7.5. Why run Linux on z/VM?

The interest in Linux on the mainframe can be attributed to three things:

  • As a source of new technology for mainframe users

  • As an opportunity to reduce complexity when deploying an integrated server environment

  • As a possibility to host large server farms

z/VM is ideally suited to hosting an integrated Linux server environment, letting companies run applications across multiple images on a single hardware platform. Information technologists can exploit the benefits of having numerous images, each running only one application, and yet limit the costs associated with having unique hardware for each image, as shown in Figure 7-3.

Figure 7-3. Application images can be brought closer to the back-end z/OS (integrated environment) ...

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