In the present edition we will have a very important guest: a Mainframe architecture Data Processing Centre.
A mainframe is a big-sized computer mainly designed for huge data amount treatment. It is chiefly used for banking appliances, value market, airlines and air traffic, and also as the very centre in companies with a great deal of invoicing. It is definitely a huge computer, both because of the data amount it can manage and also because of the space it requires.
As every computer does, it has a processor, memoryand its I/O channels to which we can connect any device we need (drives, tapes, terminals, printers, and so on.) In our case, the processor, the memory and the I/O channels system go inside a closet and the rest of devices in different closets all of them connected through ESCON (17 MB/seg) or FICON (2 Gb/Seg)fibre optics channels.
Sistema de discos ESS-800 (izquierda) y Parallel Enterprise Server Generation 6 (derecha)
What really makes Mainframe architecture interesting apart from its strength and soundness is its logical partitions management system or LPAR. Each LPAR can bear a different OS, so that it can externally be seen as different machines, with a very high processing power. In our case all of our LPAR will have different GNU/Linux varieties such as Debian and SuSE.
HARDWARE
In this edition there will be two interconnected Mainframe systems: En esta edición, se llevarán dos sistemas mainframe interconectados entre sí: an IBM 9672-X47 Parallel Enterprise Server Generation 6 central processor, cooled Freon 12 gas, with a 618 MIPS power and on the other hand an IBM 2066-001 zSeries 800, air-cooled with a 192 MIPS power, under a Parallel Sysplex configuration, therefore both machines will be working paralelly.
Procesador IBM zSeries 800
That's why we will rely on two IBM 9032 ESCON Director systems, which will act as fibre switches to make posible for both machines to share resources such as drives, tapes and I/O channels.
Unidades 9032 ESCON Director (las dos de la derecha)
As far as drives are concerned, there will be two drives systems: an IBM 2105-F20 “Shark” with 128 36 GB drives under a SSA-RAID5 configuration, and the other system will be an IBM 2105-800 “TotalStorage” with 32 72 GB drives and 16 147 GB drives, under SSA-RAID-5 configurations. Both will be connected through 8 2 GB/Seg FICON channels.
Sistema de Discos IBM ESS 2105-F20 “Shark”
As for tapes, there will also be two systems: an IBM 3490E-A20 with 4 3490E-B40 closets, which makes 16 cartridge units, and a 1972 system IBM 3420 consisting of 4 coil tape unit which are really fascinating to see..
Unidades de Cinta IBM 3420 (de 1972) y Unidades de cartuchos 3490E
Last but not least, regarding connectiveness, both processors have 4 SX fibre Gigabit Ethernet cards which guarantees connectiveness. There will also be two 10/100 cooper cards but these will remain for the Mainframes inner LAN and to perform some demonstrations.
SOFTWARE
The Mainframe will provide the 4096 attendants with several services such as Direct- Connect, inner FTP, and free software sharing. Anyway the amount of services offered will depend on the organisers' needs. So as to do this, the zSeries machine will have 2 or 3 SuSE Linux 10 Enterprise LPAR, and the Generation 6 system will have 4 GNU/Linux Debian installed LPAR to be able to live up to everybody's expectations.
