Dean Kent wrote:
----- Original Message -----
From: "Howard Brazee" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.ibm-main
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Tuesday, July 17, 2007 7:29 AM
Subject: Re: PSI MIPS (was: Links to decent 'why the mainframe thrives'
article)
IBM is not positioning the mainframe to compete with a computer chip.
Apples and bird seed.
Customers of computer chips are computer manufacturers.
IBM is positioning the mainframe to compete with server farms. That
is something very different. And the x86 speed of a PC is not what
customers care about when looking at alternatives for these business
needs.
I agree with your first point, but not your second. There *is* a reason
that SPEC (and other benchmarking organizations) exist. These customers
want a common performance metric to identify the value they are getting for
the money they spend. Yes, reliability, fault-tolerance, data integrity,
etc. are all factors too - but the mainframe does not have a lock on these
features, other platforms do as well, including those based on x86.
Maybe I can point out the dilemma better this way:
People here have asked how managers can justify migrating their
mission-critical applications off the mainframe and onto a 'PC'. At the
same time, these people will say that there is no common metric to compare
the various platforms, that they are just different. So, a manager who
must make a business/financial decision is given no tools with which to make
that decision - so is it any wonder that those decisions seem, well, random?
One would think that *if* the mainframe can compete head-to-head with these
other server systems that those in the business would *want* a common
metric. They would *strive* to identify something that managers could use
to make better decisions. This should, you would think, include the vendor
who would benefit most by such information. Continually claiming that
there is, and cannot be any comparison seems counter productive. You are
*asking* these managers to go with the latest fad because they have nothing
else to use as a guideline. If it can't compete, then perhaps it makes
sense to claim that no such metric can be identified.
As long as the workloads are completely different, then it makes sense.
They they overlap, however, you are asking for people to flip a coin to
choose unless you give them another tool to use.
As for the car analogy in performance, I would suggest the following: I
can look at horsepower, top speed, acceleration, luggage capacity, towing
capacity, gas mileage and various other factors that are available for *all*
vehicles. This allows me to make an intelligent, informed decision about
which particular vehicle is best for my needs, whether it be a sportscar, a
family vehicle, a farm vehicle or a large commercial vehicle.
Instead, Timothy Sipples suggests (and I paraphrase from his reply to me)
"if you don't know, talk to your IBM rep - he'll tell you what you need".
Sure, he'll tell me I need a Sun system instead of an IBM system - right?
Or perhaps I should go talk to Sun or HP or Dell to find out what best suits
my needs. If you care about the platform, you should care about the
problem... or so it seems to me.
Regards,
Dean
Can the mainframe z900/z990/z9 compete head to head with Intel?
IMHO, yes.
Head to head. You are talking about the same number of processors and
same amount of "RAM/Central Storage".
We have two z990, a 304 and 303. A total of 7 (seven) CPU's and 20GB of
total central stoage for the z/OS images.
Now in our enviroment we do NOT have a test mainframe, we do not have
test LPAR's. All production/test/development/QA/user accecptance
testing are done with the same LPARs. There is a system programmer sand
box on the 303.
We are planning to migrate 80% of our workload off the mainframe on to
Intel. If the Intel processors were really faster/better than the z990
CPU, then we sould be to get a single Intel box with 6 CPUs to replace
our two mainframes. Right? Remember this is head to head.
Are we? NOPE. In the end to replace 80% of 7 z990 CPU's and 20GB of
RAM the Intel side will have
Right now the plan is to ONLY have 96 total "cores" (some systems will
have single core processors and some will have dual core) CPU's and 456
GB of RAM. This is a est. and they beleive that they may need to
increase this by as much as 50%.
So the "head to head" comparsion is 7 CPU's and 20GB to 96 CPU's and 456
GB of RAM. Doesn't seem to "head to head" to me.
That is a about a 13:1 ratio on CPU's and 23:1 on "RAM". If Intel was
"faster" then we should be able to do more work on less processors.
Please show me a site that has migrated off a modern day mainframe to
Intel using the same number of CPU's and same amount of Central
Storage/RAM as they had on the mainframe. You know head to head.
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