When we found ourselves in between 2 crisis last year (which we did not know back then of course), I could not help being very optimistic about the future of Linux on the Mainframe. IBM announced fantastic numbers of IFL's sold, budgets looked positive and many felt it was the right time to do things differently. And for good reasons!
Good reasons? Very good reasons!!! With all the news around Cloud, people had to re-think the way they would "do" IT in the next decade. Add to this all the problems with energy bills and datacentre space, "green" thinking and an IT Infrastructure that was more complex than ever, what more reasons would we need?
But somehow, many Mainframers either took the decision that the current status quo was just the right thing for them, or that fighting to get not only workload back to the mainframe, but solving some serious IT issues in the process simply wasn't worth it.
Don't get me wrong, I know how hard it is to make a business case. How terribly difficult it can be to get the numbers you need from people who are not willing to cooperate. I know there are variables (how many distributed servers can I actually replace with 3 IFL's?) that are not easy to calculate. And I know that there political nuts to crack, people to convince, reports to be written.
But come on guys and girls... Is this the first time that we have to do things like this? Was IMS simply replaced by DB2? Was SNA simply replaced by TCP/IP? Have we forgotten how difficult some of the trials were to get new software in that would make our lives easier, save cost and make us look better? I have worked in this business for 25+ years and probably went through more of this than most of you. So I know the passion that some of you demonstrated when you really wanted the best for the company and I remember every lost trial as if it happened yesterday. And while writing this, I realized that I remember the few lost ones better than the many we "won" because of the emotions involved....
Real changes come with blood, sweat and tears. They require passion, courage and a bit of risk taking and bluff. The people who have implemented Linux on the Mainframe have no regrets. They saved the company precious datacentre space, made key applications more reliable and faster, reduced the number of network components and by taking workload off distributed servers, they managed to make IT less complex. Oh, by the way, they also saved the company a lot of money...
So, if you read this, and you know your company has IFL's, but they are (virtual) shelf ware, AND you do not fit any of the descriptions I mentioned in this article, let me know why these IFL's are not used. Let me know what is keeping you from installing Linux's on there and use them for what they were meant to do. But most importantly, let me know if what can be done to help you.
Here is what WE can do to help you: register here http://bit.ly/rZBDA7 for a 3-series webcast on how to use Linux on System z in a holistic, pragmatic and effective way.