Sabi ni Ian noong Tue, 2 May 2000 12:24:51 +0800
> Well there are reasons why mainframes and mini's like these don't ever reboot
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> one is the software they load on it... I mean just how complicated can a cobol
> program be to crash a mainframe?
Say, don't knock them COBOL progs. They run airline reservation systems and
insurance maintanance software. I hate the language myself, but you can't argue
with the end results. Besides, mainframes are serving Web pages nowadays as
well.
> Also, the design and architecture of these buggers makes for a really secure
> and protected environment in such a way that a wayward pointer won't be able
to
> stumble upon some kernel address table and nuke the system.
My point precisely, and that's one reason I believe that Linux has a ways to go
before you can entrust it to *real* mission-critical (hate that term <g>)
computing. Small as the Linux kernel is, the big-iron OSes' are even smaller. Of
course, that could be an apples-vs-dalmatians comparison since the processors
are different. Still, bottom line is the maturity of big-iron OSes, which are
over 20 yrs old, compared to Linux. Also, Linux may be starting to suffer from
featuritis as well. Mainframe manufacturers and, fortunately for them their
customers as well, prefer to concentrate on high availability and reliability
rather than bells and whistles.
> Next, there's the quality of the hardware. In my knowledge, the one factor
> that will keep a server running on and on and one for years is how good the
> hardware it is run on. I mean, even on normal PC servers, just giving them
> kingston memory increases your system stability several=fold..
But still not to the extent of years before a reboot. In contrast, PC server
administrators are happy if their servers stay up for months at a time. OTOH, a
server farm with fail-over clustering can also add to reliability, albeit at a
hardware cost that a company should be happy to pay, especially if you give the
CFO a picture of what they lose each time the servers are unavailable.
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