Advantages
Linux on System z gives the flexibility of running Linux with the advantages of mainframe hardware. Using virtualization, numerous smaller servers can be combined onto one mainframe, gaining some benefits of centralization, but allowing specialized servers thanks to virtualization support, which can lower operating costs. IBM mainframes allow transparent use of redundant processor execution steps and integrity checking, which is necessary in the financial services industries. Mainframes typically allow hot-swapping of hardware, such as processors and memory. This swapping is typically transparent to the operating system, allowing routine repairs to be performed without shutting down the system.
When Linux applications access mainframe-based data and applications in CICS, IBM DB2, IMS, and other mainframe subsystems, running on the same physical mainframe, they can utilize HiperSockets – fast, memory-only TCP/IP connections. As compared to TCP/IP over standard network interface cards (NICs, in the mainframe world called Open System Adapters, OSAs), HiperSockets can improve end-user responsiveness (reduce network latency and processing overhead), security (since there's no network connection to intercept), and reliability (since there's no network connection to lose).
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Famous quotes containing the word advantages:
“To say that a man is your Friend, means commonly no more than this, that he is not your enemy. Most contemplate only what would be the accidental and trifling advantages of Friendship, as that the Friend can assist in time of need by his substance, or his influence, or his counsel.... Even the utmost goodwill and harmony and practical kindness are not sufficient for Friendship, for Friends do not live in harmony merely, as some say, but in melody.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
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—Virginia Woolf (1882–1941)
“Men hear gladly of the power of blood or race. Every body likes to know that his advantages cannot be attributed to air, soil, sea, or to local wealth, as mines and quarries, nor to laws and traditions, nor to fortune, but to superior brain, as it makes the praise more personal to him.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)