Charles Mills wrote:
Without knowing what your day-to-day role is, it's hard to say.
First, simply by not being in denial. Mainframes are not better because the
*snip*
OK ... I don't think that applies to me ... I'm not in denial ...
If you work for an end-user company, then you have some influence on, for
example, the ease-of-use of your systems. I often hear on this list a
*snip*
personnel only." Changing those attitudes would be a good step.
That's not an issue either. For the first 10 years that I worked on MVS
I was in end-user support. My job was to make things easier for our
customers. Since moving to Systems 15 years ago, I've made heavy use of
the CBT tape and whatever sources I can find to do things to make life
easier for my customers.
And some things cannot be changed. Better to work to advocate intelligently
for the use of mainframes for the tasks they are good at, than to operate in
denial of the fact that it's not the best choice for every computing task,
or every company.
OK. So what are they good at? I always thought they were "top dog" at
transaction processing and database management. But recent discussions
on this list indicate that that is no longer the case. I know I
wouldn't push them in a compute intensive environment -- for that kind
of workload we advocate IBM SP2s (at our sister site the Maui High
Performance Computing Center) or Linux grids for people who can't get
time on Maui's system. I also wouldn't advocate using them for desktop
functions ... we advocate WIntel and Macs for that. Our computer science
courses are taught on Intel boxes. I once advocated using z/VM+Linux and
virtual networks to teach network and systems management concepts but
I've been told that VMware on Intel is superior. I dunno, I use VMware
workstation and I still think z/VM would work better for something like
that but experts claim otherwise ... often citing that workstation is
not the same as those ESX or GSX or whatever it is servers.
We traditionally ran all of our administrative workload (financials,
human resources, student information system, etc.) in 3 LPARs on our
single z/OS z890-220 mainframe. We've since migrated all but our
financials to about 120 Sun servers of various sizes. Our financials
are scheduled to complete migration by 2008. I've tried arguing that the
mainframe must be more cost effective since it takes two systems
programmers to run our mainframe (yes, the two of us wear all systems
management hats from installing z/OS to maintaining our ADABAS/Natural
envrionment) but it takes 9 sysadmins and 10 DBAs to run our Sun/Oracle
environment. It also is a single box versus 120 rack-mounted boxes. We
also had to have two new transformers installed to bring more power into
our building to support the 120 boxes. We've also had to beef up our
air conditioning system to keep our computer room cool. But my
management claims that our Sun server farm is still more
cost-effective. Don't ask me how. I still don't understand. But
that's what I've been told so that's what I have to go with.
So, it's already been determined on this list that the "squatty boxes"
are faster, cheaper, better, etc. than zSeries ... so how do we advocate
intelligently for the use of mainframes? What exactly does the
mainframe do better? What niche does it fit in? When and under what
conditions does it make sense to use a mainframe?
Don't get me wrong: I love working on my z/OS system. I've worked with
UNIX, Tops-20, VMS, Ultrix, Mumps, HP/MPE, VM/CMS, SunOS/Solaris,, and
lately Linux. But I still like writing code on z/OS. But lately, what
I've been hearing ON THIS LIST is that the mainframe really isn't "best
of breed" or "king of the hill" in ANY arena. What I'm hearing ON THIS
LIST is that z/OS is basically irrelevant except for running legacy
code. So how does one advocate intelligently for its use? I mean, if
Sun+Oracle is better, cheaper, faster, etc. than
z/OS+CICS+ADABAS/Natural why should I be pushing for z/OS?
--Stephen
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