Posted on 08/18/2008 11:43:49 PM PDT by nickcarraway
The mainframe is finding its way into emerging markets and is still holding strong globally, according to an IBM executive.
Richard Pape, mainframe systems executive at IBM Asia-Pacific, told ZDNet Asia in an email interview that the company is witnessing a resurgence in the mainframe. "We saw a range of all-new mainframe clients this year across the world, particularly in emerging markets [such as China and India]," he said.
During the release of its second-quarter results last month, IBM reported a 32 percent year-on-year increase in revenue from the System z mainframe server products.
There are several drivers for customers wanting or continuing to invest in mainframes, said Pape.
"Many companies are facing both space and power constraints in their datacenters, and are clamoring for increased datacenter efficiency," he said. "Clients want datacenters that are designed for specific processes that can help them consolidate servers and improve their energy efficiency."
Pape added that many independent software vendors are now choosing to support their applications on the mainframe, thereby enabling more options for users on the platform.
Increasing support for open standards is also driving demand for mainframes, he said. "The mainframe has been completely redesigned and is as modern — [if not] more modern — than any other platform out there," Pape said.
Mainframe critical for BI
In an email note, Madan Sheina, senior analyst at Ovum, said Cognos's recent move to put business-intelligence (BI) software on the IBM System z mainframe running Linux indicates that mainframes are far from being legacy systems.
"Trusty mainframes are alive and kicking, and remain critical components of a company's IT infrastructure, especially for mission-critical, high-volume transactional environments like financial services, where the mainframe has proven itself to be a trusted platform for housing large amounts of data in a secure and centrally managed environment," said Sheina.
Noting that global mainframe revenues are on the rise, he said: "We suspect that much of this growth is coming from existing mainframe users who are either upgrading or growing their mainframe usage."
BI vendors that fail to extend their reach to the mainframe could be "missing out on an opportunity", he added, as doing so can help enterprises "scale up the performance of sophisticated data analysis and other BI functions against larger volumes of data".
In addition, the mainframe platform complements BI applications, which are increasingly viewed as mission critical, he said. Sheina explained: "BI is still a growing market. Pushing the software onto the mainframe helps companies to both protect and leverage their mainframe investments — that is, using BI to drive legacy modernization without replacement of the mainframe."
However, Sheina said there are challenges around mainframe usage. "Classic mainframe myths still exist today. Mainframes have traditionally been associated with high total cost of ownership; lack of advanced applications; inability to support real-time/low-latency processing; poor back-end data-integration support; a shortage of mainframe skills; and steep and inflexible development and maintenance curves," he said. Some of these issues have been addressed, however. Sheina said modern mainframe architectures today have been fitted with new partitioning, virtualization and workload-management techniques, and can host multiple operating systems, emulate other hardware platforms and have the capacity to support mixed BI workloads without stringing queries in parallel across server nodes that are complex to fine-tune and administer.
He added that vendors such as SAS and IBM are also introducing new pricing strategies and open-source deployment options to make mainframe computing more affordable.
Human resources, though, could prove a challenge. "There are simply not enough young, bright people wanting to learn mainframe skills over PHP, Java, Flash and other 'hip' Web 2.0 technologies," said Sheina.
IBM's Pape noted, however, that the company has been working with educational institutions over the last few years to address resource issues.
To date, IBM has tie-ups with over 400 colleges and universities globally for its Academic Initiative for System z program, he said.
IBM Power 7 to be Opteron socket compatible
By INQUIRER staff: Sunday, 25 March 2007, 4:20 AM
More Power7 Details Emerge, Thanks to Blue Waters Super
Published: July 21, 2008
I have heard that but only online like you did. All I know is the performance is supposed to be fantastic. There should be lots of new info coming out pretty soon.
Published: July 21, 2008
Different class yes, but I can't tell you how many times I had to take half a Sunday just to go in to the office to do a scheduled reboot (IPL we called it) of the machine to apply a patch or even to adjust for Daylight Savings Time!
I don't miss that, and I don't miss the 1000's of fixes (APAR's they called them) that got issued every month!
Last time I check, IBM's architecture did not provide hardware support for a stack. Has that changed?
Last time I check, IBM's architecture did not provide hardware support for a stack. Has that changed?
Not as far as I know, but the rest of the world has. Few processor architectures provide hardware support for a stack these days. It was one of the first things to go in the RISC revolution.
