IBM Mainframes use an unique I/O mechanism different from those on other architectures: Channel I/O. This talk will present an overview of the basic concepts: Subchannels, channel paths, channel programs, and how they are exploited today by Linux. It will also discuss the challenges of modelling these concepts in light of the exisisting KVM infrastructure, and how to build a virtual channel subsystem that offers the facilities needed by Linux.
Target audience are developers and other technically-minded people who would like to spend half an hour learning more about what makes mainframes different and interesting. Knowledge about the basic workings of KVM and QEMU is required; familarity with mainframes is not.