> I may be wrong as well, but I see the "new" installations, like Google and
> many of the other in the top500.org list using clusters of Intel compatible
> processors in small (2-4) SMP configurations. I see the market for
> mainframes for the people who started on them, and find it easier to
> put their legacy apps on newer compatible hardware when parts for the
> old systems become scarce, than to rewrite the systems they've been
> running their business on for the last few decades. When, as you pointed
> out, the apps get ported to Java or whatever, then clusters of cheap
> computers will look more attractive for the same reason that RAID took
> over from large hard drives.
>
> What "new from scratch" commercial apps are being developed for
> mainframes? Even Oracle is looking to migrate customers from their
> big iron to RAC. Resisting change is futile.
The thing is that since mainframes have been around for so long that most of the appropriate applications are already out there. I remember back in 1981 hearing that within the next 5 to 10 years that mainframes would completely vanish. "Big iron" is primarily good for one thing (my experience at least) and that is processing massive amounts of transactions in a batch-driven, managed environment. And they're not resisting change, they are still changing, and being developed on. They're just very much a niche market (and have been for as long as I've been aware of them) and if you're not part of that market then you won't see it. Last I heard (and it was a couple of years ago, and I don't remember the numbers well, just my impression of them) Oracle was bragging about maximum possible transactional throughputs that were about 1-3% of what a mid-range mainframe was capable of.
I think its more a matter of the right tool for a particular job. A mainframe's not appropriate for an interactive system. A pc's not appropriate for handling large numbers of transactions. And Windows is not appropriate for much of anything.... but I digress.
___________________
Nolug mailing list
nolug@nolug.org
Received on 05/01/03
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.2.0 : 12/19/08 EST