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A comment on The IBM mainframe: How it runs and why it survives. Parent comment

Re:The IBM mainframe: How it runs and why it survives by bob1029 on Monday July 24, 2023 @02:18PM (#36852157)
I've always looked at IBM like an even more extreme version of Microsoft. I'd probably have us on their path if the cost and knowledge weren't a massive barrier to entry. I know IBM has some cloud thing for us baby startups, but I sure as hell can't figure out how to use it or if our customers are even aware of it.

Vertical integration of the business into one magic box is a perpetual dream of mine. Bonus points if I can yell at exactly one vendor if anything goes wrong.

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Re:The IBM mainframe: How it runs and why it survives by rbanffy on Tuesday July 25, 2023 @07:07AM (#36860575)
I have tried numerous times to get a z/OS LPAR and an AIX VM without any luck. It's a complete mystery to me.
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Re:The IBM mainframe: How it runs and why it survives by neverartful on Tuesday July 25, 2023 @08:58AM (#36861546)
IBM probably doesn't make mainframe LPARs available over the internet because the cost of the LPAR would be cost prohibitive to any potential customer. On the other hand, a z/VM guest or an LPAR on POWER should absolutely be an option.
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Re:The IBM mainframe: How it runs and why it survives by rbanffy on Tuesday July 25, 2023 @01:38PM (#36866202)
They do. A z/OS with a single CPU and 4GB of RAM costs around $2000/month. It's a bit of a hassle, as you need to connect to its VPN and will need to add a public network gateway for your machine to see the world, but that's it. It could, of course, be just a tiny slice of z/OS running under a larger LPAR, but IIRC, LPARs can get really small. You can go as far as 16 vCPUs and 128GB of RAM for roughly $30K/month.

Last time I tried I had issues with the VPN and couldn't connect to it. I'll try again later. Another good thing about IBM cloud is that they embrace Terraform and you can download templates for just about everything they offer.

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