IBM LinuxONE – new brand and aspirations in open source computing

Back in January we took a deep look at IBM’s new z13 mainframe. In August it announced LinuxONE – the most comprehensive effort yet to bring the value of mainframes to enterprises building Open Source solutions. In this bulletin we’ll look at what IBM has announced and how it will affect the Linux and open source world.

The offloading of System x to Lenovo last year reduced the number of operating systems it supports to 3 main lines – zOS, AIX on Power and Linux on both Power and z Systems. Historically its endorsement of Linux was proof that it was serious about participating in the open source market. It has been successful in the sense that it leads the Linux server market, with an 18.6% share of the $7.1b market – a better position than in the overall server market, where it has slipped to third with a 9.3% share of the $61.8b total (see Figure).

But IBM also needs brands for its salesforce to sell and its customers to understand. From a hardware and software perspective LinuxONE is a subsidiary brand within the z System portfolio: the new Emperor and Rockhopper machines are Linux variants of its z13 and z12 processors (respectively) designed its largest and Large and Medium enterprise customers (also respectively). The new brand is also designed to incorporate IBM’s new approach to marketing, pricing, open source ecosystem and community activities. Let’s look at each of these in turn.

Marketing – CAMSS or CAMDO?

We shouldn’t make too much of the subtle difference in IBM’s discussion of target solutions for its LinuxONE announcement, where – alongside Cloud, Analytics and Mobile drivers – it’s including ‘DevOps’ in place of ‘Social’ and ‘Security’. DevOps is a vitally important area for enterprise computing and the more IBM can make it easy for customers and ISVs to develop applications easily on these new machines, the more demand it will create for its hardware and software. BlueMix has been developing rapidly and the ability to deploy solutions on LinuxONE will expand IBM’s value proposition significantly.

Pricing

IBM is extending its pay-for-use fixed monthly payment rental scheme to software as well as hardware. This is different to its traditional one-time license charge, with an option to buy support or not. With the new elastic software rental model costs can go up and down over time. This is an important step, which goes beyond the cheaper prices customers had when buying Integrated Facility for Linux (IFL) processors in the past. I expect it to help attract new open source ISVs to LinuxONE. IBM will allow customers to buy LinuxONE solutions outright as well if they want to.

Open Source choices and IBM contributions

An important part of its new approach is to unrestrict a number of mainframe patents. One example is zAware, which is a tool for detecting unusual application or system behaviour. By opening up its Intellectual Property IBM now offers the following choices of tools on LinuxONE:

• Analytics Tools: Hadoop, Big Insights, DB2BLU and Apache Spark
• Database: Oracle, DB2LUW, MariaDB, MongoDB, PostgreSQL
• Distributions: Red Hat, SuSE, Ubuntu
• Hypervisors: PR/SM, z/VM, and KVM
• Languages: Python, Perl, Ruby, Rails, Erlang, Java, Node.js
• Management: WAVE, IBM Cloud Manager, Urban Code, OpenStack, Docker, Chef, Puppet, VMware vRealize Automation

The most important of these are the addition of Ubuntu, KVM and Node.js. IBM’s endorsement of OpenStack enables a number of the new management schemas, including VMware’s newly introduced vRealise Automation, which will allow virtual servers running on mainframes to be managed within VMware environments.

Community activities

IBM has been keen to expand its community activities to help with the adoption of these new machines. In particular:

• LinuxONE availability via Clouds
  • For ISVs to access at its Linux Technology Centers in Dallas, Böblingen and Beijing
  • Marist College and Syracuse University’s School of Information Studies will launch similar free-to-use services for students and DevOps in November
  • IBM is giving its customers free-to-access (but time-limited) access to LinuxONE sandboxes
• The Linux Foundation has created the Open Mainframe Project – supported by IBM, CA, BMC, Linux distribution suppliers, Cloud Service Providers and customers to extend the use of mainframes for open source solutions
• IBM Research is providing containers running on LinuxONE machines as support to the DREAMS ALS global health challenge

The most important of these is the Open Mainframe Project. IBM’s decision to donate its own mainframe patents and code will help expand the use of its products by those put off in the past by its more cautious approach.

Who should buy a Linux-based mainframe?

IBM doesn’t need to persuade its current mainframe users, as Linux is in use on 80 of its top 100 and 40% of all z System customers. It has been offered as an option for 15 years, with revenues growing at a 45% compound average growth rate over the last 10. However even here the new brand and pricing will expand the use of Linux further. It will also help to expand its customer base to new customers in medium sized enterprises and emerging markets. Mainframes have always led the way in terms of scalability, low cost of ownership, performance and security in comparison with x86-base solutions: the new brand will allow them to be compared more directly with other solutions. Most importantly IBM’s new openness will allow many Cloud Service Providers to drop their resistance to working with a single (sometimes defensive) hardware supplier. As I mentioned when discussing the introduction of the z13 IBM’s new CAMSS (or CAMDO) approach is a middle ground in terms of its revenue expectations – between the expensive traditional and cheap Linux-expansion businesses of the past. I’ll be watching IBM’s server revenues as closely as always and report he growth it achieves of course.