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[036] z/OS: Your own modern mainframe for $5.28/hour
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- Опубликовано: 19 авг 2024
- IBM has opened up the z/OS development system images to everyone on the IBM Cloud. For a little over $5/hour we can play with z/OS 2.4 with DB2, CICS, and modern compilers. Just remember to delete the machine when you're done or you'll get a huge bill!
Now if only they'd bring back zD&T Learners Edition and make it quick and easy to order....
Documentation: www.ibm.com/do...
IBM Cloud: cloud.ibm.com/
Here's a useful page from the documentation that lists all of the installed software, environment names (e.g. the DB2 DSN), and ports (such as 10443 for the zOSMF web server): www.ibm.com/docs/en/wazi-aas/1.0.0?topic=vpc-configurations-in-zos-stock-images
Are there any HLL compilers that have HLL constructs (as opposed to in-line assembly or whatever) that expose the z/Architecture access register mechanism? I suppose what exists (if anything) is probably IBM proprietary and only available on z/OS, z/VM, etc?
I primarily work with IBM i, but it is sure interesting to see what strides the Z folks are making. Thanks!
Thanks Matthew! Your videos are always spot on and appreciated. I like the fact that you seem to be well prepared. I wish the other guy would.
Awesome, probably the first time ever that individuals have had the possibility of getting their own mainframe instance to play with!
A few things to explore in the future is the serial console which can give you some informative information about the IPL process as the server is starting but unreachable, and the also the ability to run operator messages. Also you may not want to lose your progress every time you delete the server, and there are cloud ways to maintain your boot disk, such as creating a snapshot. Nicely done video Matthew, thanks!
As far as I could tell, there wasn't a way to see the master console/IPL process. I couldn't see a way to make the serial console light up and work for that. Have you been able to?
But yes -- if you want to keep your work around but not pay for the instance, disk snapshots are a great way to keep the data around for a relatively low storage cost.
@@MatthewMainframes Yes, it should work, but maybe not very intuitive. First you need to make sure you have the right role for your account (Console Administrator) or the VSI serial console option will be greyed out. Once you select Serial Console and if you see its connected, you may have to press the Ctrl-L to refresh the serial console UI. If you just see a series of periods, the serial console is still starting. It talks a little about it here www.ibm.com/docs/en/wazi-aas/1.0.0?topic=vpc-connecting-zos-virtual-server-instances#getting-connected.
This reminds me of when I use to buy time on IBM 360's and 370's for $40 to $60 per hour
back in the 1980's. Then I became a Pc dealer and system builder(mfg custom pc's and servers). Then I replaced the IBM mainframes with $500 pc's and windows 3.1!!!
To me it's obvious that this is just an emulator(probably hercules) running on on chinese
made linovo server, passing it self off as an IBM Z system. Loading a container image
of Z/os probably on a red hat server.
IBM wouldn't allow that
It looks like IBM are making the same mistake with Cloud based mainframe as they did with on-premise. They simply made the cost too high. I was quite interested in playing with this but not at these prices. Good video though
Yeah, it's of limited use for hobbyists. When I think about how many hours I've poured into becoming proficient at MVS 3.8, it's certainly not affordable to put that many hours into z/OS at this price point.
Yep. IBM, with all the strides they've made, could get those of us who truly love this platform to be evangelists, BUT the cost.... So dumb,. .Such narrow thinking.
I think the point here they state with these prices is that it's not targeted for hobbyists but for corporations already owning an on-premises mainframe trying to migrate it to a cloud mainframe (as a service). I can see how this can be attractive for those enterprise companies.
they don’t want people playing with these because their security model and marketing materials depends on security through obscurity
Wazi = Web Accessible Z instance. That's my guess, I'm probably wrong!
Works for me!
The price is definitely NAZI: Non Affordable Z instance.
To copy with translation, try "-O" option on 'ssh'.
As of summer 2022, SSH switched to using SFTP protocol rather than SCP protocol under the covers. But "-O" (capital O) will change it back to the prior behavior which *does* translate A/E and vice versa.
I've been going around in circles for ages trying to get reasonably-priced access to IBM z/OS for self-directed learning, and failing every time. ZD&T Personal Edition is beyond my budget. ZD&T Learners Edition requires completing IBM Z Xplore, and doing a couple of Coursera courses (which I completed) before you can even apply for the Learners Edition, which seems to have disappeared entirely. Short of setting up an instance on IBM Cloud and sharing the cost between 30 people to bring the cost down to something more affordable, I don't know where to go next. It's hugely frustrating.
