> I agree that we should refrain from asking IBM for specific solutions - > this makes it all the more important though that the problem is well- > defined - otherwise (especially in todays business climate) one ends up > with a narrow and specific solution that is incapable of forming the > foundation for further development into currently-unimagined areas. We > need to ensure that any solution is engineered with an eye on the future.
True. Given the amount of discussion I've had with Alan, George and Steve at conferences, I'm pretty convinced they understand the problem at hand. It's really a question of finding some people who'll buy it if they do it. I know I'd be one, but I don't write checks to IBM big enough to make the case based on one customer. Again, after looking at the way the SCSI stack was implemented to do the FBA emulation, I think the framework you describe is pretty much already there. The classes of devices are such that general CLASS=TAPE and CLASS=DISK registrations would probably be sufficient for now (with tape first, as it's possible to run VM and Linux adequately on FBA disk for now, but you can't back up CMS data without ESCON/FICON tape at the moment which is IMHO the big glaring gap). > Alas, so far it only seems to be you-and-me that're willing to get excited > by this - I really expected you to start a mailstorm with this one but it > seems to have failed to capture the community's imagination. We'll > certainly need more opinions than just yours-and-mine if this ever gets to > the, "IBM asking for feedback" stage! Well, it took months for the layer 2 OSA ucode to catch on, too. I suppose I can be reasonably pleased that it's now the recommended connectivity option for the future. This, too, shall pass. If you or Mark P. can speak for EDS, that makes the three customers we needed to start talking to Endicott management about the business case. If not, let's see if we can convince the PTBs that it's the right thing to do. -- db
