The IBM System z platform has generated a lot of excitement among customers seeking to consolidate servers. Many customers have already consolidated hundreds of Linux servers to System z mainframes, and many others are in the planning stages to do so. While Linux is the same on every platform, the System z platform is new and unknown to many Linux administrators and system programmers. The purpose of this workshop is to provide an opportunity to install and configure Linux for System z in a z/VM virtual machine. The hands on portion of this workshop will be self paced and result in a Linux for System z system running Apache, Samba, DNS(BIND), a firewall and the KDE desktop. (Note: the configuring of other packages are optional exercises following the base install). The Linux distribution used will be Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 (RHEL5)
The Linux distribution will be installed to FCP attached SCSI devices instead of traditional mainframe Extended Count Key Data (ECKD) devices. In addition, the lab exercises will provide experience creating two additional multipath FCP attached SCSI devices and using them with the Logical Volume Manager.
The goal of this workshop is to equip each attendee with the skills required to return home and install Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 in a System z environment.