The exchange below shows one way our world may evolve. It does bring up the question of whether IBM is shooting itself in the foot with its z series pricing. It has to be bad when it is worth while to write a VSAM replacement, etc. for use on Linux.
On Sat, 23 Dec 2006 00:48:05 -0600, in comp.lang.cobol "P. Raulerson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > >"Clark F Morris" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message >news:[EMAIL PROTECTED] >> On Fri, 22 Dec 2006 18:54:55 -0600, "P. Raulerson" >> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >> >>>Your guess would be partly right - I support Mainframe (z/OS, z/VM, >>>zLinux), >>>AIX, Linux, iSeries (OS/400, i5OS, Linux) and several varieties of >>>Windows, >>>including that blasted 64bit variant of Server 2003 that gives me >>>heartburn. >>>In fact, our entire enterprise (about 350 people geographically scattered >>>over 25 sites) runs on Citrix served up from servers here in Austin. >>>Citrix >>>would be a bit expensive for what this chap wants, but it saves us a ton >>>of >>>money ,and an incredible number of support hours. >> >> Are you the sole support person and if so how? Z/OS alone is normally >> a two or three person job. > >There are five of us, and we don't have a large z/OS footprint right now. We >have moved a lot of stuff to zLinux, and in the process would up writing >3270 terminal drivers, a VSAM equivalent, process management, transaction >control, and so forth. Took about three years to do it all, but it was >worth it. The end result is we can do an awful lot of processing awfully >fast for a very small amount of money. lets us undercut the competion quite >handily. We tend to use z/VM to handle the zLinux instances, and once setup, >z/VM is a low maitenance type of thing. > >I'm also not to oround to find and hire good consultants if I happen to be >getting over my head either. ;) But with mainframe hardware, our stuff just >runs and runs and runs and runs and... well you get the idea. We control >cost this way. >>> >>>That's a corollary duty by the way, along with phone systems, network >>>design, security, and second assistant cook and bottle washer too I >>>suppose. >>>I am best at being your everyday Sr. Software Engineer. That's in COBOL, >>>C, >>>Java, Ada, Assembler, and assembly language for a few other processors. I >>>dabble in Visual Basic, RPG, and a half dozen other languages just because >>>they interest me. >>> >>>(Yep: I work for good people and I have a great job, when it does not wear >>>me down to a nub... :) >>> >>>To be fair though, I did sound arrogant, and that was not intended. I >>>apologize for that. It is just that I tend to solve these kinds of issues >>>several times per quarter, and, if this case is what I think it is, using >>>a >>>centralized VM to deal with this is probably a very good idea. >>> >>>On the other hand, to me, you sound like a PC person who has little >>>experience on other platforms. Bet you would argue that running Microsoft >>>Office on standalone machines is faster than running it under Citrix. >>>(Hint: it is much faster under Citrix. :) Where are you coming from, and >>>am >>>I anywhere close to right? :) >> >> How does Citrix run Office faster? > >Basicaly most Windows programs load one 'read only' code segment, and then a >read/write data segment into memory for each user. When Word loads for the >first user, it is about the same speed as on a local workstation, but the >second, third, and subsequent users usually see Word load in less than >second. It;'s a dumb thing, but I can bring up 20 or 30 instances of Word as >fast as I can click the mouse on it. > >Now the other thing is that Windows machines spend so much time managing >displays, that processor intensive stuff, like say, working on a big Word >document gets a littel shortchanged. A remote Citrix client is not usually >doing anything else but managing the screen, while the server is pretty much >just managing a memory buffer for that screen. No hardware manipulation or >driver required. The technology is quite fascinating and beyond that, >provides additional opportunities to enhance performance and response speed >to the users. Partly it is the same reason a 3270 screen almost always looks >'snappy' - he doesn't really do a whole lot till he has all the infomration >he needs to work on. > >The worst, the very worst Office application is piggy old Outlook. That >thing could slow down an Aircraft Carrier. Even that is about twice as fast >as on a standalone workstation. > >Of course, there are practical requirements. If your users are heavy office >users, you can't stuff more than about a 100 of ;em on a single server - >even with 64bit windows and plenty of RAM. The PC doesn't have the I/O >capacity for it, even if you run the apps of a high performance SAN. > >On the other hand, you can pretty easily stuff a 150 users on a PC that is >only running terminal emulation. (Unless it is iSeries Access, which must >have taken lessons from piggy old Outlook...) > >It sounds counter intuitive, but it really isn't. Sun made a fortune selling >diskless Sun 2's and 3's. They ran faster connected to a server than when >they had local disks. Everyone had to see that to beleive it, including me >back in early 1980's. It really has not changed that much. Try it sometime >with a copy of Windows 2003 - it has terminal services built right in. It >might surpise you how well it will perform. I have one client that runs text >based AcuCOBOL that way for 21 people, on one little old Dell P4 machine. >Heck, it even amazes me... > >-Paul > >>> >>>-Paul >>> >>>"Richard" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message >>>news:[EMAIL PROTECTED] >>>> >>>> P. Raulerson wrote: >>>> >>>>> Tsk tsk... not so. There is such a thing as a virtual machine image >>>>> that >>>>> allows remote access. See for example: >>>>> http://www.vmware.com/solutions/desktop/vdi.html. It's even cost >>>>> effective. >>>> >>>> That may be so, but that would be single-user access at any one time >>>> for each virtual machine. If the application is installed and used >>>> widely then it is unlikely to be useful to get the users to queue for >>>> access to it. >>>> >>>> I am guessing that you are a mainframer and do not have much experience >>>> with interactive desktop or PC applications. >>>> >>> > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 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
