Dynamic Infrastructure on LinuxONE

Back at the writing desk after busy weeks. It is always amazing to step back and think about what had been new discovered in the past.

Currently there is one topic I hear and talk a lot about. Infrastructure as Code (IaC). Now why is Infrastructure as Code a topic for the Mainframe.

Isn't this what a mainframe is?

If you said yes, then maybe you have some bias. As I mentioned in earlier posts, the mainframe did not stop at the system it was in the 50's or 60's it evolved and changed itself as you can see here...

Still, what do I want to do with Infrastructure as Code and the mainframe? Isn't that not a lot of less frequent updated software and environments?

That might be true, but the Mainframe is not just the Mainframe. The same is true for Infrastructure. What stands Infrastructure for?

In some environments, like the cloud, the real hardware is abstract and virtualised that often, the real hardware is far away from the application. And so multiple layers of Infrastructure are established, depending on how you look at the environment. An application developer building a container based application may see Kubernetes or OCP as their Infrastructure where others see the VSI they get from a cloud provider as the Infrastructure.

On the mainframe you can have the same situation as well. Based on the strong Hypervisor's (stacked on each other) on the LinuxONE it is possible to abstract the runtime of an application developer to hide the real hardware it runs on.

LinuxONE gives an Infrastructure management team the ability to define flexibility as well as self service to their development and application teams, I need to add, without loosing the strengths of the platform.

But let me first dive into how IaC is done in the industry so far and why it is done. Many people talk about Pets vs Cattle. Which I heard most often within the Kubernetes context. It explains the difference between software which you need to care a lot vs software you more want to treat like a replaceable resource.

There is a second analogy more describing on where we come from rather than using animals. If you think about the industrial revolution, there the previous method to build something was hand crafted products, hand made every thing a unique element, similar but different and it took. a lot of time to build each of it. With mass production the automation or simplification of the production steps enabled manufacturers to build more in less time with a constant quality. The same is happening in IT for several years. We are going from hand build and deployed environments to repeatable, prescriptive environments. Where Infrastructure as Code plays a central role. In my mind a good point of view on the topic is located here https://www.ibm.com/topics/infrastructure-as-code

Tools like Terraform or Ansible enable infrastructure, software management in a repeatable and movable format and build the base for environments based on IaC. In my view Terraform and Ansible go hand in hand, they have overlapping capabilities. They have a broad adaption in the market, private and public cloud.

And yes it is possible to use these on LinuxONE to manage your environment. The IBM Cloud Infrastructure Center (ICIC) is a private Cloud management system available for IBM LinuxONE. With ICIC customers can build a VMWare like Virtual Maschine management environment on LinuxONE. I will describe more in my next writeup.

To show you IaC is nothing new on the LinuxONE and IBM Z platform you can look at Rosalind Radcliffe talk from 2019. She explained the capabilities at that point in time, already talking about the important reasons why this should be adopted and is important.

zOS and IaC 2019