Linux on IBM Z
Ordinary Linux, built for the mainframe's processors, running alongside or instead of z/OS.
Also written zLinux, Linux on Z, LinuxONE, s390x
Linux on IBM Z is Linux built for the mainframe. The well-known distributions, such as Red Hat Enterprise Linux, SUSE and Ubuntu, all have versions for it. In software packages the architecture is called s390x.
It is the same Linux you know from other computers: the same shell, tools and programming languages. It runs in its own LPAR, as a guest of z/VM, or under KVM. IBM also sells LinuxONE, mainframe machines designed to run only Linux and its virtual machines.
Sites use it to run many servers on one machine, often close to the z/OS systems whose data they use, so the connection between them is short and fast. Processors set up as IFLs are reserved for Linux and are usually priced differently from processors that run z/OS.
Linux on IBM Z is not the same as Unix System Services. USS is a Unix environment inside z/OS. Linux on IBM Z is a separate operating system that does not run z/OS programs, JCL or COBOL batch in the z/OS way.
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- z/VMIBM's operating system for running many virtual machines on one mainframe, most often Linux servers.
- Specialty engineA mainframe processor set aside for one kind of work, such as Linux or certain z/OS workloads, and usually priced lower than a general processor.
- IBM ZIBM's current family of mainframe hardware, and the brand name you will see on most modern mainframe job adverts.
- LPARA logical partition: one physical mainframe carved into several independent virtual machines, each running its own operating system.
- MainframeA large, highly reliable computer built to run enormous volumes of transactions and batch work for an entire organisation at once.
- Unix System ServicesA full Unix environment built into z/OS, with a shell, directories and files alongside the traditional mainframe world.