Posts by dlc.usa

It's Already On The Market

It has been for decades--it just turned 40, as a matter of fact, so it's pretty well shaken out. It's homogenized as it only runs on one architecture, but that architecture does everything (although localized KVM processing is usually a superior approach from all angles). So I'd say they have their work cut out for them unless the potential customers maintain their long-held animosity toward the proven product lines. In other words, it will all come down to marketing again.

Did I mention...

...NASA's entire annual budget is spent every two weeks or so on the ever increasing interest payments servicing the U.S. National Debt? There's another contract we ought to give to JPL.

Get Rid of The Appliance Loophole

I think a simple modification to the definition of distribution that includes appliances with a very clear definition of what is and is not an appliance would suffice.

Everybody Talks About The Patent Mess

But nobody ever DOES anything about it. Until now.

Libre? What About The Appliances?

The GPL is all about not restricting the source code. If you modify it and distribute the modified binaries, you must also distributed the modified source under the same GPL you got it under. However, "appliance" computers need not distribute the source code used to compile the binaries that run inside them. This is believed to be within the letter of the GPL and apparently the FSF has no truck with this PoV. But most certainly the spirit of the GPL is, ah, compromised. Even IBM is guilty with the HMC and SE managerial appliances that control zSeries CECs. They are so unauditable the customer doesn't even know what packages are onboard. The boxes are fully networked and only the IBM Support Center can perform software maintenance upon them. The customers must take IBM's word that the appliances are completely secure and nobody on their support team can subvert their computational integrity--there is no way to audit them. But they have the connectivity to peruse and possibly interfere with just what exactly is going on in the customers' LPARs without the customers' technical staff having any way to determine if that processing has been compromised.

So leave libre out of this opinion piece, please.

Security Must Be Designed In

But it cannot be if you're in a rush to mashup other people's code that hasn't even been prototyped yet (but don't worry, it WILL be secure--trust us on that).

As a sidebar, I offer http://www.networkworld.com/news/2012/052512-cloud-security-gartner-259627.html as more proof that Gartner isn't always wrong.

Full Cycle

I always thought it was a little odd that IBM abandoned its 8 parallel copper data channels (the Bus and Tag cables, each 2+ cm in diameter) for a single fiber channel even though the fiber was superior in every way. So they are finally coming back to parallel throughput at fiber speeds. I wonder if slew varience is still a problem.

L33t g33k sh33k

Polished meteorite? Whoa, I need to don my industrial-strength shades before gazing upon your exalted status. I am not worthy and bare my neck. ;-^ [Never thought I'd use this icon]

It's interesting how chatty folks are about this news item.

You Bet Your Business

I submit no organization's working component is more likely to terminate that organization's very existence than its aggregate IT component. Any CxO that doesn't understand that overarching risk should not have his/her position because, sooner or later, that organization will be bitten hard as a consequence of underfunding the crucial areas of IT, with security at the top of the list followed by loyalty and competency of the key IT employees. Competent IT employees will never buy Brand X because nobody ever got fired for doing so--to decide on such a basis demonstrates incompetency. Competent IT employees do their homework and well consider the major big picture risks of all possible choices.

I expect a lot of incompetent CxOs are going to be exposed as these cloud security lapses multiply.

Epilog

Dang. Seriously late to the party again. 65 comments and here I am.

Great article, especially if you didn't know any of this before reading it.

This is mostly about history. Today you can order a z114 for less than a hundred USD grand (but a working environment is at least one order of magnitude more). What will you get for that vis-a-vis other platforms? In short, your money's worth.

z/VM can virtualize itself, as could VM/370.

Those z cores can run 24/7 at 100% and PR/SM and CP enable that (yes, I'm ignoring spin cycles).

My point? If you are in a position to check this out for the benefit of your employer and you choose not to because some college professor told you the mainframe is dead, you are not doing your job very well at all. That's it, plain and simple.

3001: The Final Solution

Am I the only one here reminded of Clarke's last 2001 series story by this article? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3001:_The_Final_Odyssey#Plot_summary

How To Route Around Censorship

We still have a long way to go before the global network envisioned by John Brunner in "The Shockwave Rider" is functioning and able to work no matter how any government might be motivated and empowered to control it. The key is complete mobility, as every member of Ender's teams understood--when dealing with serious opposition, never stand still. Services must be provided by a mesh of thousands of systems, each always on the move, physically and via connections, always popping in and out of addressability and always changing addresses; not dependent on centrally controlled infrastructure that is not essential for all network transactions. In other words, the only way to censor the service is to interrupt all networking.

Paying For Journalism

Here I am, typing a comment on the Web site of a for-profit news provider, considering an article it published involving journalistic business models. This seems somewhat surreal to me.

I must contend journalism is not your basic business. Maybe when troubadors went from town to town singing the news and learning the news, entertainer first and vendor of objective, unbiased reporting (as best anyone could determine) second, it wasn't so special. But as communications technologies evolved and more local news elsewhere became local news locally, the stakes began to rise with the technology. I believe the global majority opinion remains honest news reporting is more important than entertainment. This planet now is finding it more difficult to discern the vendors of honest reporting. The quality of the basic product appears to be watering down everywhere.

News providers seem to think their business models are the problem. I would suggest the quality of their journalistic ethics lies at the heart of the loss of eyeballs. Walter Cronkite was the single most trusted public figure of his time according to many well-respected polls. Where are his peers today? Lord knows we need them--reporters, editors, anchors who are driven to present real news even if Powers That Be object for reasons not serving the public welfare, even if there is potential to hurt ratings. The quality of news reporting was marketable once upon a time. Can it not become so again? None of us have the time to vet everything we must consider. We must have sources we can trust to be ethical, especially when real-time events become very personal.

Fit that into your business model.

Another Factor

Decentralization is a wonderful attribute when a major regional disruption occurs. How much is such insurance worth?

What About...

Microsoft? I think Oracle is looking at them as "best practice," not IBM, who still gets more hard science patents every year than anybody, let alone Microsoft. IMHO, of course.

Fundamentals

Compare the skill sets of typical high school graduates in the East vis-à-vis the West, in addition to their motivation. Also note that since 10% of India's high school students are in honors programs, India has more honors high school students than the USA has high school students of ANY academic standing or associated motivation.

It's Worse Than That

Frankly, my impression is the firms are rare that can recognize real talent even when it is already working for them, let alone on the outside. That is, if you can't identify it on the inside, you're clueless regarding what to look for outside.