IBM updates desktop mainframe emulator

IBM has updated its mainframe emulators to bring them into line with its recently released Z16 machines and operating system. Big Blue's emulators are called the "IBM Z Development and Test Environment", of which version 14.0.0 debuted yesterday. The software runs on x86 servers or desktops. IBM hasn't updated its hardware …

[Mainframe Bloke]

Same here

I thought I'd see what the perpetual licence cost and yes, it also jumped from $975 to $11,700. Two-year up front charge for perpetual licence seems not a terrible deal, as long as there are upgrades included, which I kind of doubt...Also this is USD so it would be double for AUD I suppose.

cheers

[MyffyW]

Re: Same here

Think I'll sit this one out whilst waiting for the sorry logic "Also this is USD so it would be double for GBP" to become reality.

[Pascal Monett]

Perpetual licence

Well, if it costs $11K but the yearly license costs $5K, I'd say that's still a deal.

[ColinPa]

Some people buy a car on retirement..

Some people buy a new car on retirement.. I bought a zD&T system. I consider it a good deal, more fun than any car.

I spent my working life on the mainframe, and with zD&T I have been into so many interesting new areas.

It would be good if it was even less expensive - we could get youngsters into it. I remember telling some new graduates "I was involved in 'cloud' and virtualisation 40+ years ago - the rest of the world has now caught up!" We had a pool of second level VM machines, you selected which mini disks of products you wanted ( CICS, IMS etc). ipled and away you went.

[ICL1900-G3]

Re: Some people buy a car on retirement..

Wonderful! I would love one, but just can't afford it. Good for you!

[ChoHag]

Translation

> It cannot be used for code refactoring or re-engineering with the intention to re-platform existing z/OS based applications

Do not even allow yourself to think about other vendors.

No walled *garden* here.

[karlkarl]

Re: Translation

Is that clause even legal? It certainly doesn't seem enforcable.

[Roland6]

Re: Translation

Well for a "Test and Dev" environment, my eye's were caught by this limitation:

"The load module or object code compiled on IBM Z Development and Test Environment cannot be promoted to production."

So what I'm testing isn't a production ready system build. I presume the dev compilers etc. insert dev and test friendly handles etc. into the code. Hence why you would want to recompile using a production ready toolkit.

[Paul 195]

Or I guess you could purchase Enterprise Server licenses from Micro Focus, as that will let you run production workloads.

[Michael Wojcik]

Well, I wouldn't want to discourage anyone from giving us money, but... While Enterprise Server emulates a lot of zOS features, it certainly doesn't offer all of them. And some things aren't supported for production use (they're dev-and-test only), such as our z assembly emulation.

And similarly while you could use ES to experiment with CICS, JCL, IMS, and so on, we don't have ISPF, for example, or CMS. So it lacks the sort of nostalgic mainframe experience that you might get with Hercules and old free versions of IBM OSes.

[John Brown (no body)]

I came here to ask about the restrictions stated in the article. You seem to be confirming that those restrictions are because the emulator is different to the real thing rather than them simply being licence restrictions. Thanks for that.

[heyrick]

Sorry, dear reader, if that quashed your dreams of a fully featured desktop mainframe.

I'm surprised there's no open source emulator that offers the features. There are emulators for just about everything else.

[Anonymous Coward]

Hercules to the rescue!

Whilst not strictly allowed, in any legal sense due to IBM licensing, it is possible to get z/OS running on Hercules with full networking running… I’ve done it myself in the past. Just have to do a bit of creative digging to find the disk images which if I remember correctly are around 20GB or so in size to download

You can also choose to run MVS so you’ve got a fully functioning mainframe running on open source OS which is perfectly legal!

[Roland6]

Re: Hercules to the rescue!

>the disk images which if I remember correctly are around 20GB or so in size to download

Disk images? its an IBM mainframe, that's probably a mag tape image.

[Management Order]

Couldn't a hobbies/individual just use Hercules and use the spare change to buy a pint instead of paying real money to Big Blue? http://www.hercules-390.org

[ColinPa]

Yes, you can use Hercules, buy you need the software to run on it. There is some old os/390, VM/390 stuff around that can run on it. Anything modern needs a license from IBM. The $6K cost is for this modern software. For which you get z/OS, CICS, IMS, DB2, TCPIP, ZOSMF, WAS. etc that's a lot of software!

It's a bit like paying for a windows license, and having to pay for office, and other products that you use.

[Wilco]

Everything about this is wrong

So many layers of wrongness.

Hardware vendor lock in, OS vendor lock in (yes I know you can run Linux on sytem/z, but what's the point?), dev tool vendor lock in, idiotic pricing model designed to discourage people from developing for this platform.

IBM is dead as Cleese's parrot - see https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/IBM/ibm/revenue - it's nailed to its perch with mainframe revenues. If they actually believed in their platform they'd make emulators free and encourage everyone to come play in their wonderful walled garden.

[GuldenNL]

Re: Everything about this is wrong

I’m chuckling as I hear the sales spiel, “Comfy deck chairs cheap! You will not find a better value on the Titanic, I guarantee it!”

[Michael Wojcik]

Re: Everything about this is wrong

There are a lot of shops running zLinux – there wouldn't be any point in IBM selling zLinux accelerators (IFLs) otherwise. There are shops running Micro Focus Enterprise Server on zLinux, emulating other mainframe environments on the mainframe.

You might not see the point, but clearly a number of other people do.

[J. Cook]

I know that's one reason why we are moving away from our iSeries. (aka AS/400); there's no test or dev environment outside of a test instance that runs side by side on the production box, and getting a third set of hardware for training is just ludacrisly expensive.

[jlturriff]

z/OS, blah... give me z/VM!

As a 30-year IBM mainframe veteran, I'm still experiencing withdrawal after my retirement, because I can't find a text-editor as user-friendly, flexible and extendable (with Rexx) as VM/CMS's Xedit. I have been wishing for years for an emulated z/VM system that I could use for my personal hobby work, but the closest available so far is pre-Xedit VM/370. :-(