Why doesn't IBM sell you a device - call it a Linux co-processor, (really an Intel
chip in a box) to attach to the mainframe to offload your java and other high cpu work
onto;) Obviously I'm joking, but it just seems to me the phrase different horses for
different courses seems to apply in spades here. Mainframes are good for somethings
and cheap Intel boxes are good for others.
I think Paul Murphy hit it on the head a long time ago when he concluded that you
could do Linux on the mainframe, but why, unless you like to spend a lot of money for
less performance than you could get by buying a Sun or Intel Linux box for a lot less.
Sometimes you need highend horsepower rather than lowend torque. Java and most
business workloads designed post year 2000 will tend to eat CPU and ram like candy and
that will always favor small cheap fast boxes over large slow expensive ones in all
but the most mission critical apps.
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Matt Lashley/SCO [SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Sent: Monday, July 19, 2004 11:04 AM
> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Subject: Re: Domino 6.5 performance a little disappointing on zLinux
>
> >>Domino's OK for mail on the 390 platform, but it's no gem for
> >>applications. If you get a chance, try running the app from the
> >>dedicated Windows client against the 390 server and compare results.
> >>Some of the performance difference should go away for the things that
> >>can be offloaded to the client processor. May not help in your
> >>situation, but it tends to point up where Lotus needs to do some work on
> >>Domino on platforms where CPU isn't infinite or free.
> CPU processing speed is looking more and more like an unfortunate
> liability for those of us who've already proposed zLinux running under
> IBM's zVM to play a large role in our futures. All we really want is the
> ability to migrate or 1,500 hourly CICS/Adabas users into a new format for
> transaction processing.
> I'm sure we'll give the dedicated Windows client a shot, but only as an
> exercise since the apps are already widely deployed as browser only
> dependent web apps. A three to four second response time increase in web
> apps is a killer to try to explain to our customers... ("...but, but you
> see, we're saving all this money from decreased power consumption and
> floor space and hardware reliability, and, and...")
> A couple of us in the mainframe side of the office always chuckle about
> managers who steer at the helm based on the latest full color glossy ad in
> this month's IT mag --- that shoe is starting to feel like a pretty good
> fit for us chucklers. This is not a good thing and it really is too bad,
> zOS is not going to be around these parts forever, if this zLinux thing
> doesn't improve, the zMachine may be on its way out as well.
> I will however keep the faith with zLinux for a while longer. Perhaps
> someone can fill me in on how grid computing could help to offload CPU
> intense processes to a processor where cycles aren't as expensive. Or,
> maybe someone has heard of IBM R&D-ing a processor that can be bundled
> with an IFL that doesn't have all of the cache and redundancy checking of
> a normal mainframe processor to slow it down. If you can have a "network
> in a box" why not a "grid in the box" with it -- a processor dedicated to
> a zLinux image that handles CPU intense processes offloaded by other
> guests where networking issues shouldn't be a huge hurdle with virtual
> hipersockets...
> Something that works in a manner similar to that of a crypto processor. If
> storage resources can be virtualized, the idea of virtualizing processor
> resources can't be that far behind.
> Anything would be helpful to those of us who've boarded this ship only to
> end up feeling like CPU processing speed may be our iceberg. Fifty SAMBA
> servers? Thirty mail servers? Twenty Apache servers serving mostly>
> static content (for fear that a guy with an 800Mhz Pentium in his basement
> could embarrass you in the response time arena). What, with the onslaught
> of racks full of blades that are becoming highly reliable and redundant
> and easily networked and virtualized (and energy efficient and slim and
> trim), who will need a z800?
>
> - Matt
>
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