[HN Gopher] IBM Power10's Memory Inception Clustering (2021)
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IBM Power10's Memory Inception Clustering (2021)
Author : tony-allan
Score : 34 points
Date : 2022-10-05 12:18 UTC (2 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.nextplatform.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.nextplatform.com)
| naikrovek wrote:
| I am kind of annoyed that I am just now learning about how
| mainframes are designed in 2022, at a time when it is IMPOSSIBLE
| to dip a toe into the water without already having a job doing
| the work.
|
| No free developer OS distributions or licenses, (so no way to run
| them on an emulator), no freely available emulators for modern
| hardware & OS releases, nothing.
|
| Mainframe vendors, I feel, are kind of shooting themselves in the
| foot with this "screw the developers, they gotta PAY" mentality
| around this insanely expensive mainframe kit. How am I ever to
| learn this stuff well enough to advocate for it at work, if I
| can't use it and learn it in my own time? This feels like step 0
| in trying to bring users to a platform, dying or not.
|
| This article and others all show that a lot of the capabilities
| and redundancy requirements that we are trying to develop in PC
| architectures (amd64, arm64 & RISCV; are there more?) have been
| present in mainframes for decades, and that's an exciting thing
| to learn, not just because I want to write software that runs on
| reliable hardware, but because as a nerd this is... like ...TURBO
| interesting!
|
| IBM and HP just block any newbies from doing anything of value
| because they're stuck in 1960s & 1970s pricing paradigms back
| when mainframes were all there was, so you HAD to pay if you
| wanted to compute at scale.
|
| This whole situation bothers me. This is very neat technology and
| it's behind a massive paywall that no end-user could ever afford
| without a very large windfall.
| nix23 wrote:
| >No free developer OS distributions or licenses, (so no way to
| run them on an emulator), no freely available emulators for
| modern hardware & OS releases, nothing.
|
| Distro:
|
| https://wotho.ethz.ch/tk4-/
|
| Update to Distro:
|
| http://www.prince-webdesign.nl/index.php/software/update-on-...
|
| Emulator:
|
| https://github.com/SDL-Hercules-390/hyperion
|
| It's a MVS TK4- distribution and probably 99% of a z/OS
| functionality plus it's Public Domain.
|
| Or VM/370 another Public Domain OS from IBM:
|
| http://www.vm370.org/vm
|
| Or even better you run MVS TK4- inside VM/370...for the real
| taste ;)
|
| But if you really really want z/OS (i have no clue why you
| would do that) you click here:
|
| https://www.ibm.com/it-infrastructure/z/education/zxplore
|
| (Formerly know as Master the Mainframe)
|
| And some yt's to have a little base-knowledge (mostly MVS and
| VM/370):
|
| https://www.youtube.com/c/moshix
| naikrovek wrote:
| here we go, thank you!
| js8 wrote:
| > It's a MVS TK4- distribution and probably 99% of a z/OS
| functionality plus it's Public Domain.
|
| MVS TK4- is very old compared to z/OS. It's like comparing
| Berkeley Unix to Linux. Yeah, the system calls are similar
| but there is so much missing. Not to mention, to understand
| mainframes, you really need access to the whole SW ecosystem,
| which includes stuff like DB2, CICS, MQ, IMS.. these are
| building blocks for applications.
| nix23 wrote:
| True, but you can install KICKS instead of CICS ;)
|
| But you are right, if you want that, got to zexplore. If
| you want a taste of Mainframes then MVS and VM/370 are a
| excellent starting point.
|
| BTW: If you understand "Berkeley Unix...whatever that is"
| then Linux is a piece of cake...not that ~much has changed.
| js8 wrote:
| As somebody developing on z/OS, I feel for you, and I am not
| alone. It sucks not to be able to run those systems as a hobby.
| (Although I don't think the pricing model is the culprit
| necessarily, companies are willing to pay a lot for the clouds
| too.)
|
| The mainframes are also becoming more opaque as time goes on,
| IBM is less willing to publicly document OS and HW internals,
| and they are less customizable than they used to be. But that's
| the business trend, and life, I guess.
|
| But yeah, the article reminded me of the new cache architecture
| on z16, where many processors can share their L2 caches to have
| a single coherent cache.
| naikrovek wrote:
| > Although I don't think the pricing model is the culprit
| necessarily, companies are willing to pay a lot for the
| clouds too.
|
| yes, but that's a lot of small, cheap bits all put together.
| the minimum required to get going on the cloud is $0. with a
| mainframe, there is a minimum amount of hardware required and
| that amount of hardware costs 6-7 figures, USD$.
|
| > new cache architecture on z16, where many processors can
| share their L2 caches to have a single coherent cache.
|
| as a PC person my entire career, that is a mind-blowing thing
| to read.
|
| the interconnections required to make that perform well
| enough to be useful must be insane. I WANNA PLAY, DAMMIT lol
| js8 wrote:
| https://www.anandtech.com/show/16924/did-ibm-just-preview-
| th...
