VM Version 3 | IBM z/OS guide

z/VM

The infrastructure for e-business on demand™ environ- ments can be deployed with visionary technology on z/VM, including advanced virtualization, support for open source software, and autonomic computing enhancements. With virtualization technology as its foundation, z/VM continues to provide new function and technology exploitation on the mainframe that enables you to virtualize processor, commu- nication, memory, storage, I/O, and networking resources, with the potential to help reduce the need to plan for, pur- chase, and install hardware to support new workloads.

z/VM supports Linux, one of the world’s leading open Source operating systems, on the mainframe. Within the VM environment, Linux images can share hardware resources and use internal high-speed communications. While beneﬁ ting from the reliability, availability and service- ability of zSeries servers, z/VM V4 offers an ideal platform for consolidating select UNIX, Windows, and Linux work- loads on a single physical zSeries server, which allows you to run tens to hundreds of Linux images. z/VM V4 is priced on a per-engine basis and supports IBM Integrated Facility for Linux (IFL) engines for Linux-based workloads, as well as standard engines for all other zSeries and S/390 work- loads.

z/VM V4 is the follow-on product for VM/ESA and z/VM V3. It provides additional support and exploitation opportuni- ties for the thousands of users who have built enterprise- wide automation and infrastructure enhancements on the VM platform in support of their applications, database systems, and e-business solutions.

z/VM V5 offers new levels of price/performance, functional capabilities, and hardware exploitation that increase the attractiveness of deploying Linux solutions on the main- frame. You can add capacity to existing zSeries systems for hosting Linux on z/VM workloads by conﬁ guring their server with IFL engines. z/VM V5 is the follow-on product to z/VM V4.

z/VM Version 3 (V3)

z/VM offers a new technology base for customers look- ing to use IBM Virtual Machine technology on one of the industry’s best-of-breed server platforms, zSeries. When z/VM is running on a zSeries server, it’s possible to run 64- bit capable OS/390 2.10, z/OS, and Linux on zSeries as guest systems of z/VM, in addition to ESA/390 guest oper- ating systems such as OS/390, VSE/ESA, TPF, and Linux on S/390. To operate z/OS as a guest of z/VM on a zSeries server, z/VM must be operating in 64-bit mode. z/VM will allow customers to develop and test their 64-bit Parallel Sysplex applications in a guest environment before putting them into production. This may help reduce the need to invest in separate standalone conﬁ gurations.

z/VM can also reduce storage constraints by eliminat- ing the 2 GB central storage limitation, providing plenty of headroom for increasing e-business demands and growing back-ofﬁ ce applications within a single machine image. Customers experiencing real memory constraints can experience relief by running z/VM in 64-bit mode on a zSeries server. This constraint relief is provided for ESA/390 guest operating systems. Support for large real memory with z/VM may beneﬁ t customers running a large number of Linux on zSeries and S/390 guest systems.