Linux has been running on IBM Z servers for decades. Since acquiring Red Hat, IBM has been working to make parts of the Red Hat portfolio, including Ansible and OpenShift, a family of containerization software products supported by Red Hat, available to mainframe users.
The OpenShift Container Platform is an on-premises platform built around containers, which are managed by Kubernetes using RHEL. Red Hat OpenShift includes enterprise-grade Linux OS, container runtime, networking, monitoring, registry, and authentication solutions.
OpenShift on IBM Z for LinuxONE allows organizations to accelerate transformation with integrated tooling in an on-premises infrastructure built for security, resiliency, and 99.999% availability. IBM Z and LinuxONE, along with RHEL, are designed to meet Federal Information Processing Standards (FIPS) 140-2 Level 4 requirements with cryptographic and key protection, ensuring a security-rich solution.
Learn “What’s New on RHOCP on IBM Z & LinuxONE.” Watch the Webinar
By allowing organizations to scale vertically and horizontally to millions of containers on a single system, IBM Z and LinuxONE provide superior economics. IDC predicted that Red Hat Enterprise Linux would save financial services industry companies $7 billion in a single year and provide more than $1 trillion in economic benefits.
Here’s an overview of 3 ways Red Hat solutions help companies using Linux on the mainframe or LinuxONE save money and boost profits.
1) Reducing Software Costs
Red Hat OpenShift provides a consistent application platform for management of cloud-native applications running on any cloud infrastructure, whether on-premises or off-premises. Forrester found that combining legacy application modernization with the IBM and Red Hat platform decreases software license costs in financial services by $17 million.
The IBM and Red Hat platform reduces the costs associated with the risk from hardware, cloud, and software lock-in. IBM Z users of Red Hat OpenShift were able to leverage both companies’ catalogues of services and test AI, machine learning, and blockchain capabilities while using leading open-source components, such as Linux and Kubernetes.
2) Supporting Innovation
Developing new applications and getting them to the market is a profit center for many companies, so adopting Dev/Ops for mainframe is an area of potential growth for them. Red Hat OpenShift empowers organizations to develop and deploy new applications more quickly. Ansible also automates Dev/Ops through workflow orchestration.
Using Red Hat solutions for the mainframe makes it easier to develop applications in the mainframe and makes mainframe data accessible to containerized applications. Now, mainframe users can accelerate the development of applications that live on the mainframe or need to access mainframe data.
These applications can be developed for the mainframe, keeping the mainframe relevant and profitable. According to Forrester, companies that used IBM and Red Hat were able to recoup their investment in less than 3 years.
3) Improving Productivity
Not only does Red Hat spur innovation for mainframe users, but it also positively affects the economics of the business by reducing operating expenses while boosting productivity in financial services. According to IBM, Red Hat enhances reliability, avoiding $15 million in costs of downtime.
Co-located containers improve throughput and reduce latency while allowing teams to manage a single consistent platform. KVM is a supported virtualization option that allows users to leverage current skills when migrating from an x86 based infrastructure.
Using IBM Z with Red Hat improves productivity, job satisfaction, and retention for developers. Platform and operations administrators also experience significant increases in productivity because of streamlined management, monitoring, and automation.
Red Hat Ansible empowers companies with mainframes to automate many management and maintenance functions, saving on operational costs and freeing company employees to focus on the core business. z/OS applications can be automated using Ansible.
Teaming up IBM Z and Red Hat
Taking advantage of the economic and operational benefits of IBM Z and Red Hat requires finding the right technology partner.
At PSR, we are dedicated entirely to the mainframe, helping users optimize mainframe while saving money. We are an IBM Platinum Partner and the only partner focusing exclusively on IBM Z, ensuring that you get the most out of the IBM/Red Hat synergy.
Get the best application quality by understanding what the Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform (RHOCP) is doing to keep your service quality high. Watch the IBM Webinar Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform Performance, Quality & Best Practices.