Understanding the Endianess and the benefits Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Power, little endian

Transcription

1 Filipe Miranda Global Lead for Red Hat Products on IBM z Systems and Power Systems Red Hat Inc. Understanding the Endianess and the benefits Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Power, little endian 9.0

2 Topics for this session Red Hat in a nutshell Overview of the collaboration between Red Hat and IBM Understanding the Endianess Linux on IBM Power Systems - Advantages of Running Linux on Power Systems - Advantages of Little Endian RHEV for Power - Welcome to the Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization - Advantages of RHEV for Power - Red Hat strategy for Power Systems

3 Red Hat in a Nutshell * Red Hat Client Data, 2014

4 Red Hat and IBM Collaboration More than 13 years of collaboration between Red Hat and IBM to offer choice to our customers: Red Hat Enterprise Linux Certified on all IBM platforms z Systems

5 Understanding Endianess 9.0

6 Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.1 Beta "Customers who are using the IBM Power Systems platform as part of their datacenter infrastructure, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.1 beta now includes support for POWER8 on IBM Power Systems (based on little endian)."

7 Endianess What is endian and endianness? The terms endian and endianness refer to the convention used to interpret the data when are stored in computer memory. In computing, memory commonly stores binary data by organizing it into 8-bit units called bytes. When reading or writing data, into memory, consisting of multiple bits, the order of the bytes stored in memory determines the interpretation of the data.

8 Endianess Each byte of data in memory has its own address. Big-endian systems store the most significant byte in the smallest address and the least significant byte is stored in the largest address Little-endian systems, in contrast, store the least significant byte in the smallest address.

9 Endianess Both forms of endianness are in widespread use in computing and networking. As examples, the Intel x86 processor represents a common little-endian architecture, IBM z Systems and IBM Power Systems all big-endian; starting with IBM POWER8, IBM Power Systems now offers a hybrid architecture, both little-endian and big-endian. Why is the endianness important? Endianness is important as a low-level attribute of a particular data format. Failure to account for varying endianness across architectures when writing software code for mixed platforms and when exchanging certain types of data might lead to failures and data corruption.

10 Linux on Power Systems 9.0

11 Linux on Power Systems Most applications from x86 will work on Red Hat Enterprise Linux LE, and require a simple recompile. Red Hat has made it easier for customers to have choice and flexibility, however simply migrating Linux applications from an x86 machine to a IBM Power Systems server doesn't guarantee it will work. Here are several architecture-specific differences you should consider before porting your x86 Linux applications to Power-based platforms: Endianness or byte ordering Data type length in 32- and 64-bit environments Data alignment differences in the architectures

12 Linux on Power Systems Why Run Linux on IBM Power Platform? Raw performance: You may be running a large Linux server farm but not getting satisfactory performance. You may need massive horsepower, and your application might not work well with a clustering of PCs. Virtualization: You may want the maximum flexibility you can have to share unused resources, allocate and logically partition your servers. Leveraging existing resources: You may already have a large staff of Linux support personnel. You've fallen in love with the Power Systems platform for all of the reasons mentioned so far and don't want to invest the money in retraining your staff on UNIX. Datacenter consolidation: Sometimes, it seems every large company over the past several years has performed a server consolidation of some kind. Etc

13 Linux on Power Systems The bottom line is, by combining the flexibility and cost savings of Linux with the scalability and robustness of the POWER platform, customers across all industries can integrate their environments using Linux on POWER to reduce costs and consolidate workloads.

14 Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Power, Little Endian Why run Linux Little endian on Power Systems? Red Hat s latest version (RHEL 7.1) includes support for IBM Power Systems running in little endian architecture mode. Running little endian mode accelerates business application innovation by eliminating a significant and outdated barrier to application portability and allowing customers with the latest IBM Power Systems to leverage the significant existing ecosystem of Linux applications previously developed and restricted to x86 architectures. This is significant because it increases business choice, flexibility and access to open standard solutions. It eases application migration from one platform to the other to take advantage of innovation anywhere, and any time. It enables simple data migration, simplifies data sharing (interoperability) with Linux on x86, and improves I/O options with modern I/O adapters and devices, e.g. GPUs.

15 Why Little endian now? The issue of big endian/little endian operating mode initially allowed applications developers to maximize application performance by exploiting differences in processor architectures. The difference also worked to the advantage of proprietary-minded vendors by reducing application portability as it tied applications more tightly to specific platform architectures. Important in the last century, all this changed under the pressures of open computing.

16 Virtualization Strategy 9.0

17 Virtualization Strategy IBM PowerVM RHEV for Power

18 RHEV for Power What are the advantages of RHEV for Power? Coexist with RHEV environments for x86: Simply add Power Systems with Linux guests to the current x86 environment and take advantage of a single graphical console to manage both distributed systems and Power Systems. Open Source Technology: Using RHEV for Power will allow customers to benefit from the KVM virtualization technology without having to learn another hypervisor (IBM PowerVM) when managing Linux guests. Readily available staff with KVM knowledge versus PowerVM By using RHEV for Power, or simply RHEV - you can integrate your environment with other products from Red Hat, such as Cloudforms, to manage Linux cloud environments.

19 RHEV Manager

20 Roadmap Summary* Phase I: Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization for Power, big endian Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Power, big endian Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Power big endian with Smart Virtualization Phase II: Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Power, little endian Phase III: Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization for Power, little endian Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Power, little endian Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Power little endian with Smart Virtualization * Subject to change without further warning

21 Filipe Miranda Global Lead for Red Hat Products on IBM z Systems and Power Systems Red Hat Inc. Sources: