> -----Original Message-----
> From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List On Behalf Of George Henke
>
> Thank you all for your constructive comments and critiques.
>
> But from this little brainstorming exercise, I believe if I have
learned
> anything at all, I have learned that PR/SM is anything but "free".
>
> Would IBM really give away anything for free?
The price of PR/SM is built-in to the price of the hardware, so it
appears "free". You get it regardless whether you ever use it; very
much like the "free" air bags and seat belts you get in a car nowadays.
> "Here's nothing, grab it well" (Old Hungarian proverb)
>
> The easiest path, the path of least resistance, is not always optimum.
Which tacitly acknowledges that on occasion it is.
> There is a very hidden, subtle, but quite exorbitant price paid for
PR/SM:
>
> - Memory for each instance of z/OS replicated,
> - Performance: wasted CPU cycles especially for handshaking
between
> LPARs doing shared I/O,
> - Software licensing fees
> - Inflexibility of fitting workloads into fixed partitions,
> - complexity: After splitting everything up we bring it all back
> together again with Parallel Sysplex, CDSes, CFRM policies: List,
Cache,
> and Lock structures, all kinds of plexes: JESPLEX, VTAMPLEX,
IMSPLEX, VSAM
> RLS, CICSPLEX, SHARED DB2, all designed to circumvent the
artificial
> barriers we never needed to erect in the first place.
It was my understanding that all those various "plexes" were designed to
reduce or eliminate "single points of failure", thus providing the
capability for near-continuous operation.
> despite:
>
>
> - all efforts of IBM to encourage this with "sub-capacity pricing"
> - the diminishing need to carve up memory now that paging, Expanded
> Storage, are history with 64 bit memory.
Paging is alive and well despite 64-bit storage.
> True, there is a place for PR/SM for things like CFCC, AIX, LINUX.
But
> just needlessly replicating z/OS because it is "free" and easy to do
is not
> the answer.
Some might argue that z/VM makes "needlessly replicating z/OS" even
easier. I think the key word here is "needlessly": How many
installations "needlessly" replicate z/OS?
> One of the oldest marketing devices is:
>
> - to first lower the hemline, then raise it;
> - first bring out "double knit men's suits", then banish them,
> - first tell everyone to go distributive, then force them to
centralize,
> - and above all:
>
>
> - software sells hardware, so encourage the inefficient use,
needless
> replication, of software so we can sell more hardware.
Bigger, faster cars that consumed lots of fuel were once the rage. Then
the fuel providers decided they could raise their prices, so they raised
them until smaller, more fuel-efficient cars became the new rage. But
drivers sorely missed "bigger and faster", so they demanded they be
reinstated. "Green side out", now "brown side out", now "green side
out" again. That's the way things work. Enjoy the ride, for in the end
we shall all be dead.
-jc-
----------------------------------------------------------------------
For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions,
send email to [email protected] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO
Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
