Programming Languages on Power

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.NET on Power

  • 1.  .NET on Power

    IBM Champion
    Posted Fri September 23, 2022 03:53 AM
    Hi, 

    As you can see here PowerPC and AIX support · Issue #10055 · dotnet/runtime
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    PowerPC and AIX support · Issue #10055 · dotnet/runtime
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    .net is on the way to Power via Redhat Openshift. 

    My questions is very open. Do you think this is hot as lava, or is .NET already a dying language? (I get both responses when I talk to ISV's about this..)

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    Torbjörn Appehl
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    Torbjörn Appehl
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  • 2.  RE: .NET on Power

    IBM Champion
    Posted Mon September 26, 2022 03:51 AM
    Not hot, not dying. I know schools which teach C# as a primary language. I know many programmers who use DotNet. But frankly speaking I didn't see a lot of demand in DotNet on Power or specifically on AIX. But it might be because I'm blind :-) As for me DotNet on Power could help to port Github Runner to Power and connect Github infrastructure to the best hardware platform in the world.

    Anyway I'm very glad that DotNet is coming to Power - more programming languages help to strengthen the ecosystem.

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    Andrey Klyachkin

    https://www.power-devops.com
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  • 3.  RE: .NET on Power

    IBM Champion
    Posted Mon September 26, 2022 04:09 AM
    Not blind perhaps, but this idea is so new and it will take time for people to start thinking bout what this could mean. For example, for IBM i customers, many solutions around the core application runs on .NET today. 99% on the old school .NET Framework version that has to be converted to "Core" first, but tis is something Microsoft are stressing them to do already. 
    To kick out x86 servers is a hobby for many, and this will help for sure..

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    Torbjörn Appehl
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  • 4.  RE: .NET on Power

    Posted Tue September 27, 2022 10:09 AM
    Most likely, there is no demand for this... as Dotnet just doesn't work on AIX
    Within the x86/x64 and arm64 world, Dotnet is very, VERY used

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    Alexandre Bencz
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  • 5.  RE: .NET on Power

    IBM Champion
    Posted Wed September 28, 2022 03:19 AM

    Well, often there are application layers on x86 talking to the Oracle or Db2 database on AIX. To just load a Redhat lpar on the often unused cpu resources on the same box and run the .NET application would be quite cool, don't you think?



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    Torbjörn Appehl
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  • 6.  RE: .NET on Power

    IBM Champion
    Posted Thu September 29, 2022 02:13 AM
    Edited by Lionel Clavien Thu September 29, 2022 02:23 AM
    It would, definitively. This means consolidation and costs/resources savings.
    But I unfortunately doubt ISVs are concerned about IT sprawl and all the bad things linked to it.. ;)

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    Lionel Clavien, PhD
    IBM Champion for Power
    CTO & Co-founder
    InnoBoost SA
    Lausanne, Switzerland
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  • 7.  RE: .NET on Power

    IBM Champion
    Posted Thu September 29, 2022 02:50 AM
    Not really. Higher total cost for their solution makes them less competitive. Sme.UP in Italy for example reduced the number of x86 servers needed to a minimum by converting to opensource running on IBM i, making their sales staff happy :)

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    Torbjörn Appehl
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  • 8.  RE: .NET on Power

    IBM Champion
    Posted Thu September 29, 2022 03:22 AM
    This is one example. Is it really representative of all ISVs?
    I fear we have still some work to do to convince them of being responsible... ;)

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    Lionel Clavien, PhD
    IBM Champion for Power
    CTO & Co-founder
    InnoBoost SA
    Lausanne, Switzerland
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  • 9.  RE: .NET on Power

    IBM Champion
    Posted Thu September 29, 2022 03:50 AM
    Well, all or not. First I am going after the ones who are open for new solutions to keep cost down for example.. So far 100% of the ones I've reached out to about the early adoption program for .NET on Power has responded positively. This might not be representative either though..

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    Torbjörn Appehl
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  • 10.  RE: .NET on Power

    IBM Champion
    Posted Wed September 28, 2022 03:40 AM

    Well, the whole thread is about support of .NET on AIX... So there should be demand once the technology is available.

    As Andrey mentioned, we need the framework available on ppc64le (AIX & Linux) for the ISVs to be at least able to move to Power, should they want/need to.

