IBM Z® Remote Development Program (RDP)

The IBM Z Remote Development Program (RDP) provides Independent Software Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) with remote access to virtual system environments, at a low cost, with the purpose of developing, porting, and testing applications that run on IBM Z platforms.

These virtual system environments include generally available versions of operating systems that run on the IBM Z platform, such as:

• z/OS®
• z/VM®
• Linux® on Z (Red Hat Inc., SUSE LLC, Canonical)

Each virtual guest system is dedicated to the use of the participating partner. They're configured to share the IBM Z system and devices that comprise the mainframe environment.

The RDP offering is structured for the partner to be largely self-reliant with minimal assistance from IBM. Participants in the offering assume the role of system and security administrator for their chosen virtual guest system environment and are expected to have the necessary system skills to operate in the environment.
Those skills include:

• Subsystem Administration
• Security Administration
• Console Operations

Important Notes:

• A Partner Plus membership is required to participate in the Remote Development Program.
• The virtual system environments run the base product of the operating system.

To learn more, please read the Remote Development Program (RDP) General Information

Available Virtualized Environments

RDP Enrollment

To enroll in the RDP, the ISV will need to:

• Join the IBM Z and IBM LinuxONE Partner Network (ZLPN) program
• Fill out an Online Application
  • The application can be found in the ZLPN website.
  • An IBM ID, associated with a Partner Plus account, is required to complete the application.

When the system is ready for use, the login credentials for the virtual system will be emailed to you from zTech@us.ibm.com

To learn more, please read the Remote Development Program (RDP) General Information

RDP Fees

z/OS and z/VM

• The RDP fees for z/OS and z/VM systems are based on a minimum monthly fee and actual CPU usage, as reported by z/VM.
• The CPU usage is measured in "workunits", which are designed to roughly provide the equivalent of one (1) real, non-dedicated hour of total processor time on an IBM 2003-225 processor.
• The minimum monthly program fee is $550 USD, and it includes:

  ✓ Initial system set-up

  ✓ Environmental support

  ✓ Up to 30 workunits of CPU usage each calendar month

  ✓ 10 Gigabytes of 'user' disk (DASD) space

Linux Distributions - Red Hat, SUSE, Ubuntu

• The RDP fees for all virtual guest system Linux distributions are based on the number of shared CPs defined to the system and allocated disk space (DASD).
• The base minimum monthly charge for each Linux virtual system is $125 USD, and it includes:

  ✓ 1 vCPU

  ✓ 2G Virtual Memory

  ✓ 50GB disk

Additional Fees

• There are products and resources, not included in the standard configuration, that could be added to a remote access system for a fee.
• The fee amount applies for the term of the program agreement under which the addition is requested.
• To view these additional resources and their pricing, please visit the Additional Fees Page

If you have questions concerning the availability of a particular software product or system configuration, send us an email to zTech@us.ibm.com

For more information on fees and billing, please visit the Remote Development Program (RDP) General Information

Ready to Enroll?

If you are ready to enroll in the RDP, click the link below to Join the ZLPN program and access the online application:

IBM Z Remote Development Program Online Enrollment

Reminder:

An IBM ID, associated with a Partner Plus account, is required to complete the application.

Remote Development Program (RDP) Support

For process information on the z/OS products, please visit the Support Documents page.

For information on the lifecycle of a product, please visit the Lifecycle Policy Information page.

If you have any questions regarding the RDP, send us an email to zTech@us.ibm.com