I can’t speak to the rest of the RISC architectures, but the PowerPC does have a stack pointer in hardware.
The stack is a good thing. It lowers the cost of development and operation. IBM deliberately excluded a stack in their S/360 to increase their profit margins.
What about 64-bit support? Doesn't that obsolete expanded storage?
No. The need for a hierarchy still exists even with z/VM.
The other consideration is that with z/VM 5.1.0 and earlier, all CP code, all CP control blocks, and most guest pages being referenced for CP processing (I/O, IUCV, etc.) need to be below 2GB. This can create contention for storage below 2GB. Such contention is often indicated by significant paging to DASD and a large number of pages available above 2GB (as seen by QUERY FRAMES command or your favorite performance tool). Systems with a 2GB constraint may benefit from having more of their storage configured as expanded storage. See Pre-z/VM 5.2.0 64-bit Considerations for more information. z/VM 5.2.0 has removed most of these restrictions and therefore contention for storage below 2GB is much less likely (see z/VM 5.2.0 64-bit Considerations).
Instructions for downloading the new release still is full of things like:
Run the file through this pipeline:
PIPE < VMARC MODULE A | deblock cms | > VMARC MODULE A We also have a help file for VMARC. Upload and reblock it to use it, just like you would for the module. Note: if you are running VM/ESA 2.2.0 you will need to apply APAR VM61031 in order for VMARC MODULE to work correctly on your system.
UGH!
I can’t speak to the rest of the RISC architectures, but the PowerPC does have a stack pointer in hardware.
Excuse me? I must have missed it. Care to be more specific?
AFAIK, subroutine calls on PowerPC are made using a link register like most RISC architectures these days.
Also AFAIK, the PowerPC doesn't even provide addressing modes that update the base register used for an index calculation (unlike, say, ARM, which can do such an update; although ARM doesn't provide hardware stack support, the update features make it easy to support a stack growing in either direction).
I'm just finishing up a big PowerPC project and preparing to start an ARM one...
The stack is a good thing.
I hear ya, although my tastes tend more toward architectures that include things like interlocked doubly-linked lists. I miss my VAXen.
Okay, by using the GPRs, it’s more of a convention than a hardware feature.
What’s a SOC4?
But it didn't take me long to give thanks to this mainframe! I have never had a system that was so FULL. As a data hound, I discovered I could access huge mountains of years worth of data. And it could be sliced any which way I wanted. No endless wait for report development. No need to rely on some "in the can" reporting that is incomplete. And thank goodness, no more data killing crystal reports nonsense.
Program check - addressing exception.
No, to keep your foot warm.
RPG is your friend
yes RPG rocks and has been paying the bills since 1988!
In the Early 70’s, PL1 was supposed to replace COBOL....and in the 90’s, Cobol replaced PL1.
Why is COBOL still around, along with the Mainframes ?
Cobol is “Reasonable” code.
Its not a Syntax nighmare of (-+%<</>> and you can take a COBOL program that was written 10 Years ago, read it, change it, and make it better.
A Microsoft C++ guy once told me, he could write a Program that no one could figure out......he’s shampooing carpets now.....I’m still writing code that people can Read.
A Russian Programmer once told me, the Russians programmers made their code cryptic and complex, so that the Russian Bureaucrats would not be able to fire them.
India, with its HUGE influx of Programmers taking American jobs because India Universities still teach Mainframe TEchnology, as their Universities are behind the Times with old books and Technology, that was never out of style.
You can learn to program and write Software, maybe, its a talent that some do not have the profile to absorb....You can build a Mcdonalds hamburger, get the wrong number of Pickels, too many Onions, and slightly overcook the meat, and a hungry person will Eat it....A computer Program that is 99% correct, is a piece of crap that won’t run, or a runaway Program that won’t stop.
Logical thinking is key, along with the ability to handle complexity, which is why I do NOT know any Liberal Programmers that are worth their money, or their weight in hollerith field cards.
Maintaining a program that is 10 years old is a Skill. Writing a NEW program from a blank sheet of paper, is quite another skill set. Making it readable in a reasonable language Technical Environment, makes it long lived Software.
Web Servers capture and send data....Mainframes PROCESS data...400,000,000 Record Master data files surrounded by ancillary Data Bases is a heavy load.
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