Q&A: Does IBM's zLinux Solutions Edition Go Far Enough?

When IBM announced its Solution Edition of packaged software solutions for the System z mainframe in July 2009, it had to meet two key customer objectives. On the one hand, the Solution Editions offering needed to create a significant life-cycle cost savings over buying the hardware, software, and services à la carte, but at the same time had to still maintain the mission-critical benefits inherent in System z's reliability, availability, and serviceability feature/functionality infrastructure sweet spots. While the first set of Solution Edition offerings did just that, it was biased toward the z/OS-led customer base. IBM's new Solution Edition for Enterprise Linux, however, now addresses firms interested in running Linux workloads on z. This broadens IBM's Trojan horse strategy in offering a strong Linux applications consolidation target, while at the same time enticing third-party Linux vendors who have typically generated software license and maintenance revenue from an all x86-led high volume server footprint alternative.