z/VM
IBM's operating system for running many virtual machines on one mainframe, most often Linux servers.
Also written VM, z/VM guest, CMS, VM/370
z/VM is an operating system whose main job is to run other operating systems. It divides its share of the machine into many virtual machines, called guests, and each guest believes it has a computer of its own.
Most z/VM guests today run Linux. A single mainframe running z/VM can host hundreds or thousands of Linux servers, sharing processors and memory between them. Sites also run z/OS as a z/VM guest, mostly for testing, because it is quick to create and throw away a guest system.
z/VM has a long history. It comes from VM/370, released in the early 1970s, and the idea of virtual machines on the mainframe is older than on most other platforms. It has two main parts: CP, the control program that creates and runs the virtual machines, and CMS, a simple single-user system that people log on to when they work with z/VM itself.
z/VM usually runs inside an LPAR, so a site can run z/OS in some LPARs and z/VM with Linux guests in others, all on the same machine.
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- LPARA logical partition: one physical mainframe carved into several independent virtual machines, each running its own operating system.
- IBM ZIBM's current family of mainframe hardware, and the brand name you will see on most modern mainframe job adverts.
- Linux on IBM ZOrdinary Linux, built for the mainframe's processors, running alongside or instead of z/OS.
- z/OSThe main operating system that runs on IBM mainframes, in the same way Windows or Linux runs on a laptop or server.
- MainframeA large, highly reliable computer built to run enormous volumes of transactions and batch work for an entire organisation at once.