Regarding Clouds, Mainframes, and Desktops … and Linux

Bob Sutor – VP, Open Source and Linux, IBM SWG
LinuxCon – 21 September, 2009

Regarding Clouds, Mainframes,
and Desktops … and Linux

© 2009 IBM Corporation

Bob Sutor: Regarding Clouds, Mainframes, and Desktops...and Linux

Abstract

 Linux is key to driving innovative new technology as well as
business models.
 It's shaking up the established view of which operating systems
should be used for what workloads, while slipping quietly under
some very cool new applications.
 In this talk, I'll focus on three areas of great opportunity as well as
challenge for Linux: the accelerating market for cloud computing,
Linux as a significant operating system for mainframes, and the
hope for Linux on the desktop.

2 © 2009 IBM Corporation


Agenda

 The cloud from a user's perspective

 Oh, yeah, my mainframe with Linux does that

 Possible futures for the Linux desktop

 Some 2008 predictions, one year later



Who is the user for cloud computing?

 Could be ...
– A user of a virtualized desktop on a thin or fat client.
– A non-technical end user who accesses services through a browser or
via applications such as disk backup to remote storage.
– A “cloud choreographer” who strings together cloud-based services to
implement business processes.
– A service provider who needs to handle peak load demands.
– A developer who employs dynamic resource allocation in clouds to
speed application or solution creation.
– An IT system administrator who does not build clouds but deploys onto
them, probably in addition to traditional managed systems.



What does a cloud computing user want?

 Cloud-friendly applications
 Resources: storage, processor, platform
 APIs: the more standard the better
 Interoperability among clouds (may learn of this need later)
 Reduced capital expense
 A good, workable pricing scheme
 Quality of service, including
– Availability
– Reliability
– Performance I don't think any one of these
contradicts the use of Linux, and
– Security they all potentially encourage it.
– Privacy



Case study: IBM internal cloud for developers

Without With
Cloud Cloud
100%
New Development
Liberated funding
for new Strategic
Software Costs development, Change
transformation Capacity
investment or
direct saving
Power Costs
Current
Case Study Results
Deployment (1-time)
IT Annual savings: $3.3M (84%)
Spend Labor Costs
(Operations and Software Costs $3.9M to $0.6M
Maintenance)
Power Costs
Hardware,
- 88.8%
labor & power
Labor Costs savings reduced
Hardware Costs - 80.7% annual cost of
(annualized) operation
Hardware Costs
by 83.8%
- 88.7%
Note: 3-Year Depreciation Period with 10% Discount Rate


What does a cloud computing provider need?

 Maximum practical use of resources: processors, memory, storage
 A good, workable pricing scheme
 Virtualization, virtualization, virtualization
 Acceptable licensing of operating systems being used
 Highly reusable skills of system administrators
 Minimal power used, heat generated, datacenter space needed

I don't think any one of these
contradicts the use of Linux, and
they all potentially encourage it.



What special about Linux here?

 Linux supports multiple hardware platforms
– Implementation span from embedded devices to supercomputers
– Speed of support for new platforms
– Availability of skills, portability of applications
– Scale-out through clustering as well as scale-up through SMP
 Linux has an affinity with virtualization and is being used in clouds
– Supported on all major hypervisors, from z/VM to VMware and Hyper-V
– Ability to be paravirtualized with Xen
– Inclusion of KVM as part of Linux
 Linux is flexible
– Modular and customizable, with flexible usage licensing
 Linux is developed by an open community
– Sharing skills and resources, leading to faster development


Agenda







Why people are using Linux on mainframes

 Virtualization was introduced commercially on IBM
mainframes in 1972.
 Hypervisor is integrated with the hardware
– Sharing of CPU, memory and I/O resources
– Virtual network and virtual I/O
 Reduced Total Cost of Ownership (TCO)
– Environmental savings – single footprint vs. hundreds of
servers
– Consolidation savings – less storage, fewer servers, fewer
software licenses, less server management/support
 Mainframe capabilities complement and enhance those
of Linux.



Why people are using Linux on mainframes

 Utilization often exceeds 90%
 Manageability of centralized Linux systems
 Typical deployment needs:
– High performance transaction processing
– I/O intensive workloads
– Large database serving
– High resiliency and security
– Unpredictable and highly variable workload spikes
– Low utilization infrastructure applications
– Rapid provisioning and re-provisioning
 Mainframe characteristics complement cloud user requirements



IBM's Project “Big Green”
Double compute
capacity with no
increase in consumption
or impact by 2010
 IBM will consolidate and virtualize
thousands of servers onto approximately 30
1997 Today IBM System z™ mainframes
 Substantial savings expected in multiple
CIOs 128 1 dimensions: energy, software and system
Host data centers 155 7
support costs
 The consolidated environment will use 80%
Web hosting centers 80 5
less energy and 85% less floor space
Network 31 1
 This transformation is enabled by the
Applications 15,000 4,700 System z sophisticated virtualization
capability

12 September 17, 2009 © 2009 IBM Corporation


Agenda







Possible futures for the Linux desktop

 It goes away.

