LinuxONE

LinuxONE is a family of IBM mainframes built on IBM Z hardware designed to run Linux workloads at scale with enterprise-grade security and reliability. The platform unifies Linux with traditional mainframe capabilities, allowing Linux workloads to run on IBM Z alongside z/OS and other operating environments. It targets large, mission-critical deployments needing strong security, compliance, and reliability.

The architecture emphasizes virtualization for Linux workloads, including KVM as the primary Linux virtualization technology on IBM Z, with access to large memory, high I/O throughput, and cryptographic accelerators such as Crypto Express adapters for data encryption.

LinuxONE systems support scalable configurations to accommodate growth from thousands to tens of thousands of Linux instances, with high availability and disaster recovery through redundant components and integrated monitoring.

Supported Linux distributions include Red Hat Enterprise Linux, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server, and Canonical's Ubuntu on IBM Z, with tooling for container orchestration and cloud-native workloads, including Kubernetes and OpenShift.

The product line includes models such as LinuxONE Emperor (high-end) and LinuxONE Rockhopper (entry-level), emphasizing security, scalability, and reliability, and it integrates with IBM's broader z Systems ecosystem to support enterprise environments.

In summary, LinuxONE is IBM's mainframe-based platform for Linux at scale, combining Linux performance with IBM Z reliability and security to support enterprise workloads in on-premises and hybrid cloud contexts.