Open Source on the Mainframe Mini-Summit 2019 - SUSE and IBM Z

Editor's Notes

• #3: These systems were a precursor to the Real-Time Computer Complex (RTCC) which was later built at NASA's Manned Spaceflight Center in Houston, Texas for the Apollo missions. It used redundant Model 7094 mainframe systems initially which were then replaced by twin System/360 Model 75 computers. These were the modern forerunners of today's zSeries systems as far as their very basic systems architecture is concerned. (The IBM System z10 is still backward compatible with software written for the S/360, S/370, and the S/390 through machine virtualization and software emulation.) The IBM mainframes in the RTCC, as the acronym implies, monitored the telemetry data from every aspect of an Apollo mission in real-time, so there was no lag in processing between problem determination, if a condition arose, and solving it. Announced April 22, 1965 andwithdrawn March 15, 1977.The Model 75 was an outgrowth of IBM's continuing engineering development effort to enhance the capabilities of the original System/360 offerings. Its main memory operated at 750 nanoseconds and was available in three sizes up to 1,048,576 characters of information. The memory was interleaved up to four ways to obtain increased performance. The Model 75 superseded the original Model 70 of the System/360 family, which had been announced a year earlier. Manufactured at IBM's plant in Kingston, N.Y., the Model 75 had a monthly rental range of $50,000 to $80,000, and a purchase price range of $2.2 million to $3.5 million. Deliveries began during the fourth quarter of 1965.
• #5: Slide Owners – Terri Schlosser & Pete Chadwick Speaker notes for discussing the overall portfolio (Feb 2019)  ​ SUSE has been successful in delivering an enterprise grade Linux operating system for nearly 25 years. The mission that we defined for ourselves 25 years ago was simple: Enable customers to deploy an operating system that was open and secure while also providing the support to ensure they could meet enterprise level SLAs. Our continued success over that 25 year period has proven that our model works and we remain committed to the basic ideals of delivering open and secure solutions even as we expand into new offerings. If we step back and look at what SUSE Linux Enterprise Server provides – it is a set of APIs and services that abstract away the details of the underlying hardware infrastructure to make it possible to write applications that can work with the widest range of architectures, servers, storage and network options available. Along with that we have provided tools such as SUSE Manager to simplify installation, operation and maintenance of the environment. We back all that up with a support lifecycle for stability. We are beginning to see the emergence of 2 new paradigms – the software defined infrastructure and the emergence of cloud-native applications. These new approaches require new tools and extend the role of the operating system.​ Building on our 25 years of experience, we introduced the concept of the multimodal operating system optimized to host containerized application as well as your traditional workloads with the release of SLE 15. This enables SUSE customers to manage their cloud native and traditional workloads in a consistent way on a single code base.  ​ Through the YES certification program SUSE Linux Enterprise Server is certified to support a wide range of hardware platforms including x-86, Arm, IBM Power and z, operating environments including multiple hypervisors, Xen, KVM, HyperV, VMware and IBM environments such as z/VM and PowerVM. Recent extensions in this area are the support of SUSE KVM natively on z Systems.​ ​ As mentioned above, one of the roles of the OS is to provide APIs to the physical hardware layer. With the emergence of software defined infrastructure there is a need for APIs to provide similar control. This is addressed by SUSE OpenStack Cloud make it easy to deploy and manage a wide range of software defined solutions such as hypervisors, software defined storage such as SUSE Enterprise Storage and open source and proprietary networking solutions. ​ ​ More recently we have seen a move toward cloud native application development, and SUSE is offering two closely related products – SUSE Container as a Service Platform combines a container optimized version of SUSE Linux with Kubernetes and an industry standard container engine to enable the creation and deployment of applications that can run across private data centers and public clouds. The most recent addition to the SUSE portfolio – SUSE Cloud Application Platform adds a Cloud Foundry certified PaaS that combines a variety of runtimes and pre-defined services to enable developers to quickly create and deploy new business services. Uniquely, SUSE recognizes that the right approach may be to use both approaches in a single environment  and SUSE Cloud Application Platform will enable the inclusion of custom containerized services running outside of the Cloud Foundry environment.​ ​ From the beginning SUSE has provided tools to simplify deploying and operating complex systems. SUSE Manager provides the tracking and updating of systems to ensure that vulnerabilities and functional issues are patched and corrected quickly to ensure compliance and secure operations. At the same time, SUSE includes SELinux and AppArmor to  provide additional levels of protection to keep your systems and applications secure. Whenever severe security vulnerabilities such as Spectre and Meltdown become known, thanks to our upstream involvement, SUSE is able to deliver remediating patches rapidly. Our container optimized OS solution provides an additional level of security through the use of a read-only file system which prevents malicious code from making changes to production workloads. SUSE Manager is a key part of this process as it can assess which systems are affected by these vulnerabilities and alert operators. Going one step further, SUSE Manager can automate patching of systems based on the severity of these vulnerabilities.  As SUSE provides new solutions such as cloud and software defined storage we will continue to provide the same level of security and management capabilities while also adding deployment tools to automate and simplify rolling out new capabilities such as cloud, containers, Kubernetes and Cloud Foundry. ​ ​​ But we do not intend this to be a monolithic, all or nothing approach. The SUSE commitment to openness means that we will continue to work with partners to provide customers with options at multiple layers in the stack – physical infrastructure and public cloud as well as development and deployment tools. If needed, customers can engage our professional services organization or services partners to help integrate SUSE offerings within customers’ existing environments or include other products to deliver a combined solution. SUSE recognizes that public cloud is an important part of all customers’ data center transformations. To help with that integration, SUSE created our Cloud Provider Program. Initially designed around on-demand consumption of SLES in offerings such as Amazon EC2/Microsoft Azure/Google Cloud Platform, this has expanded to cover other products from SUSE including SUSE Manager and SLES for SAP Applications and will continue to expand with the availability with new products such as SUSE CaaS Platform and SUSE Cloud Application Platform, which include capabilities enabling customers to create and deploy containerized workloads across public and private infrastructure - delivering true multi-cloud capability. This enables customers to use public cloud in different layers in the stack depending on the specific workload demand. SUSE also permits the transfer of existing subscriptions from the data center to the public cloud – a feature we call “Bring your own Subscription”.​ And to help you design and quickly deploy your solutions into your unique environment, SUSE Global Services offers several different types of approaches to help you meet your business needs including consulting services to help with designing, implementing, upgrading or optimizing your solutions, Premium Support services for an additional level of personalized support from folks who will have an intimate knowledge of your infrastructure and relationship with your team and Select Services a fixed-cost combination of implementation, consulting and premium support services that can help jumpstart your implementations. Our services team has the technical expertise to assist in transforming and supporting your infrastructure with our full set of offerings or customized services and a focus on your success.
