[NTLUG:Discuss] offtopic: is the AS400 considered a mainframe?

[Stephen Klein]

Lenrek Xunil wrote:
> Is the IBM AS400 considered a mainframe?  I have heard people at work
> refer to it as a mainframe, but I never thought about it that way.
> 
> Also, is there AS400 emulation in Linux?  Does it work well?  Just
> curious.  Thanks.
> 
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> 

The AS400 (iSeries or whatever) is considered a midrange system, 
although I know of a few systems with several terabytes of disk space 
and hundreds of users, that rival some of the largest mainframes.  So in 
some cases, it is probably correct to call it a mainframe.

I don't know of any AS400 emulation for Linux, though I seem to remember 
a package to enable development of AS400 programs on other platforms 
(for Windows I think) and then compile them on the AS400 for deployment. 
  Don't rember where I read about it though.

DB2 is available for Linux, and DB2 is the data storage engine for 
OS/400.  There is also a POSIX environment available in OS/400, so in 
theory porting apps should be somewhat easy.  The only missing piece 
would be an RPG compiler for Linux, though some whould think me nuts for 
saying so. :-)

Linux can run directly on the AS400 hardware, or in a partition along 
side OS/400.

Stephen