I agree 100%. I'm in the same boat. I started looking a few weeks ago and can't find anything easy providing access. I'm willing to pay per month, but it seems IBM is not interested in having people learn, or in my case, re-learn their mainframe technology. It's like a secret society.
Wait a few years and all this will be free.
It is ludicrous to charge for computing power nowadays.
IBM is still doing it's dinosaur thinking.
The honest answer for both of you is that this does exist but you have to work for it, and that's the way IBM and their customers like it.
The way to get a free (real) mainframe login that is relatively unrestricted (not system programmer level permissions, but enough to play with most of the major parts of the OS and the various subsystems) is to start zXplore and progress through till you get to extended. It really isn't difficult at all in my opinion. A competent programmer could do it in two or three days.
Once you get extended they take off the leash and let you login via a 3270 session. There's sometimes discussion on the forums about various things people are playing with that are well beyond what the actual exercises cover (some retired professionals, some current professionals, some advanced students, it's a varied group of people), and the zXplore admins are mostly very accepting and supportive of that, and will offer advice and even do you some favors if it isn't too much trouble, like install a different version of some software and stuff like that.
So that's what I'd recommend if you really want an affordable account on a mainframe. All it takes is to prove you are willing to exhibit a bare minimum amount of technical competence and effort.
As far as getting into the "secret society", that's one of the ways. It's a very small community of us inside the secret society and we all mostly know each other, it would not be hard for you to gain a lot of visibility and people are very supportive of newcomers generally speaking.
I love the CN tower art
It would probably be the most hobbyst friendly if they charged for the actual performance (amount of instructions executed), not for the runtime. That would probably be the cheapest option since as hobbysts we don't need a lot of performance out of it.
I suspect there wouldn't be too much difference in performance/instructions executed for a lot of hobbyists and a lot of IBM's commercial customers for this. These instances aren't for production workloads or even production builds; it's mostly just for developers having their own sandbox to hook up their RDz tools to for development and testing. I don't think any usage-based pricing would end up being hobbyist-friendly; IBM really needs to bring back the idea of the free or low-cost option for something like the zD&T emulator. If they package it up correctly and make it easy to buy and download, it would cost them practically nothing and yet make every Z hobbyist thrilled.
Run some JCL and Compile some COBOL and what is offered in the ispf option 3. ?
Thanks for this informatiive and useful video, appreciate it. Any more videos to get better understanding /working on MF, i:e create LPAR, CPC and memory mgmt, IODF etc will be grateful.
Woah, the cost of z/OS! Imagine paying for a 200 PU z16 mainframe...
So 45K American dollars per year?
Wow great video, could you maybe show/tell us how to connect to the DB2 z/OS instance from DBeaver for example? Is it directly running and can you connect to it with the floating ip port: 50000, but with what user?
I figured it out, the connection can be made on port 8102. The Database/Schema = DBD1LOC. You will have to add a custom property sslConnection=true. Also you will have to add a license file next to the driver and add the certificate in the certificate store (DBVisualizer will do this automaticly for you)
Thank you Matthew for an excellent video. I to am looking for an IBM Z environment. Looks like it has everything I need. CICS, DB2, JCL, etc. Does the Cloud run z/OS 16 ? I think they call it Z16. That was released in April 2022. Good work.
Glad you enjoyed the video! I believe the z/OS cloud instances are currently still running z/OS 2.4 on z15 hardware. (Both z/OS 2.5 software and z16 hardware are now out. I suspect z/OS 2.5 images will be coming along soon but I'm guessing it'll be a while before IBM replaces their z15 hardware with z16 in the cloud offering... who knows, though, maybe they'll make it available for an extra charge sooner rather than later.)
@@MatthewMainframes , excellent information. So Z15 and Z16 are hardware upgrade terminology and the 2.4 and 2.5 are the operating system changes. Good to know. Also thanks for the explore link. I think I would prefer to create a virtual machine.
What can you actually do with z/OS? Run massive databases?
