7 Apr
2013
7 Apr
'13
10:41 p.m.
On 04/07/2013 04:11 PM, MG wrote:
Obscurity from YOUR "ooh, shiny!" perspective? Your bank transactions
won't be processed on iPads anytime soon.
There is
further irony in any resistance to the use of mainframes,
because everyone in IT is talking about virtualisation and utility
computing (see Introducing Utility Computing, Atos Origin, October
2006). But both concepts have been around in the mainframe world for
30 years or more. By providing virtualisation, VMware is doing for
Intel platforms what VM/370 did onmainframes in the 1970?s.
Mainframe is a utility service, and has almostalways been so. Many
advocates of utility services are actually ?reinventingthe mainframe?
in many aspects of what they seek to achieve.
So, why is IBM allowing this to happen? Why aren't they there to
give VMware and others hell, perhaps even supply a bit more economical
solution for the /little people/? Why does IBM assume that people
will have the telepathic ability to learn about IBM and its products?
For a supposedly successful platform, with no problems at all (which,
by the way, that earlier Inquirer article of late 2012 doesn't seem
to support), it sure seems relegated to obscurity and extreme niches
at best. For a supposedly successful platform, why isn't
IBM interested in
making it even more successful and getting more people to use and
perhaps switch to it? Why is IBM building "x" (and "i" and
"p" for
that matter), why not /just/ "z"?
Why do you think you know more about the mainframe business than IBM?
100% utilization, thus with no headroom whatsoever;
that's a good
idea in general...? (Regardless of whether a specific platform
would subdue or become less stable, or whatever.)
It actually IS a good idea for the types of workloads mainframes process.
There typically aren't "load spikes" on mainframes as we see in, say, web
servers. ATMs don't get slashdotted. There is a "batch window",
transactions are processed during that time, they know how many there are,
they know how long it takes to process them, and having the machine sit there
underutilized during that time is a waste of very expensive CPU cycles.
If you knew a DAMN THING about what you're spouting off about, you'd
already know this.
But you don't.
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire, AK4HZ
New Kensington, PA