SUSE Studio and System z? Build your workloads for IBM mainframes!

I am sure you all agree that SUSE Studio is a great technology. And the idea behind SUSE Studio is simple: if you make it easy for IT shops and independent software vendors to create, manage, deploy, and patch their own customized images, appliances or workloads (whatever term you prefer), you get them all by healing some of their biggest pains at once.

But it seems it is not widely spread yet that, with the latest release 1.2, SUSE Studio also provides a new and simple way to create, maintain and deploy workloads or images for IBM System z by automating routine, labor-intensive tasks. You can automate the assembly of new System z images, normally a time consuming endeavor, which increases efficiencies and further reduces complexity and costs. SUSE Studio provides a bridge between x86 microprocessor architectures and mainframes by simplifying the creation, testing, and maintenance of images for System z, by leveraging the same easy-to-use interface for building mainframe workloads and images for x86 systems.

With SUSE Studio Advanced Edition, you can deploy this tool on site, behind your firewall. It provides base System z templates tailored for System z configuration, and allows for a concise and predictable process to meet compliance and governance standards. You can also easily test and debug your images, and modify or rebuild them, before you actually download them for use in production.

Transworld Data Case Study recently published a paper about “Building images for IBM System z with SUSE Studio” which discusses

* how building images for System z works with SUSE Studio
* what savings can be received with regard to total cost of ownership
* and what advantages it provides in general for customers

It’s worth reading – check it out yourself!
http://www.novell.com/docrep/2012/02/twd_suse_studio_mainframe.pdf

More SUSE news here: http://www.suse.com/blogs/