater server density.
Italian software developer Foedus has created OCTOBUS ERP optimized for IBM Power Systems running Linux. Foedus chose IBM Power System S812L and S822L servers running Linux and MariaDB database software as the foundation for its new version of OCTOBUS.
Without the ability to adapt quickly to changing fashion trends, major shoe retailer HR Group risked carrying unsold and discounted stock. HR Group migrated to SAP HANA on IBM Power Systems for SAP Business Warehouse, taking advantage of the latest IBM POWER8 technology and centralized IBM Storwize V5000 storage
A new video explains how outstanding customer experiences demand waitless virtualization, cloud and analytics. Backed by Linux on POWER8, ZTEsoft clients can process 35,000 transactions per second with ease in virtualized cloud environments.
Almost all the opportunities that Key Information Systems Inc. (KeyInfo) is working on today, as well as the conversations it is having with clients, are in relation to hybrid cloud deployments.
Mizuho Bank, Ltd. needed to transform its online and mobile banking systems while decreasing IT costs. With the help of IBM, Mizuho updated online and mobile applications, keeping user satisfaction high and expanding its online presence by gaining scalability and sustainability while reducing overall costs.
Site Ox is rolling out new IBM Power Systems POWER8 processor-based systems that will support both big-endian or little-endian operating systems on the same physical hardware, creating new opportunities for consolidation.
Meeting service-level agreements (SLAs) hinges on server reliability, uptime and manageability. IBM LinuxONE and IBM z solutions provide a flexible yet powerful infrastructure that helps ensure that your business receives the performance, reliability and processing power it needs to address increasingly sophisticated and demanding application requirements.