Then you didn't even look at the link. That bank is doing it, and seriously. And it's a new mainframe installation. When I did a Google search (I know, evil Google, powered by Linux) I came up with at least a dozen new customers using mainframes. IBM is dumping money into R&D for it's mainframe business. As IBM generally cuts the budgets of divisions that aren't growing, seems like mainframes are a growing market for them. Guess they know something that you don't.
And to talk to the other side of your schizophrenic brain, moving from untested Windows from battle-hardened Unix/MVS was a fool's errand. But a lot of companies did it and a lot of Windows weenies cheered them on. Poor fools. A lot of them are switching back, poorer in the pocket but richer in wisdom.
First, they're deploying old software to those mainframes.
How, exactly, does one use old software for new projects?
So you write new software targeted at those new mainframes.
Uh....yeah, that's what I said. So which was it, are they deploying old software or writing new software for the new mainframes they are buying? And they are buying them. DARPA just bought a huge new system. A Cray, I think. The Air Force is famous for buying new mainframes on a regular basis.
I hate to be the one to break this to you but ... the reason they're using that hardware is that they don't have the budget to invest in new hardware, dude.
Not quite, dude. They are writing new software for some of their old mainframes. And they are buying new mainframes, too. The investment is in experience and they know better than to try to switch to Windows machines after a few well publicized failures. The software they wrote three years ago will run on the machines they bought last week, and the software that they wrote this week will run on the the machines that they buy three years from now. That's not true of Windows machines, no matter how clustered, and any Windows sales rep that tells you that it will be true if you buy today is a damned liar.
But clearly, this is the first time that that kind of power has been available at such a reasonable price level.
That remains to be seen. Purchase price plus TCO for a cluster may or may not be better than purchase price plus TCO for a small mainframe or mini. Intel clusters are built for the same reason that RAID systems are built. You are building expecting failure. Building a replacement machine and reinstalling software (or paying for a service contract so that someone else can do it) will get expensive. PC clusters are certainly cheaper to buy than a mainframe. Whether you acutally get more bang for your buck once you factor in maintenance is not yet known. Replacing "Old Reliable" with a PC cluster may well be a fool's errand, and some of those new mainframe purchasers have been there with Novell to Windows "upgrades."
Mainframe clusters are built strictly for performance reasons and have the pricetag to prove it. PC clusters are built for performance on the cheap. There are places where that makes sense. Replacing your existing mainframe with one aint it.
Remember: Cheap, fast, reliable. Pick two.