Port UNIX applications to z/VM and possibly extend them

With OpenExtensions services, your enterprise can port standards-based C language applications to z/VM from other system. You can port programs that already exist or programs developed by vendors or in your own distributed server or workstation environments. In porting, you modify the source code as necessary to conform to the Single UNIX Specification and then recompile the program at the z/VM system before running it. The advantages of running these applications in the OpenExtensions for z/VM environment include the ability to provide application access to a much larger number of users than is customary at a local area network (LAN) server.

UNIX-type applications are already somewhat portable to z/VM through such standard application interfaces as ANSI C, TCP/IP (including X Windows and Motif), and SQL. With its support for standard operating system interfaces, OpenExtensions for z/VM makes the porting of existing and future standards-based applications significantly more cost-effective.

You may want to take advantage of traditional VM capabilities by modifying a standards-based application to include nonstandard VM service requests. Depending on your needs, the advantages of the additional services may outweigh the reduced portability of your application.

For a more detailed discussion on porting applications to OpenExtensions for z/VM see Porting Applications to OpenExtensions for z/VM.

A number of providers of UNIX-type applications are already porting applications for use with OpenExtensions services. See our list of software vendors.