The Linux Executive Report from IBM
September 16, 2015
The Linux Executive Report from IBM: September 16, 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
It's time to unleash the full potential of Linux. At LinuxCon North America in Seattle last month, IBM announced LinuxONE, powerful and secure enterprise servers designed for the new application economy and hybrid cloud era.
In a new Mainframe Insights blog post, Mark Shuttleworth, the Founder and CEO of Canonical, and John Zannos, Vice President of Cloud Channels and Alliances, Canonical, discuss IBM's and Canonical's plans to create an Ubuntu distribution for LinuxONE and z Systems.
IBM and GENCI, the high performance computing agency in France, are collaborating to speed up the path to exascale computing - the ability of a computing system to perform at least one exaflop, or a billion billion calculations, in one second. The collaboration, planned to run for at least 18 months, focuses on readying complex scientific applications for systems under development expected to achieve more than 100 petaflops, a solid step forward on the path to exascale.
MongoDB deepened its partnership with IBM, announcing plans to offer support for MongoDB's products on IBM z Systems mainframe. This support reflects the strong momentum for mission critical deployments of the database by adding support for the speed, security and availability of z Systems.
IBM has announced general availability and improvements to a set of services for IBM's platform-as-a-service (PaaS), Bluemix, that enable developers to more seamlessly integrate Java-based resources into their cloud-based applications. The new IBM Cloud tools are designed to help developers broaden the capabilities of their applications to give users a more robust cloud experience, by leveraging added security and flexibility to use a vast array of resources for their development.
Coinciding with IBM's launch of LinuxONE, SUSE announced that SUSE Linux Enterprise Server is the first and currently only server operating system supported by the recently announced KVM for IBM z Systems, open source-based server virtualization for the IBM mainframe. SUSE was the first to bring Linux to the mainframe, collaborating with IBM since 1999 to make SUSE Linux Enterprise Server a guest operating system on IBM z Systems.
Syncsort, a big data software provider, has announced an open source contribution of an IBM z Systems mainframe connector for Apache Spark. According to the vendor, the contribution will enable organizations to easily access and get new insights from their critical mainframe data with Apache Spark's advanced analytics capabilities and Spark SQL.
A new IBM Systems Magazine article by Evelyn Hoover looks at the importance of IBM's Linux-related announcements at LinuxCon North America, including the launch of the new IBM LinuxONE platform, and collaboration with the Linux Foundation to form the Open Mainframe Project. The article points out that the pace of Linux adoption is outstripping the supply of elements necessary for the OS's success
Inside Linux at IBM
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.
In three IBM Redbooks videos, IBM Distinguished Engineer Brad Brech, shares his thoughts on the latest technology behind Power Systems and POWER8. The videos focus on the IBM Data Engine for NoSQL, POWER8 and OpenPOWER, and Linux on Power Solutions.
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.
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.
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.
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.
A new independent study conducted by IBM Power Systems reveals the most pressing items that are vexing IT leaders as they look ahead. Maintaining a competitive edge and delivering as much value from information as possible remains a key focus, all while keeping costs to a minimum.
The Linux Foundation has announced the keynote speakers and schedule for LinuxCon, CloudOpen and Embedded Linux Conference Europe, taking place October 5-7, 2015 in Dublin, Ireland.
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.
SUSECon is the annual global technical conference for SUSE customers, partners and community enthusiasts, geared to the needs of the enterprise IT consumer. SUSECon provides the forum to announce and demonstrate the SUSE vision and latest technical advances to press, analysts, ecosystem partners, and customers.
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
Dirk Rossmann GmbH is Germany's second largest drugstore chain. To ensure rapid response even during peak times, Rossmann migrated its data warehouse reporting solution to Linux running on IBM Power Systems, utilizing the Capacity on Demand offering.
The world's most innovative companies are using z Systems to reshape the fabric of our businesses, our infrastructures, and our lives. They analyze big data to help their organizations, use mobile apps to better deliver products to customers and deploy secure and reliable cloud infrastructures to improve efficiency and economics.
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.
A new video showcases how low-cost carrier Allegiant Travel is leveraging big data without wait with IBM POWER8, DB2, and Flash. Allegiant Travel increased performance and scale, saved over $1 million over x86 solutions, freeing up resources to focus on innovation and serving customers better.
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.
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.
SLLIN Consultants is a Hong Kong-based IT consulting firm serving businesses across the Asia-Pacific region. SLLIN's Hands in the Air (HITA) music streaming application targets the Hong Kong independent music market, connecting musicians with listeners, collaborators and marketers.
Based in the German town of Bielefeld, IT services provider teuto.net is constantly looking for ways to deliver greater performance at competitive prices, leading the search for ultra-efficient technology. To satisfy client demands for more performance at lower prices, teuto.net launched new cloud services on a state-of-the-art IBM Power S812L server running the Ubuntu Linux operating system.
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.
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.