|
| I think if it works out, it will eventually come to PCs as
| well.
| naikrovek wrote:
| well the z16 is out, so someone knows if the 40%
| performance improvement per core is true or not.
|
| if you were trying to dampen my enthusiasm for learning
| mainframe technology, you've failed, sir (or madam).
| icedchai wrote:
| You can run z/OS on the Hercules emulator. It is a violation
| of the license, however I doubt that will bother a hobbyist
| much.
|
| Here's someone's blog explaining how:
| https://famicoman.com/2018/06/28/emulating-a-z-os-
| mainframe-...
| naikrovek wrote:
| yes, an old version of zOS that you can't download without
| a license, and I have zero idea how to even install the OS.
|
| I want something official, supported, and free or cheap to
| acquire and free to use for (at least) development.
| icedchai wrote:
| Understood. I installed that old version a couple years
| ago. Unfortunately, I had no idea how to use it and the
| documentation I found wasn't the best, so I moved on to
| something else.
| nix23 wrote:
| >and I have zero idea how to even install the OS.
|
| You definitely lack motivation, maybe search for
| something else then Mainframes then? ;)
| naikrovek wrote:
| I am speaking in the present tense, not future tense.
|
| I don't CURRENTLY know how to install z/OS. this says
| exactly nothing about the future or my motivation.
|
| I do have ADHD though, so motivation to do anything is
| often in short supply with the current Adderall shortage.
| sometimes I can hyper-focus on a thing if I am highly
| interested and this ability has both carried me through
| my career and held me back significantly. surface level
| knowledge is pretty easy. median expertise requires a
| good few days of hyperfocus. a few days (6 or less) is
| the most I get, so expert level knowledge is perpetually
| out of reach, even when I am very interested in the topic
| :(
|
| so I guess you've got a point. I am somewhat of a slave
| to this condition, and this is why it is an ADA-
| recognized disability.
| js8 wrote:
| Look for z/OS ADCD on torrent sites, older (no longer
| supported) z/OS versions are sometimes out there. The
| DASD images can be easily configured and IPLed in
| Hercules.
|
| More modern version (the one that come with zPDT emulator
| package) cannot be pirated anymore.
|
| I wish IBM at least made the no longer supported z/OS
| versions legal. No sane company would dare to run their
| mainframe stuff without IBM support, anyway. I think they
| are really shooting themselves to the foot, but hey, no
| executive today thinks long-term.
| naikrovek wrote:
| > no executive today thinks long-term
|
| 100% agree. 101% even.
| wmf wrote:
| Obligatory "Power is not mainframe" reminder.
| nix23 wrote:
| Power is Mainframe (the cores are power) too, with a OS/370
| Microcode layer on top of it, with a layer of z/VM Microcode
| Code on top that (for LPARS etc), and then the installed z/OS
| or Z/VM and inside Z/VM a Z/OS, Z/VSE OR yes really another
| Z/VM.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5jOlO1vSBzE
|
| >we run MVS 3.8 on top of VM/370, on top of zLinux, on top of
| z/VM, on top of an LPAR, on a real iron IBM mainframe.
| js8 wrote:
| Mainframe CPUs
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Telum_(microprocessor)
| for instance) are physically different processors than
| Power. (Although it is likely that IBM shares the many
| internal design parts among both of these.)
| nix23 wrote:
| Yes they are NOT PowerCPU's but the core's are based on
| the power architecture with ++ and secret sauce.
| wmf wrote:
| There's really not that much shared between Power and z
| cores.
| wmf wrote:
| None of this is correct.
| [deleted]
| protomyth wrote:
| I dearly wish IBM would have a low cost box that allowed
| programmers to get familiar with the machines. At this point,
| their whole business is really reliant on existing companies.
| It doesn't even have to have all of the fancy hardware, just
| enough to get an actual environment up. This goes for the i
| Series as well as the z.
| neverartful wrote:
| I agree. However, I believe that there are some within IBM
| and also at customer mainframe shops who like it this way
| because they believe there's an additional layer of security
| through obscurity.
| js8 wrote:
| > However, I believe that there are some within IBM and
| also at customer mainframe shops who like it this way
| because they believe there's an additional layer of
| security through obscurity.
|
| This mindset is changing in the recent years. There is more
| information how to hack z/OS than ever, and IBM is trying
| to fix the weaknesses (for example, discourage custom
| authorized code, scan existing customer and vendor
| applications for vulnerabilities, etc.). So they are
| realizing that obscurity is too little protection for a
| determined attacker.
| naikrovek wrote:
| yes, exactly. encourage innovation here, please, IBM & HP.
| accessibility is key
| wmf wrote:
| Their "low cost" option is a $5,500 emulator. https://www.the
| register.com/2022/09/28/ibm_mainframe_test_de...
| naikrovek wrote:
| not exactly "low cost" to anyone I know.
| Quequau wrote:
| I go through this experience every time HotChips releases their
| talks on YouTube.
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