Linux on IBM Z and LinuxONE

New Release: OpenBLAS 0.3.12

The latest release of OpenBLAS comes with substantial improvements for single precision matrix multiplication on IBM Z. Thanks to a hand-tuned compute kernel, the implementation makes optimal use of the IBM Z instruction set to provide a big performance benefit. As an algebra library implementing the BLAS interface (Basic Linear Algebra Subprograms), OpenBLAS is a central building block for AI and other compute-intensive workloads. In a Linux system, OpenBLAS serves as compute back-end for many functions in NumPy, SciPy, R, and Octave.

For further details, see the OpenBLAS 0.3.12 release notes here.

2020 Linux on IBM Z and LinuxONE Client Workshop, November 9-14

Get the latest news about the Linux exploitation and advantages of the IBM Z and LinuxONE platform in this technical 5 day workshop. Focusing also on new solutions and capabilities, such as Hybrid Cloud, Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform, Security, Performance, Networking and Virtualization presented by our development experts. We will start with introduction sessions on the first day, continue with 3 days of technical deep dive topics, and resume with the latest client experiences, and a panel discussion on the last day. You will also get a chance to interact directly with IBM developers and solution experts during the workshop.

Agenda highlights:

Introduction day

Linux on IBM Z and LinuxONE introduction and client stories
Virtualization options with Linux on IBM Z and LinuxONERed Hat OpenShift Container Platform in the Hybrid Cloud Strategy for IBM Z & LinuxONE
Cloud Paks for IBM Z overview

Deep dive sessions

What's new Linux on IBM Z and LinuxONE
z/VM Platform update
IBM Secure Execution for Linux - Introduction and Overview
Hyper Protect Virtual Server onPrem - Differences to Cloud
Red Hat OpenShift on IBM Z - Performance Experiences, Hints and Tips & Networking
Securing the Workloads on Red Hat OpenShift on IBM Z
IBM z15 Hardware Compression
Preparing for Multifactor Authentication for z/VM
Best Practices of Installing Red Hat OpenShift on IBM Z
Competitive application performance on Red Hat OpenShift
Cloud Paks for Data on IBM Z and LinuxONE
KVM Network Performance - Best Practices and Tuning Recommendations

Experiences and open discussion

Client experiences and lessons learned
Panel discussion for all

Date: November 9 - 13, 2020
Time schedule: 8:30 AM- 12:00 PM EDT / 2:30 - 6:00 PM CEST daily

Registration is open here till November 5.

New Release: Ubuntu 20.10

Ubuntu 20.10 is out! See the release notes here. Highlights from an IBM Z perspective include:

NVMe IPL support
SMC-R link failover aka link group support
Hardware compression and de-compression support, enabled by default for gzip up to compression level 6

For a more elaborate list of IBM Z-specific features, look here.

New Release: s390-tools v2.15

s390-tools v2.15 is out. This release is in support of Linux kernel 5.9.

The most notable change is the addition of a new tool called lsstp to display information about the current Server Time Protocol (STP) configuration, like co‐ordinated time network (CTN) ID, timing state and leap seconds.

Here is some sample output:

STP online:    yes
CTN ID:    STPM46
CTN type:    STP-only
Stratum: 2
Timing mode: STP
Timing state:    Synchronized
DST offset: 60
Timezone offset:    60
Time offset:    120
Active leap seconds: 27
Scheduled leap second: insertion at Thu, Dec 31 23:59:59 2020 UTC

Note: STP leap seconds scheduling support as indicated in the bottom line is a forthcoming feature of a future Linux kernel release, tentatively 5.10.

For further details, see the changelog.

SMC-Dv2 Compatibility Patches

z/OS announced SMC-Dv2 support here, see section "Shared Memory Communications Version 2 (SMCv2) multiple IP subnet support".

SMC-D v2 provides support for peers in different IP subnets, and eliminates the need to configure PNET IDs, simplifying the configuration significantly. Linux on Z support is being worked on.

When SMC-Dv2 is enabled in z/OS, a compatibility patch is required in Linux on Z, which is available in the following minimum Linux distribution levels:

RHEL 8.3, Linux kernel 4.18.0-228
SLES 15 SP2, Linux kernel 5.3.18-24.9.1
Ubuntu 20.04, Linux kernel 5.4.0-45.49

More to come!

New Release: smc-tools v1.3.1

smc-tools v1.3.1 is now available for download here (MD5: 85361dab8818a6d92433b489086a4655).
This is a bugfix release, see the included README for further details.

New Release: qclib v2.2.0

qclib v2.2.0 is now available for download here (MD5: 7ecf7a877750fa4c170922ac8e801065).
The main addition is two new commands:

zname: Prints information about the IBM Z model generation
zhypinfo: Prints information about virtualization layers

Here is some sample output to illustrate the capabilities:

$/zname -h

Usage: zname [OPTIONS]

Print information about IBM Z hardware.

-a, --all            Print all available information
    -c, --capacity       Print capacity information
-h, --help           Print usage information and exit
    -i, --cpuid          Print the CPU identifier
-m, --model          Print model information
    -n, --name           Print the model name (default)
-u, --manufacturer   Print manufacturer information

$ zname
IBM z15

$ zhypinfo -h

Usage: zhypinfo [OPTION]

Print information about virtualization layers on IBM Z.

-h, --help           Print usage information and exit
    -j, --json           Dump all available data in JSON format
    -l, --layers         Print number of layers
    -L, --levels         Print number of virtualization levels

$ zhypinfo
    # Layer_Type        Lvl Categ Name       IFLs    CPs    Total
----------------------------------------------------------------
3 z/VM-guest          1 GUEST R3545038      3      0      3
2 z/VM-hypervisor     1 HOST   BOER3545      2      1      3
    1 LPAR                0 GUEST R35LP45       2      1      3
    0 CEC                 0 HOST   P35          60      3     63

For more information, see the respective man pages and the included README.