http://www.openmainframecommunity.org/news/ en roger.bowler@turbohercules.com Copyright 2010 2010-04-06T15:55:10-08:00 http://www.turbohercules.com/news/permalink/a-statement-from-roger-bowler-about-hercules-and-ibm/ http://www.turbohercules.com/news/permalink/a-statement-from-roger-bowler-about-hercules-and-ibm/ As many of you know, the company I founded to promote the Hercules open source mainframe emulator, TurboHercules SAS, has filed an antitrust complaint against IBM with the European Commission in Brussels. We are not asking that IBM be subjected to punishing fines or anything like that. We simply want IBM to agree to allow legitimate paying customers of its z/OS mainframe operating system to deploy that software on the hardware platforms of their choice – including, should they so choose, on low-cost servers using Intel or AMD microprocessors and Hercules. I want to make clear that we undertook this action reluctantly, and only after a long period of reflection during which we reached out to IBM to see if there was some way to resolve our differences amicably. I regret to report that IBM rebuffed our efforts at conciliation, and even added fuel to the fire by launching accusations against Hercules. I would like to take this opportunity to respond to some of those charges. First let me deal with IBM’s claim that we at TurboHercules are “not really any different from those who seek to market cheap knock-offs of brand-name clothing or apparel”. To that I would like to say, Hercules is not a fake Gucci handbag. Hercules has never pretended to be an IBM-brand product, and no customer would ever mistake it for such.  Hercules is a third-party, open source software-based emulator developed in good faith using IBM’s published documentation of its z/Architecture. I know from personal experience that among the thousands of satisfied users of Hercules over the years more than a few have been IBM employees. There was even a time when IBM thought highly enough of it to publish a friendly and quite detailed chapter in one of its famous Redbooks explaining how to use Hercules. This Redbook was freely distributed in print and on IBM’s web site for several years, until one day the Hercules chapter was silently deleted. Since that time of course IBM has launched its own mainframe emulator (zPDT) in competition with Hercules. Readers may draw their own conclusions as to whose software is the “knock-off” and whose is the real thing. IBM says that TurboHercules seeks a free ride on IBM’s “massive investments in the mainframe by marketing systems that attempt to mimic the functionality” of its machines. By the same logic, one might very well charge that Linux is nothing more than an attempt to “mimic” the functionality of UNIX. Suppliers of UNIX systems such as IBM, HP and Sun have undoubtedly invested large sums over many years in developing these platforms. Is it therefore wrong for Red Hat and SUSE to offer users a less expensive “UNIX -like” operating system that has the conspicuous advantage of being open source and of being able to run on just about any server the user pleases? IBM have found Linux a very useful tool for pursuing their commercial aims, and I do not think that IBM would call Linux a “cheap knock-off”. Both Linux and Hercules are examples of the kind of low-cost innovation that outsiders can bring to the IT industry. It is very strange for IBM to insist that others no longer have the right to emulate its mainframe instruction set. The entire IT industry is built on the premise that every participant has the right to interoperate on an equal footing with the interfaces published by other participants. For 25 years IBM competed vigorously in the mainframe market with the likes of Amdahl, Fujitsu and Hitachi, and it did not accuse them of “mimicking” its architecture, but on the contrary gladly sold its sophisticated and very expensive mainframe software to any and all customers who purchased “plug compatible” mainframes. The plug compatible industry was based on the fact that IBM’s hardware interfaces were open. It was up to each company to design its own implementation, and competition was fierce.  In those days IBM didn’t object to the principle of free competition and open interfaces, and this was a good thing for customers. Likewise, it would never have occurred to me to attempt a software emulation of the IBM mainframe if IBM itself did not publish thousands of pages of very detailed documentation explaining precisely how to do that. And TurboHercules is far from being the only company to offer emulation software as an alternative to certain kinds of hardware. As a service to its customers, Apple includes a piece of software known as Rosetta with every Macintosh that enables its current Intel-based machines to emulate its older machines based on IBM’s PowerPC. I understand that IBM uses this very same emulation software, which it acquired from a company called Transitive, to allow owners of Linux applications compiled for Intel processors to run these binaries unchanged on IBM Power servers. If IBM itself considers emulation legitimate in its own products, am I not entitled to conclude that what’s good for the goose is good for the gander? But I don’t wish to portray this issue as merely a dispute between my tiny company and IBM. Much more is at stake. Let us