On IBM mainframes running the z/OS operating system, Intelligent Resource Director (IRD) is software that automates the management of CPU resources and certain I/O resources.
IBM mainframes are large computer systems produced by IBM since 1952. During the 1960s and 1970s, IBM dominated the large computer market. Current mainframe computers in IBM's line of business computers are developments of the basic design of the IBM System/360.
z/OS is a 64-bit operating system for IBM mainframes, produced by IBM. It derives from and is the successor to OS/390, which in turn followed a string of MVS versions. Like OS/390, z/OS combines a number of formerly separate, related products, some of which are still optional. z/OS offers the attributes of modern operating systems but also retains much of the functionality originating in the 1960s and each subsequent decade that is still found in daily use. z/OS was first introduced in October 2000.
An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common services for computer programs.
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IRD is implemented as a collaboration between Workload Manager (WLM), a component of z/OS, and the PR/SM Logical Partitioning (LPAR) hypervisor, a function of the mainframe hardware.
In IBM mainframes, Workload Manager (WLM) is a base component of MVS/ESA mainframe operating system, and its successors up to and including z/OS. It controls the access to system resources for the work executing on z/OS based on administrator-defined goals. Workload Manager components also exist for other operating systems. For example, an IBM Workload Manager is also a software product for AIX operating system.
In mainframe computing PR/SM is a type-1 Hypervisor that allows multiple logical partitions to share physical resources such as CPUs, I/O channels and LAN interfaces; when sharing channels, the LPARs can share I/O devices such as direct access storage devices (DASD). PR/SM is integrated with all IBM System z machines. Similar facilities exist on the i and p versions of IBM Power Systems.
A hypervisor or virtual machine monitor (VMM) is a computer software, firmware or hardware that creates and runs virtual machines. A computer on which a hypervisor runs one or more virtual machines is called a host machine, and each virtual machine is called a guest machine. The hypervisor presents the guest operating systems with a virtual operating platform and manages the execution of the guest operating systems. Multiple instances of a variety of operating systems may share the virtualized hardware resources: for example, Linux, Windows, and macOS instances can all run on a single physical x86 machine. This contrasts with operating-system-level virtualization, where all instances must share a single kernel, though the guest operating systems can differ in user space, such as different Linux distributions with the same kernel.
Major IRD functions are:
- Logical CP Management - where IRD dynamically varies logical processors on- and off-line. (This does not apply to zIIPs or zAAPs.)
- Weight Management - where IRD dynamically redistributes LPAR weights between members of an LPAR Cluster. (An LPAR Cluster is the set of members of a Parallel Sysplex on a single mainframe footprint.[ clarification needed ]) The total of the weights for the LPAR Cluster remains constant as weights are shifted between the members. (Linux on IBM Z LPARs can also participate in Weight Management.)
- CHPID Management - where logical channel paths are moved between members of an LPAR Cluster.
In IBM System z9 and successor mainframes, the System z Integrated Information Processor (zIIP) is a special purpose processor. It was initially introduced to relieve the general mainframe central processors (CPs) of specific DB2 processing loads, but currently is used to offload other z/OS workloads as described below. The idea originated with previous special purpose processors, the zAAP, which offloads Java processing, and the IFL, which runs Linux and z/VM but not other IBM operating systems such as z/OS, DOS/VSE and TPF. A System z PU is "characterized" as one of these processor types, or as a CP, or SAP. These processors do not contain microcode or hardware features that accelerate their designated workloads. Instead, by relieving the general CP of particular workloads, they often lead to a higher workload throughput at reduced license fees.
In computing, a Parallel Sysplex is a cluster of IBM mainframes acting together as a single system image with z/OS. Used for disaster recovery, Parallel Sysplex combines data sharing and parallel computing to allow a cluster of up to 32 systems to share a workload for high performance and high availability.
Mainframe computers or mainframes are computers used primarily by large organizations for critical applications; bulk data processing, such as census, industry and consumer statistics, enterprise resource planning; and transaction processing. They are larger and have more processing power than some other classes of computers: minicomputers, servers, workstations, and personal computers.
IRD's objective is to optimise the use of computing resources while enabling WLM to meet its workload goals. So, for example, IRD will not vary offline logical processors to the point where doing so would cause workloads to miss their goals.
