On Mon, Mar 17, 2003 at 04:46:23PM -0500, Joe Poole wrote: > Perhaps the writer was referring to a Sysplex where multiple LPARs are > running z/OS with a coupling facility in the middle. Using MQ Series > clustering, DB2 Data Sharing, VSAM RLS, VIPA, and the like, you could > switch workload from one image to another, IPL the image you drained, > and migrate the workload back. It takes a lot of work, but it can be > done.
Yes, but if you bring clustering into the game, then suddenly cheaper hardwares can become more relieble. The author also forgets that the guests need patching as well. Having all of them as guests on a mainframe, or as separate machines in a farm is not all that different in that respect, because remote-management tools are good enough for the basic tasks. And you can still load the new software to one unused computer in the farm, start it, and then swap-out the bad computer you want to retire. Requires some more hardware, but the hardware is much cheaper, anyway. A bigger problem is that there are simply more machines to patch. This is the basic issue: machines are not patched because their admins (or admin-replacements) don't bother. Admining a system is not a task that requires a special admin (that should be aware of patching). But this is not a technological issue. Note that the technologies for simpler updates (or for pushing updates from the vender) are ways to work around the admin problem . And as usual, the author manages to confuse the different meanings of the word "virtual" (a java/c# VM is not quite relevant here). Anyway, just my unlearned opinion -- Tzafrir Cohen mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.technion.ac.il/~tzafrir/
