The Linux operating system has its roots in UNIX, which is the operating system originally invented by AT&T in the 1970’s for their own internal use that they later shared with the world as an open-source operating system. IBM and AT&T jointly developed a version of UNIX for the IBM System/370 mainframe back in 1980. Unix on the mainframe eventually evolved into what is today called z/OS Unix System Services and is still available today.
Given that Unix, the progenitor of Linux, was already on the mainframe, it is no surprise that enterprise Linux distributions from SUSE and from Red Hat were ported to the mainframe the same year they entered the market. That was twenty years ago on September 15, 2000. Since then, IBM has continued to develop and evolve the mainframe to excel at running Linux workloads. Not only that, but Linux workloads have influenced changes in the design of the mainframe (IBM Z).
From cores that are dedicated to Linux to simultaneous multi-threading (SMT), from larger memory sizes and more cores to a Linux-only system on Z architecture (Happy 5th Birthday IBM LinuxONE!), from an evolution of the firmware-based hypervisor to adding support for internal Non-Volatile Memory Express (NVMe) storage, from secure enclaves up to 16 terabytes is size – more than a million times larger than x86 – to hardware-based trusted execution environments (TEEs) for confidential computing protecting Linux data at rest, in use, in flight, and at build, and from OpenStack to OpenShift (1st anniversary), Linux and OpenShift have helped shape today’s and tomorrow’s mainframe.
In the future you will see even more cloud orientation, infrastructure flexibility, on-chip capabilities, and ecosystem support for Linux and OpenShift exploitation on IBM Z and LinuxONE. Today, you can get the confidential computing environment that IBM Cloud has been using for two years and that the world's first financial services-ready public cloud. And you can deploy this confidential computing Linux environment on your premises with Linux on IBM Z and with IBM LinuxONE. Today.