• #6: Another area that has garnered a lot of attention these days is in the use of containers and micro-services. Kubernetes has really emerged as a preferred way to manage container-based workloads. In the DevOps journey, we are seeing a shift towards writing distributable and scalable applications that can be deployed, run and monitored effectively. If you look at current Z applications serving large numbers of users, running your application across a container or two is not enough. Just developing using Docker is not enough. You’ll need to run a cluster of containers, manage deployments of applications across containers, and monitor these containers. And this is where Kubernetes comes in. With Kubernetes, DevOps can quickly and efficiently deploy applications, scale applications on the fly, roll out new features and optimize hardware use by using only the resources that are needed. IBM Z and LinuxONE provide the perfect hardware platform in order to do all of that. And we’ll finish up with pervasive encryption on Z, which enables users to encrypt data at the database, data set or disk level. You can optionally encrypt 100 percent of your data. And the biggest benefit is that it does not require users to change or adjust applications. Each application will have an internal encryption-decryption mechanism, allowing clients to apply cryptography without altering the app itself. SUSE Linux Enterprise supports stronger and faster protection of data in flight and data at rest based on the enhanced on-chip cryptography and the Crypto adapter. These three key areas of technology – cloud, containers and security – are the trio that will help accelerate Z as a prominent platform.
• #7: Another intern project sponsored by the Open Mainframe Project and SUSE was building and testing components of a containerized implementation of Cloud Foundry on Z. Cloud Foundry is an open platform as a service that provides a choice of clouds, developer frameworks and application services. It makes it faster and easier to build, test, deploy and scale applications. I will now turn it over to Mike, who will take a deeper dive into work with OpenStack, Kubernetes and encryption. Mike?
• #8: About 20 years ago we started with a strong partnership with IBM and have been investing in Z ever since. And the latest iteration of our Linux operating system comes with more exploitation of the hardware for increased performance and security. We take advantage of the latest performance advances in SIMD (single instruction, multiple data) and SMT (simultaneous multi-threading). We support the latest cryptographic acceleration for secure-key operations and the hardware assist for fast data encryption. We have enhanced virtualization capabilities to boost resource utilization using KVM and z/VM -- giving you the ability to create several virtual machines that run on a single processor and handle multiple workloads. And we’ve helped improve operational efficiency with tools that you won’t find anywhere else, and by taking advantage of the networking and communications features of OpenFabrics Enterprise Distribution and HiperSockets. Data-in-flight - Encrypting data before being sent on a network Data-at-rest - Encrypting data before being saved on storage
• #9: As the leading independent vendor of Linux-based open source infrastructure, SUSE is a contributing member of many communities that are defining the enterprise environments across platforms for cloud, highly available systems, container management, virtualization, development, and management. You can see a subset of the communities listed here, ranging from OpenStack and Cloud Foundry for the cloud, Kubernetes and the open container initiative for container management, DRBD and OpenSAF for high availability, KVM and the open virtualization alliance, and system and configuration management with YaST and Puppet.
• #10: Hosted by The Linux Foundation, the Open Mainframe Project’s focus areas are around Linux on Z and other opportunities to grow and to support the entire IBM Z ecosystem and its ambitions around open source. The project is looking ahead and asking what the mainframe will be in the future and how we can ensure it’s still here with vibrancy and a community still around it. Whether the general population realizes it, the mainframe is a crucial component of how our society functions, from issuing paychecks to purchasing anything from a coffee to a plane ticket. The platform’s sustainability is critical to more than just the success of the technology industry, and open source is the way to continue its legacy of innovation. The Open Mainframe Project is invested in internship and academic programs as well, and have included well over 100 different students during the last couple of years. Last summer, a class of 11 interns were involved with work around Cloud Foundry, Kubernetes, OpenStack and other open-source projects. The program is driving real talent with students who have the acumen to make a long-term difference in this industry. So, the Open Mainframe Project and associated communities see open source as a key part of the future of Z and LinuxONE, already having positive impacts on the ecosystem.