remember that IBM is not the only stakeholder in the vast ecosystem that has grown up around its mainframes. This ecosystem not only earns IBM well-deserved profits on its past investments, but also provides the infrastructure for many of the world’s most important business applications and – last but not least – employment for tens of thousands of highly skilled people, most of whom do not work for IBM. From the very beginning of the Hercules project, it has been my desire to serve this broader mainframe ecosystem. Tiny TurboHercules is not going to bring down mighty IBM or the mainframe technology of which it is rightfully proud. But we are stirring things up a little with innovations that IBM itself did not see fit to bring to the market. Now with the launch of zPDT even IBM has recognized the value of being able to run the mainframe software stack on common Intel hardware. Who can deny that this is an important step forward, one that will certainly serve to enlarge the mainframe ecosystem rather than diminish it? What TurboHercules offers today is an innovative and very low-cost Disaster Recovery option for mainframe sites that cannot afford a second mainframe or a third party service. This is a customer need that IBM for whatever reason has chosen not to serve. Naturally we hope to go beyond this solution one day to address other unmet needs of mainframe users. For example, some users might find it useful to run their z/OS applications with VMware on the same Intel servers used by their Linux and Windows applications. Hercules can make this possible. In these times when the words “we’re trying to get off the mainframe” are heard all too often, Hercules will also give users a reason to stay on the mainframe and to buy more of IBM’s mainframe operating systems, middleware and other software. But it can only do this if IBM accepts that users who pay for its software ought to have the right to choose what hardware they want to run it on. IBM complains in its press statement in response to our antitrust filing that we “seek to use governmental intervention” to advance our interests. However, we acted only as a matter of last resort.  Indeed, just a few days before we filed the complaint with the European Commission, Mr. Mark Anzani, the CTO of IBM’s mainframe division, wrote to me to allege that the open source Hercules emulator may have violated no fewer than 173 of IBM’s patents or patent applications. Not only is this accusation untrue, but it flagrantly violates IBM’s many past promises not to use its patents as a weapon against open source. At least two of the patents on Mr. Anzani’s list even figure on IBM’s famous pledge of non-assertion of 500 of its patents against open source issued in 2005. Advancing our interests? I see it as defending our right to exist against a company that wields the world’s largest patent portfolio as a weapon against competitors thousands of times smaller than itself. IBM also accuses TurboHercules of cooperating with Microsoft. Bearing in mind that Hercules works very well indeed on both Linux and Windows, not to mention the Macintosh, we are indeed quite happy to cooperate with Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard, Unisys, Dell, Intel, AMD or anyone else who wants to work with us. We would be delighted to cooperate with IBM, if offered the chance. For example, since Hercules is written in C, it would be quite simple to port it to the Power platform, where it would offer a very cost-effective way of running z/OS together with AIX.  I’d bet that more than a few IBM customers would be interested in doing this. Finally, IBM says in its reply to our filing that “the mainframe is a small niche in the overall server market”. I can’t imagine why the IBM mainframe division allowed their publicists to say such a thing. I am very sure they don’t believe it, and neither do I. On the contrary, I believe that, popular wisdom notwithstanding, the vast IBM mainframe ecosystem has many prosperous years ahead of it, and I am confident that TurboHercules will succeed by serving the interests of all stakeholders in this system. Download the PDF   Announcements, Commentary 2010-04-06T14:55:10-08:00 http://www.turbohercules.com/news/permalink/turbohercules-next-step/ http://www.turbohercules.com/news/permalink/turbohercules-next-step/ The growth of the Hercules mainframe emulator from a one man project into a production-capable system demonstrates the power of open source software development, which IBM has rightly recognized by embracing Linux as a key part of their future strategy. As the founder of the Hercules project, I can state with confidence that our emulator is in no way an enemy of IBM.  In fact, the Hercules project is made up of some of the biggest mainframe fans on the planet. We are people who have spent our entire careers learning the ins and outs of this architecture, and we want nothing more than to see it thrive far into the future.  Mainframes are now so deeply embedded in the infrastructure of modern society that they are too important to be left in the hands of a single company (IBM). Applications and business data that run on IBM’s mainframe software are among the most valuable in use by the world’s largest corporations and government agencies.   By IBM’s own estimation, $5 trillion worth of applications run on IBM mainframes.  