    --

    Lionel Clavien, PhD
    CTO & Co-founder
    +41 79 559 7121
    InnoBoost SA
    EPFL Innovation Park
    B??timent E, Module 007
    CH-1015 Lausanne






  • 11.  RE: .NET on Power

    Posted Thu October 06, 2022 09:47 AM

    Hello,

    What OS is the most used one for new projects (on Power) ?
    Why AIX and not Linux where we have already MONO (the .NET for Linux).
    What will be the benefit to use AIX in place of Ubuntu for ppc64le for example ?

    Best regards,
    Georgi  



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    Georgi Todorov
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  • 12.  RE: .NET on Power

    IBM Champion
    Posted Thu October 06, 2022 09:48 AM
    I have some mixed feelings about it. Probably both are true to a degree. I mean .NET (mono) support was available on Linux for quite some time, but it never really took off even on x86. Yes, there are some applications, developers migrating from Windows to Linux were happy to see a familiar looking language. But that is all.

    There is a mass exodus from Windows web servers to Linux in the past years. Many times the web applications are not really migrated but developed from scratch on Linux again in other programming languages. However, I heard about a bank, where Windows web applications were moved with minimal changes to an OpenShift + mono environment. It saved quite a lot of time and effort, compared to developing everything again from scratch. So, yes, .NET in a non-Windows environment is a thing, and in  a really well paying environment: banks. But it seems to be a minority, and Power would be a minority within this minority.

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    Peter Czanik
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  • 13.  RE: .NET on Power

    Posted Thu October 06, 2022 10:47 AM
    I think that Mono was very limited compared to the power of .NET Core (not just .NET).

    Also, considering the major performance improvements that Microsoft has introduced in the latest versions (6 and 7 mainly), I think the demand for .NET on OpenShift will most likely increase in the next couple years.


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    Paulo Ricardo Stradioti
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  • 14.  RE: .NET on Power

    Posted Thu October 06, 2022 03:16 PM
    Just for clarity, the preview of .NET work is for .NET on Linux on Power (not AIX or IBM i, at least not from our team) and there is the current limitation that we are doing the mono runtime only at this point, not the coreclr runtime which is where MS has been putting a lot of their performance investment.  We are hoping to get to coreclr "next" but we don't have a time frame or committed date on that as yet.  However, we are seeing a LOT of requests from customers - mostly mid-size/regional banks for the .NET capability.  As with many things, we chose the mono runtime first because it is quicker/easier to port and should provide all of the functionality although it may not have the performance that coreclr will show on Intel.  Also, we are planning on delivering this as a container initially, especially for our "tech preview" uses, which makes it ideal for use within OpenShift, as well as hopefully integrating with Red Hat's Dev Spaces (IDE) environment in the future.

    Just my $0.22.  ;)

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    Gerrit
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  • 15.  RE: .NET on Power

    IBM Champion
    Posted Thu October 06, 2022 04:09 PM
    Hi Gerrit,

    Since Mono on ppc64le has been available for some years (tested it successfully on an AC922 2-3 years ago), what is the difference with the work your team is currently carrying on? Is Janani (https://github.com/janani66) part of that team?

    Thanks,

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    Lionel Clavien, PhD
    IBM Champion for Power
    CTO & Co-founder
    InnoBoost SA
    Lausanne, Switzerland
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  • 16.  RE: .NET on Power

    Posted Thu October 06, 2022 07:25 PM
    Hey Lionel, so the Mono port that you refer to was based on (I believe) dotNet 3 - MS with their re-architecting of the dot net code base (after the acquisition of Ximian (sp?)) merged the external mono code base with their previously proprietary code base and released pretty much all of the core of .Net as version 6 last year, and version 7 is in RC now.  All of the changes our team has made (and yes, Janani is my team lead for the port) are currently upstream and in .Net 7 RC.  We are still tracking down a few defects found while running the native build or some of the tests but we have a running demo that a couple of customers are trying as a technology preview.  It is pretty much just build from upstream, although the process is awkward enough that most people probably don't want to do that, even though they could.

    Since MS integrated two code bases, they have two runtimes now - the original MS formerly-propriety coreclr and the evolution of the previously open source Mono.  We have NOT ported coreclr at this point, only Mono, but that should get us full functionality, possibly missing some performance benefits in the runtime that MS focuses on the most.

    I hope this helps, but definitely shout out if you have further questions!

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    Gerrit
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