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The Hercules System/370, ESA/390, and z/Architecture Emulator

hercules-390.eu

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Re: The Hercules System/370, ESA/390, and z/Architecture Emulator

#11

Post by CrLf »

aus_ wrote: post #4

Mainframer here. Hercules is a pretty amazing piece of software. (Fun fact: One of the main developers, Jay Maynard [1], is also known as the "Tron guy") Unfortunately, Hercules is as close as the average person can get to the platform without working for a corporation that runs z/OS (the modern successor to MVS) or Linux for System z (s390x Linux running on mainframe hardware) in their shop. The platform has a big i…

"An EC10 can consolidate several racks of Linux blades into its zVM hypervisor"

So can a couple of beefier blades running VMware, for a fraction of the cost.

Re: The Hercules System/370, ESA/390, and z/Architecture Emulator

#13

Post by t1m »

yourapostasy wrote: post #7
jacques_chester wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Getting into mainframes is damn near impossible without fluking into an apprenticeship, is the problem. Taking the IBM courses to fully qualify as a dinosaur herder costs as much as a computer science degree. The other problem: kids aren't dreaming of maintaining 360 assembler, COBOL or PL/I applications.

The IBM System z Remote Development Programs (zRDP) [1] costs a little less than $600 per month, and gives you access to a system sufficiently robust for learning. I don't know how it would work to have multiple IDs for multiple people on the same subscription. But if you can trust everyone in a group of 10-20, and work out a shared access schedule, then it can be quite affordable. You might need to come up with some…

It sounds like if IBM were serious about getting people skilled up on their platform you'd be able to get access to a system for a bit less than $600/month. $0/month sounds about what they should be shooting for.

Re: The Hercules System/370, ESA/390, and z/Architecture Emulator

#14

Post by aus_ »

rodgerd wrote: post #9
aus_ wrote: post #4

Mainframer here. Hercules is a pretty amazing piece of software. (Fun fact: One of the main developers, Jay Maynard [1], is also known as the "Tron guy") Unfortunately, Hercules is as close as the average person can get to the platform without working for a corporation that runs z/OS (the modern successor to MVS) or Linux for System z (s390x Linux running on mainframe hardware) in their shop. The platform has a big i…

As someone who has spent a few years with zLinux, the "several racks of blades with zero downtime" is a story, but it's not always reality, shall we say. Good platforms, but you need to scrutinise the price:performance quite carefully.

Nationwide is the poster child of consolidating on zLinux. [1] But of course, that's all marketing from IBM. I believe their target market is to customers who already have the z hardware being used for their z/OS processing. The infrastructure is already there, then customers just pay for the increasing in IFLs.

[1]: http://www-01.ibm.com/software/success/cssdb.nsf/CS/JSTS-7JE...

Re: The Hercules System/370, ESA/390, and z/Architecture Emulator

#15

Post by aus_ »

CrLf wrote: post #11
aus_ wrote: post #4

Mainframer here. Hercules is a pretty amazing piece of software. (Fun fact: One of the main developers, Jay Maynard [1], is also known as the "Tron guy") Unfortunately, Hercules is as close as the average person can get to the platform without working for a corporation that runs z/OS (the modern successor to MVS) or Linux for System z (s390x Linux running on mainframe hardware) in their shop. The platform has a big i…

"An EC10 can consolidate several racks of Linux blades into its zVM hypervisor" So can a couple of beefier blades running VMware, for a fraction of the cost.

The killer feature is I/O and proximity to mainframe data. With hipersockets, you get memory-to-memory speed networking to your mainframe data. You just can't replicate that in VMware.

Re: The Hercules System/370, ESA/390, and z/Architecture Emulator

#16

Post by jim02672 »

_b8r0 wrote: post #12

If you can find it, this will also apparently run versions of Z/OS, although the licensing model for Z/OS doesn't permit it.

z/VM, z/Linux (bare metal or under VM), z/VSE, z/OS, and I believe z/TPF. That's the newest stuff. It will also emulate 360's. I think the first thing I ever ran on Hercules was OS/360 MFT! Anyone can legally run VM/370 and MVS 3.8(?) and anything older. Oh ya, MTS, Music/SP, etc. too.
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