By Rich Ptak
IBM is wasting no
time as it builds out and strengthens the ecosystem for mainframe Linux
developers. The IBM LinuxONE family was announced with significant fanfare in
late August with an attractive set of attributes, price point and pricing
models. It was supported by a robust and significant ecosystem providing
support for a broad range of popular open source and ISV tools including Apache
Spark, Node.js, MongoDB, MariaDB, PostgreSQL, Chef and Docker.
The current
announcements build on and extend that ecosystem. The highlights this time include enhanced
speed and processing power for the entry-level system, Rockhopper. Also, there
are new hybrid cloud capabilities in IBM products that included enhancements to
increase flexibility, security and performance that will accelerate and
facilitate the development of applications targeted for the cloud.
Mainframe business
revenue growth and overall business performance added some much needed good
news to IBM’s 2015 financial picture. Ross Mauri, General Manager, IBM zSystems
and LinuxONE, is committed to building on and extending this performance. To do
so, IBM needs to increase and accelerate the penetration of the mainframe into
the Linux environment. There is plenty of room for growth in that space. Key to
success that area will be expanding the ecosystem of tools, technologies,
services and partnerships to attract the attention and interest of active,
innovative Linux developers. This means a focus on providing the tools and
technologies that define the open source/open stack development environment. Full
details of the announcement are available on the IBM site http://www.ibm.com/linuxone. Be prepared to spend some time on the
site as it contains lots of links, data and information.
Here’s a look at
some of the interesting details: To achieve their goal, IBM is delivering new
cloud capabilities such as optimizing StrongLoop and Cloudant technologies for
LinuxONE. The result is a highly scalable Node.js environment that is
attractive because it allows developers to use their preferred language to develop
server-side applications. StrongLoop makes it easy to develop the APIs that
connect mobile, IoT and web apps and services. Cloudant is an enterprise-grade
NoSQL database that allows users to save time and resources by storing mobile
data in its native JSON (popular mobile format).These are important in hybrid
cloud environments.
Even more
interesting are the expanded software and capabilities. For example, the Go
programming language is now supported by IBM LinuxONE. Go was developed by
Google for building simple, reliable and efficient software. In the summer of
2016, IBM will begin contributing code to the Go community.
Through OpenStack
technology collaboration, SUSE tools will be able to manage public, private and
hybrid clouds implemented on LinuxONE Systems.
Added to the
existing availability of SUSE and Red Hat distributions, Canonical’s Ubuntu
Linux distribution and cloud tool sets (Juju, MAAS, and Landscape) will now be
available to LinuxONE clients. This completes the Linux Hat Trick for the
system.
New releases of
both Emperor and Rockhopper will be shipping in March with improvements to speed
and processing power. Details to be announced.
Also shipping in March,
the IBM LinuxONE portfolio will have the IBM Open Platform (IOP) available at
no cost. IOP broad set of industry standard Apache-based capabilities for
analytics and big data. The components supported include Apache Spark, Apache
HBase, Apache Hadoop 2.7.1 and more. Contributing its open source
contributions, IBM optimized the Open Managed Runtime project (OMR) for
LinuxONE. As IBM states it: “This repurposes the IBM innovations in virtual
machine technology for new dynamic scripting languages, infusing them with
enterprise-grade strength.”
IBM is continuing
to expand and enhance family of LinuxONE Systems to meet the interests of and respond
to the needs of the Linux, open systems, open source and open stack
communities. If you haven’t looked at what they are offering recently, we’d
highly recommend you do so today. All the best to IBM and the LinuxONE systems
team!
Wow,
ReplyDeleteGreat post as always. Ibm storage is generally capable of providing server-oriented services, such as the ability to host a website across users and applications, security and authorization and many other server-focused services. It's a challenging but promising vision.