zCX
z/OS Container Extensions: a z/OS feature that runs Linux containers, such as Docker images, inside z/OS itself.
Also written z/OS Container Extensions, Docker on z/OS, containers on z/OS
zCX, z/OS Container Extensions, lets z/OS run Linux containers. Containers are a standard way to package software with everything it needs, widely used on other platforms with tools like Docker. With zCX, many such containers built for the IBM Z architecture can run inside a z/OS system.
zCX runs as a started task on z/OS. Inside it is a Linux environment managed by z/OS, which runs the containers. To the containers it looks like Linux. To z/OS, it is an address space, managed, secured and measured like others.
Its work can run on zIIP processors, which helps with cost.
The main reason to use it is to place Linux software right next to z/OS applications and data, without a separate Linux system. Examples are monitoring agents, small services that z/OS applications call, and tools that only exist as Linux containers. For larger Linux workloads, sites more often use Linux on IBM Z in its own LPAR or under z/VM.
Where can I learn this hands-on?
Right here, at ZedBank. You take a junior job at a simulated bank and learn each part of the work by doing it, with Zed beside you. There's nothing to install.
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- z/OSThe main operating system that runs on IBM mainframes, in the same way Windows or Linux runs on a laptop or server.
- Linux on IBM ZOrdinary Linux, built for the mainframe's processors, running alongside or instead of z/OS.
- 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.
- Unix System ServicesA full Unix environment built into z/OS, with a shell, directories and files alongside the traditional mainframe world.
- Address spaceAn isolated pocket of memory in which a program runs, so that one program cannot interfere with another.