These highly proprietary applications, which have typically been developed over many years and embed an incalculable wealth of company-specific business knowledge, cannot be easily migrated to other platforms. Even with all the talk about Linux on the mainframe, the reality is over 90% of mainframe applications still use native mainframe operating systems such as z/OS and languages such as COBOL, PL/I or Assembler. The Hercules open source project team created the Hercules emulator in order to give the owners of this hugely valuable installed base of mainframe applications freedom of choice in the hardware systems used with this software. The extraordinary performance and reliability offered by the current generation of multi-core 64-bit processor technology from Intel and AMD make emulation a viable alternative for many mainframe applications.  There is no reason why mainframe application owners should not be allowed to benefit from these technologies when they match their needs. That they are not presently available is due solely to IBM’s needlessly restrictive licensing policies regarding the use of z/OS and other IBM mainframe system software on non-IBM hardware. We at TurboHercules abhor all forms of software piracy, and have the utmost respect for the valuable intellectual property embedded in IBM’s mainframe software. We ask only that IBM allow the customers who purchase that software to deploy it on the hardware platforms of their choice. IBM claims that the mainframe represents only a tiny percentage of worldwide server shipments.  But this isn’t quite the whole story  because as IBM never tires of repeating, the mainframe is an entirely different animal from Linux, UNIX or Windows servers. No other architecture in the world performs as many business critical transactions each day or stores as large a share of the world’s most important corporate data. Viewed in this light, the fact that IBM today owns 100% of the IBM-compatible mainframe market cannot be explained away as something not worthy of concern. This monopoly position is without precedent in the history of the mainframe – indeed, for decades mainframe customers benefitted from the competition resulting from manufacturers of mainframe hardware compatible with the IBM architecture.  But no more. Today, thanks to its use of lawsuits, preemptive takeovers and threats against would-be competitors, IBM is the only vendor in the world allowed to sell hardware systems compatible with applications that run on its vast suite of mainframe software (e.g. z/OS, z/VM, CICS, IMS, DB2). The outcome that we at TurboHercules hope for is a return to the competitive market for mainframe technologies that existed in the ‘80s and ‘90s, where IBM licensed its operating systems to customers of the Plug Compatible Mainframe (PCM) manufacturers such as Hitachi and Fujitsu/Amdahl. To this end, I wrote to IBM in July of last year asking that it allow customers to acquire z/OS licenses for use with the Hercules open source emulator, with the understanding that pricing and conditions would be set “by IBM at the sole discretion of IBM on reasonable and fair terms.” After four months of silence, in November 2009  I received a reply from Mr. Mark Anzani, CTO of IBM’s mainframe division, that not only rejected our request, but went on to accuse Hercules of “infringing” IBM’s intellectual property.  Let me state as forcefully as possible that, regardless of one’s stance on the morality of a giant IT vendor such as IBM threatening patent action against a small open source project such as Hercules, we do not believe that the Hercules emulator violates IBM intellectual property.  We wrote back immediately to Mr. Anzani to express our surprise that, after ten years during which Hercules has acquired thousands of users around the world, including many within the ranks of IBM itself, IBM has now suddenly discovered that we are violating its intellectual property.  In our reply we asked that IBM identify the specific property we allegedly violated in order that we could investigate that claim.  In the unlikely event that IBM’s assertions were found to have merit, we asked further that IBM consider adding such intellectual property to their much-publicized and deservedly admired “non-assertion” pledge to the open source community – the “IBM Statement of Non-Assertion of Named Patents Against OSS” published at http://www.ibm.com/ibm/licensing/patents/pledgedpatents.pdf. Given this situation, TurboHercules has reluctantly taken the step of filing a complaint asking the European Commission to restore free and fair competition to the IBM mainframe market. Mainframe customers should be permitted to run the applications and data that they own, and in many cases developed, on the computer hardware of their choice. It is my sincere belief that TurboHercules will contribute to the growth and longevity of the mainframe ecosystem upon which so many depend. Download the PDF Announcements, Commentary 2010-03-23T08:47:52-08:00 http://www.turbohercules.com/news/permalink/random-thoughts-from-share-denver/ http://www.turbohercules.com/news/permalink/random-thoughts-from-share-denver/ This week the IBM faithful are gathered in Denver at the semi-annual SHARE Conference.  I have been attending a cross section of sessions to get an overall idea of the state of the mainframe world today.  