Waste $5/hr apparently lol
For OMVS or OSHELL, quit from ISPF, getting back to a TSO command prompt, and then try 'omvs' or 'oshell'. I have not done either in a lllooonnnggg time. SSH is way easier.
Just wondering, the billing for using Wazi is for each user separately or for some users in the same group at the same time (using the same IP address) until I delete the VSI? Thanks
The cloud instance just has its hourly charge; the billing system has no idea what you do inside the system, how many users you add to Wazi, etc. It's just like an AWS EC2 instance, a GCP compute instance, etc.
I have not deeply investigated any licensing terms related to IBM Cloud's z/OS offering, so I don't know what constraints, if any, they say there are on production use, multiple users, etc. But in terms of pricing for the instance, no, it's one price no matter what you do with it.
@@MatthewMainframes Thanks, very useful response.
Another question you might know, there once was a IBM Developer environment that was "free" sandbox. I have an IBM Developer'd id but not really seeing how to setup an environment like this IBM Cloud method. Are there two places we can play in the sand? Thanks for the guidance.
I'm not sure about developer offerings (but I do believe there are some short-term use VMs you can get for free if you're a PartnerWorld member), but IBM Z Xplore is free for everyone and if you sign up you'll get an account on a mainframe that has some compilers and DB2 that you can use: www.ibm.com/it-infrastructure/z/education/zxplore (There are some contests and other things that are only open to students, but they let anyone sign up and go through the education materials.)
mathrutech has real z/OS for 50$ a month, rather than 5$ an hour, that's a steal from IBM. (i think it's a refurbished mainframe in India). Has CICS too, but no USS. (so no ssh to it unfortunately)
consider X3270 as an alternative to C3270
X3270 is the only 3270 emulator that I run.
Friends are fond of VIsta 3270, which is excellent, and there are many others. But X3270 is ubiquitous: any Unix/Linux/POSIX system can run it.
Hello, Can one run z/VM in the VPC? Why? Allow individual system programmers to protype local changes to z/VM. Can one obtain the source code for z?VM in the VPC (or does one have to upload the source code, etc?
What about using Hercules emulator?
That runs on your desktop or laptop.
Well, among other things, IBM doesn't license any of their current operating systems to run under Hercules.
Why don't they create a stripped down training wheel version of Z/OS for learners? In a VM?
?@@MatthewMainframes
@@cbbcbb6803A good question for IBM! I think the Powers The Be just don't care. Their mindset is very different and from an era when "you don't need to know what you don't need to know" was prevalent in commercial mainframe shops.
IBM very briefly offered a "learners edition" of their ZD&T product for only $150/year. You had to jump through some silly hoops to qualify for it, but it wasn't too onerous. However, IBM quickly terminated the learners edition as soon as a bunch of people showed interest in it.
Hi, how to opt, please help me?
well, either getting a second hand mainframe or collecting stamps...that's cheaper as hobby...
$3,000 a month ...still cheap compared to aviation, lol a cessna 172 and instructor comes out to about $3 a minute here...
I'll second that! 4 years ago it was closer to $2/min
Great video, but I wonder what kind of machine I could have by more than 3800 dollars per month? What about a Linux 64 core, 15TB of m.2 attached SSD 2TB of Hi-performance EBS volumes, 512GB RAM and 37Gbps network bandwidth for less than 2600$ per month? IBM is just milking the mainframe to death.
Yeah... for most of the companies that still have mainframes, there is *no* reason to still have to use mainframes other than their software is stuck on them. The bulk of the IBM mainframe business is just milking those customers for all they're worth until they can finally -- maybe -- someday migrate off.
There is a lot more to choosing a mainframe than simple gamer-PC marketing numbers, and IBM has been offering linux mainframes for more than a decade so software lock-in is not the primary factor.
$5/hr is nothing for a company that is already paying $1000/hr to a dev team and IBM probably wants the rate high enough to discourage production instances on this service because it is intended for testing.
IBM is still living in 1960’s.
I think they've _mostly_ moved on to the '70s, but... yes.
Pay IBM $5.28 per hour or use MVS for free?????? I'll stick with my 4 mvs TK4 mainframes
on each of my laptops and PC's. Gee I can run 32 mainfraine images(folders) for free
or pay IBM??? I'll stick with my MVS MAINFRAMES!!!!
But... Who may need such thing now?
I guess, not you. It is too costly.