 We stop using desktops, so who cares?

 The Linux desktop becomes a tactic instead of a strategy.

 One Linux desktop distribution ends up with 90% marketshare
among those using Linux desktops.

 One Linux desktop distribution ends up with 90% marketshare
among all desktops.

 We reach 33% / 33% / 33% parity with Microsoft® Windows® /
Apple® Mac OS® / Linux, plus or minus.



Possible futures for the Linux desktop

 We stop pretending that it will be a drop-in replacement for the
dominant desktop operating system, and make it something better.

 The enterprise sweet spot for Linux desktops is virtualized Linux
desktops.

 We focus on usability, stability, security, reliability, performance, with
some cool thrown in.

 It's the browser, stupid.



An application
running in a
virtualized Linux
desktop on a
Linux rich client.



Agenda







2008 Prediction 1
“Green” will drive significant initiatives in open source

Linux will help reduce energy consumption through server
consolidation, virtualization, load balancing and more efficient
resources management.

 This is happening as major customers such as banks move to
reduce their carbon footprints by consolidating onto mainframes,
often getting features such as disaster recovery as a bonus.
 Aside from tangential benefits of using Linux, I'm not seeing much
yet in the way of open source being applied to green initiatives in
a focused and specific way.



2008 Prediction 2
Linux will not be replaced

 I doubt anyone can seriously argue that any other open source
operating system has made significant inroads on the growing
installed base of Linux in the last year.

 Linux will be introduced to thousands more users via implementations
in mobile phones, though users may not know it.

 Much of the hot technological action is happening on Linux, such as
virtualization, and this will be essential for cloud computing.

 Linux will increasingly find itself competing against proprietary
virtualization technologies.

 Linux Inside?



2008 Prediction 3
Linux mindshare will be less x86 focused

 In the cloud, users may not know there is Linux Inside, much
less x86 Inside.
 From a device perspective, users will think less of operating
systems and chips, but more of user interfaces, media,
connectivity, applications, app stores, and coolness.
 Customers are more than capable of choosing the correct
hardware platform to match their planned workloads.
 The instability and uncertainty in the industry this year is
causing customers to re-evaluate their software/hardware
platforms and has been a great opportunity for Linux and
competitive winbacks.



2008 Prediction 7
Open standards will grab more attention

 The Open Document Format (ODF) is being approved for use in
more and more countries around the world.
 Recent adoptees include Malaysia, Norway, Ecuador, Venezuela,
Taiwan, Hungary, and Latvia.
 The Open Cloud Manifesto has over 250 companies and groups
supporting it.
 The industry and users will benefit the most from an emerging
technology when open standards are at the core, and there as early
as possible.



Finishing up ...

 Linux is at the center of the computing we have today and that which
we are building for tomorrow.
 I believe the Linux community and
leadership will rise to tackle
Mainframes
any challenges necessary to
meet and exceed
expectations.

Desktops Cloud



For more information ...

 IBM and Linux
http://www.ibm.com/linux/
 Linux on IBM System z
http://www.ibm.com/systems/z/os/linux/
 IBM Cloud Computing
http://www.ibm.com/cloud/
 Bob Sutor's blog
http://www.sutor.com/blog
 Open Cloud Manifesto
http://www.opencloudmanifesto.org/



Trademarks & Disclaimers
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Trademarks, see www.ibm.com/legal/copytrade.shtml: IBM, the IBM logo, BladeCenter, Calibrated Vectored Cooling, ClusterProven, Cool Blue, POWER,
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NOTES:
Linux penguin image courtesy of Larry Ewing ( lewing@isc.tamu.edu) and The GIMP
Any performance data contained in this document was determined in a controlled environment. Actual results may vary significantly and are dependent on
many factors including system hardware configuration and software design and configuration. Some measurements quoted in this document may have been
made on development-level systems. There is no guarantee these measurements will be the same on generally-available systems. Users of this document
should verify the applicable data for their specific environment.
IBM hardware products are manufactured from new parts, or new and serviceable used parts. Regardless, our warranty terms apply.

The information contained in this presentation is provided for informational purposes only. Although efforts were made to verify the completeness and accuracy
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All customer examples cited or described in this presentation are presented as illustrations of the manner in which some customers have used IBM products
and the results they may have achieved. Actual environmental costs and performance characteristics will vary depending on individual customer configurations
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This publication was produced in the United States. IBM may not offer the products, services or features discussed in this document in other countries, and the
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© 2009 IBM Corporation

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