What follows are some of the bits of information that I have gathered so far. The zNextGen project This is a volunteer project aimed at making it easier to enter the mainframe world.  It is comprised of a wide variety of current “mainframers” as well as others who can help the transition from computing in general to the mainframe community.  There is an emphasis on education so a significant number of the zNextGen project members are also educators from schools all over the world.IBM is assisting the educational aspect of the project in two ways:  One, they are supplying curriculum for free.  There are no strings attached, the educator can use the material in any fashion they like for their own programs.  This is very helpful to most educators who are strapped for time to do curriculum development for new programs.Two, IBM is making time available on their two data centers in the US so that the students can get some hands-on experience.  While this is useful, having your compute facilities half a country away is not too practical.  Unfortunately most educational institutions cannot afford their own mainframe, so, up till now, it was the only choice.The advent of TurboHercules changes the picture completely.  It is now possible to deliver an emulated mainframe for each classroom (if you want to share locally).  If the educator wants to take it a step further, you can configure an emulated mainframe for each student since many computer labs have a workstation computer for each student or pair of students.  The educators are excited about the possibility of a more “hands-on” experience for the student especially since it makes for a more satisfying educational experience overall. Who Knew? One of the more surprising bits of knowledge I have encountered so far is the number of folks at SHARE who know about and have had personal experience with the Hercules emulator.  Many are using it for a personal “sandbox” to test bits of code and JCL here and there.  Even more surprising is the number of IBM folks who know about the capabilities of the emulator.  When they mention it as an alternative way of running code (mainly zLinux of course), I am a bit shocked. The Rock and the Hard Place Another theme that surfaced was the current status of many of the state and local government IT departments.  On one hand their budgets are either fixed or shrinking.  On the other, they are being asked to be more responsive to their customers (the taxpayers).  Actually “asked” isn’t the correct phrase; it’s “required by law.”  This came up in conversations I had with several mainframe administrators from counties and other local government entities  from around the US.  It seems that some of the appointed officials can go to jail if they don’t meet the requirements of the new laws so there is a sense of urgency here!One problem the administrator has is disaster recovery and business continuity.  The new Federal laws state that each government entity has to provide their services in a timely manner, even in the event of a disaster.  If the mainframe happens to go down as a result of the disaster, the state/county/city is supposed to have an alternate way to provide mainframe services.  At the moment these state/county/city budgets cannot possibly cover a second mainframe for the disaster recovery site, let alone the annual maintenance on it.To accommodate disaster recovery the IBM license can be transferred to an alternate machine in the event that the original machine is inoperable.  Therefore these administrators are now thinking that they can utilize a TurboHercules-based system at their disaster recovery site to provide mainframe services during the outage of their primary machine.  Needless to say, the cost of the TurboHercules based machine is well within their budget while still providing the same level of service as the original mainframe. Linux on the Mainframe Just based on a count of session titles, I’m thinking that Linux is making serious inroads on the mainframe.  IBM seems to be pushing z/Linux as a “companion” operating system running on the same box as their flagship z/OS.  There are many applications better suited to Linux than z/OS, but they can be run on the same system utilizing the virtualization capabilities of the mainframe.  The claim is that the customer can consolidate the Linux-based applications from a large number of smaller, distributed systems into a single mainframe that is running at a much higher load average.  It’s a compelling argument for many. Commentary 2009-08-27T19:54:39-08:00 http://www.turbohercules.com/news/permalink/using-turbohercules-for-disaster-recovery/ http://www.turbohercules.com/news/permalink/using-turbohercules-for-disaster-recovery/ “Be Prepared” applies as much to a good disaster recovery plan as it has ever applied to the Boy Scouts.  One aspect of the preparation involves the generation and verification of an up-to-date set of backup tapes.  This article explains the TurboHercules mechanisms for keeping your backup tapes and backup machine up-to-date and ready to go in the event of an outage of your mainframe. Download the PDF The Problem Most  mainframe sites create regular backups of the data and programs on their mainframe.  The rationale is that, if the mainframe becomes unavailable for any reason, these tapes can be used to load up an alternate machine and continue business.   