On 03/17/2016 08:01 AM, Elardus Engelbrecht wrote: > Hi > > I played around the CeBIT website and came across this interesting thing: > > http://www.cebit.de/exhibitor/lzlabs/E363469 > > http://www.bankingtech.com/454942/lzlabs-unveils-worlds-first-software-defined-mainframe/ > > > I see this note: > > LzLabs Software Defined Mainframe (TM) enables both Red Hat Linux and Cloud > infrastructure such as Microsoft's Azure to process thousands of transactions > per second, while maintaining enterprise requirements for reliability, > scalability, serviceability and security. This software solution includes a > faithful re-creation of the primary online, batch and database environments, > which enables unrivaled compatibility and exceptional performance, to > dramatically reduce IT costs. > > Wonder what is big blue saying of this interesting development? > > PS: I am NOT with CeBIT or LzLabs or anything with them. > > Groete / Greetings > Elardus Engelbrecht > > ... I notice they also claim "no need for recompilation of Cobol or PL/1 application programmes, no source code changes, or changes to operational procedures".
So they have somehow managed to replicate the functional behavior of all the SVC and PC interfaces and control blocks that application code might be using in z/OS batch and CICS environments, to replicate the functional behavior of I/O to data sets that batch jobs and CICS transactions might be doing, to replicate all the CICS APIs and CICS control blocks CICS applications might be using, to replicate all the LE run time support needed to execute COBOL and PL/I programs in batch and CICS, to replicate all the related DB2 functional APIs, and to emulate the execution of z-architecture application program code in batch and CICS environments, and to replicate operational interfaces. And since security was "maintained", that implies they have also managed to replicate the functionality of RACF for their batch, CICS, and DB2 environments, and integrated that security somehow into the supporting physical operating environment to secure the "mainframe" data from external tampering. In other words, to do what they seem to claim, they have re-implemented a significant portion of z/OS and some major subsystems of z/OS for another hardware platform. All correctly and without infringing on any IBM patents or licensing restrictions? And have achieved reasonable transaction rates without sacrificing "reliability, scalability , serviceability, and security" on hardware platforms that have historically been less robust than z-architecture? Color me skeptical. They don't say no re-linking of load modules, which makes me suspect that to be legal you would have to re-link and somehow replace any linked-in LE run time modules, since those modules would be IBM-licensed code. Even "stabilized" applications may require occasional minor changes --e.g.,to adapt to trivial changes in local sales tax rates. Without a mainframe compiler even a trivial change becomes a difficult load module patch. -- Joel C. Ewing, Bentonville, AR [email protected] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
