The Linux Executive Report from IBM
May 21, 2015
The Linux Executive Report from IBM: May 21, 2015. A monthly summary of important trends and market research, case studies and information about IBM's Linux initiatives of interest to senior management.
Linux News
As students graduate from college this year and embark on graduate degree programs or searches for gainful employment, they should consider the advantages of a mainframe career, according to a new Mainframe Debate blog post.
A 451 Research survey of almost 2,000 enterprise cloud users has named IBM as the company most likely to win significant cloud hosting projects. According to the Hosting and Cloud Survey 2015, 50% of current public cloud users are already shifting workload to private cloud environments, and 52% expect to do so in the future.
Enterprises increasingly require a trusted IT infrastructure that is scalable and flexible enough to support both mission-critical work and the development and deployment of new workloads. The IBM z13, the newest member of the IBM z Systems family, can deliver advanced performance, security, resiliency, availability, and virtualization to provide high levels of qualities of service.
Doug Balog, General Manager of IBM Power Systems, writes about three key POWER product announcements in a new blog post.
Expanding data volumes are proving to be a challenge to traditional storage and data management solutions. IBM Spectrum Scale for Linux on z Systems is an extremely powerful file system that is based on the IBM General Parallel File System (GPFS) technology, which is a proven, scalable, high-performance data and file management solution, and it is also enabled for technical computing, big data, analytics, and cloud.
Expanding its deep technology partnership with SAP, IBM has announced a series of Power Systems Solution Editions for the SAP HANA platform. The new solutions are expected to enable the latest generation POWER8 systems to run SAP HANA, allowing clients to quickly and cost-efficiently deploy the technology on a server platform built specifically to handle today's greatest data challenges.
IBM has introduced a new version of IBM Wave for z/VM. Helping to reduce the cost and skills of managing z/VM and Linux environments on z Systems servers, IBM Wave for z/VM (IBM Wave) simplifies the management of virtualized environments into an intuitive experience
In a new blog post, IBM's Gerald Hosch discusses the key advantages of IBM's new z13 mainframe for modern computing environments. The z13 provides the ability to process 2.5 billion transactions per day, as well as to provide an enterprise Linux environment, further opening the mainframe to the open IT world.
In an article at NetworkWorld.com, Bryan Smith, who manages all aspects of Rocket Software's R&D organization and operations, explains why IBM's new z13 mainframe microprocessor is a game-changer.
Inside Linux at IBM
Jeff Frey, IBM Fellow and z Systems CTO, shares his insights on the new IBM mainframe and explains how it can enhance your business.
In a Q&A interview with Evelyn Hoover of IBMSystems Magazine, Bryan Foley, Business Line Manager for Linux on z Systems, IBM, discusses IBM's plans for Linux on z Systems.
Inside IBM's Linux Partners
Red Hat has announced the general availability of Red Hat Developer Toolset 3.1, a selection of some of stable open source C and C++ compilers and complementary development tools.
The release of Intel's new 18-core Haswell-EX chip has provided an opportunity to gauge how OpenPOWER technology and the "co-opetition" business model are stacking up, states Brad McCredie, President of the OpenPOWER Foundation, in a blog post.
Linux and KVM Events
Join IBM for a two-day workshop for running Oracle DB on Linux on z Systems at the IBM Client Center at IBM Germany Research & Development, in Boeblingen, Germany.
Two conferences, the KVM Forum and Xen Project Developer Summit, are joining forces this summer to co-host a hackathon to foster technical collaboration between the two hypervisors.
LinuxCon Japan presented by The Linux Foundation is the premiere Linux conference in Asia that brings together a unique blend of core developers, administrators, users, community managers and industry experts.
Red Hat Summit brings together thought leaders and executives from across the technology industry to participate in keynotes and sessions on community, innovation, collaboration and customer success.
The Linux Foundation has announced its 2015 events schedule, which includes LinuxCon and CloudOpen in North America and Europe, the Linux Foundation Collaboration Summit, Embedded Linux Conference, Android Builders Summit and ApacheCon, as well as new events for 2015, open source storage and filesystems conference, Vault, and ContainerCon, focused on the rapidly expanding container industry.
Linux and KVM Success Stories
According to an article in CIO Journal by Steven Norton, in an effort to lower software costs and become more agile, Avis Budget Group Inc. will run open-source Linux software over its IBM mainframe. Avis is using an integrated facility for Linux (IFL), "essentially a processor that runs Linux workloads on an IBM mainframe," writes Norton.
Challenged to do more with less, Dundee City Council identified IT as an area in which it could cut costs. The council consolidated its Oracle Database environment supporting critical services from distributed servers to an IBM zEnterprise BC12 platform, dramatically improving efficiency.
EVERTEC, Inc., based in Puerto Rico, offers a comprehensive suite of services for core bank processing, cash processing and technology outsourcing. The company processes billions of financial transactions annually and must ensure 24/7 responsiveness and availability for its systems - or risk failing to provide customers with access to key services.
IBM Research and SCA are partnering to create a shared service cloud for the municipalities of New York that is predicted to eliminate 25% of government's IT budget by streamlining applications and connecting siloed municipalities. The IBM mainframe is the platform that New York trusts to host that cloud. In addition to its time-tested scalability, reliability and security, it offers the lowest total cost of ownership — supporting the state as it strives for reduced spending and a smarter, future-ready IT infrastructure.
Kenya Power is the sole electricity provider for more than 2.2 million customers throughout the country. With a goal to provide universal electricity access by 2020, Kenya Power implemented the IBM Mainframe for its mission-critical systems, significantly improving reliability with fewer unscheduled outages.
IBM Business Partner L3C LLP focuses on three ways to help businesses across the UK increase profitability and reduce costs: consultancy, managed services and complementary IT resources. L3C deployed IBM System z servers running Linux to provide companies of any size — including small, midsized and very large enterprises — with scalable, cost-effective, high-performance cloud services.
A recently released IDC White Paper examines the rapidly changing landscape for managed service providers and the shifting competitive dynamics of the market as cloud-based solutions increasingly challenge older models of third-party application infrastructure procurement and management.
Think administering z/VM will be difficult? Think again. With IBM Wave for z/VM (IBM Wave) with Oracle, IT organizations can unleash the power of z/VM virtualization, improve productivity, simplify management, and accelerate the cloud journey with innovative technology that helps reduce the barriers to management of virtualized environments.
Ron Peri, CEO of Radixx International, discussed hybrid cloud and improving TCO with IBM zSystems in a presentation that was recorded at IBM InterConnect 2015.
The Met Office, the United Kingdom's national weather service, provides early, accurate severe weather reports. It strives to transform weather intelligence into a tool for business performance — and its goal is to empower organizations to use weather as an advantage. To process the massive amount of data it receives, the Met Office uses an IBM supercomputer that runs more than 100 trillion calculations in a second.
Increasing numbers of companies are recognizing the benefits of outsourcing IT services to the cloud, presenting managed service providers (MSPs) with a unique opportunity to grow their client base and revenues. Vissensa is a privately owned company headquartered in Fleet in the United Kingdom that offers technical solutions, including hosted and managed services either on or off-premises as best suits a client's requirements.
Check out the customer testimonials in this new e-book to find out how your peers are exploiting z Systems and Linux for competitive advantage.