So far so good.Unfortunately many of these same sites never fully test the backup tapes they create for a variety of reasons (not enough mainframe time available, full test would disrupt operations, etc).  So they are taking the functionality of the backup tapes as a given once they are created.  This is a risky approach since the failure of any one of the tapes in a series could potentially wipe out your ability to restore the entire series.  Of course, you could revert to an earlier set of tapes assuming you have them, but now you have a patchwork image that has some files more up-to-date than others. The TurboHercules Approach This problem can be solved by using TurboHercules as your disaster recovery/business continuity solution. The Ancillary Mainframe TurboHercules provides an alternate mainframe that you can run on in the event that your regular mainframe becomes inoperable for any reason (fire, flood, electrical outage, etc).  This alternate mainframe has all of the functionality of the mainframe it is configured to backup.  All that is needed is an up-to-date copy of the information on the regular mainframe.  Once loaded, the TurboHercules alternate can be powered up and IPL’ed within minutes to provide business continuity. Keeping Your Ancillary Mainframe Up-To-Date Keeping your TurboHercules mainframe up-to-date is a straightforward process. On your regular mainframe perform your backups to tape or virtual tape in the usual manner.  We will be using an alternate package of software on the TurboHercules machine to verify the backups and not your mainframe itself.  Therefore, you have the ability to perform these backups on a much more regular basis, even hourly, if desired. Once the backup tapes or tape images are complete, you move them to the TurboHercules system where they will be verified and loaded into the emulated disk images.  Please note that during the entire backup/verify/restore process, we will not be running a copy of your mainframe OS.  All of the work is carried out by a series of standalone applications running on the TurboHercules system.  In effect, the TurboHercules system is configured as a cold backup to your mainframe. Once the images are loaded into the emulated disks on your TurboHercules system, it is ready for operation.  If there is a failure with your regular mainframe, the TurboHercules system can be IPLed and brought on-line with data that is as up-to-date as your last backup. As mentioned earlier, the backup/verification/restoration process can easily be automated, especially if you are using a virtual tape library as your mainframe backup destination. The Failover When the “event” occurs and your mainframe is rendered inoperable, you move your communications lines to the TurboHercules system as planned, turn on and IPL the TurboHercules machine from its virtual DASD devices and continue operations.  A properly scripted failover could easily be performed from cold in less than 5-10 minutes depending on the people running the exercise. Going Back Once the regular mainframe or mainframe environment has been repaired you will need to reverse the process detailed above.  At a convenient time you perform a complete backup of the TurboHercules system to tape or virtual tape.  You then move the communications lines back to the regular mainframe, IPL from the tape images, restore the machine and go back to operations as usual. Tech Info, User Scenarios 2009-07-30T22:14:17-08:00 http://www.turbohercules.com/news/permalink/welcome-to-turbohercules/ http://www.turbohercules.com/news/permalink/welcome-to-turbohercules/ When I began writing Hercules in May 1999, it was intended to be a system programmer’s plaything. Little did I expect that, 10 years later, and thanks to the power of open source, Hercules would have grown into a robust, production-capable platform comparable in performance to a low-end modern mainframe. The mainframe world has seen many changes over those 10 years. The plug-compatible manufacturers Fujitsu-Amdahl and Hitachi exited the market in the year 2000, other mainframe emulation products have come and gone, and the audacious startup Platform Solutions was swallowed by IBM in 2008. Now only Hercules remains as the alternative platform for running mainframe software. With increasing numbers of smaller customers asking how they can keep their mainframe running for regulatory and other reasons, without upgrading to expensive hardware and operating systems, the time was ripe to launch a commercial offering based on Hercules. TurboHercules was formed to provide such companies with commercial support for a Hercules based solution for their ancillary mainframe workloads. TurboHercules is independent of the Hercules project, which remains firmly an open-source product owned and maintained by its individual contributors. One of the first challenges for TurboHercules will be to obtain a satisfactory licensing arrangement which will permit current mainframe operating systems to be run on commodity OEM hardware (as was the case up until the year 2000). This will benefit not only Hercules users but any other OEM which may choose to enter the market. These are going to be interesting times for the mainframe. Announcements, Commentary 2009-04-24T20:11:46-08:00