will lack of corporate support kill off Linux?

[Jim Herrmann]

Mike Coleman wrote:

>
> (The impression I had, I formed at PCS; I didn't realize Sprint was so
> different.)
>

They come from different pedigrees.  Sprint LD used to be United Telecom, and PCS is a
newer spin-off.  Cell phones are a relatively new technology.

>
> > IMS fast path is still the very fastest data base in the world, and is used by
> > companies that need extremely high transaction volume.  Were talking tens of
> > thousands of transactions per second.
>
> I don't doubt this, but I wonder why they don't participate in the TPC
> benchmarks (see www.tpc.org).
>

The vendor has to choose to participate in the TPC benchmarks.  It is basically a
marketing tool to boast TPC benchmarks.  IBM would not benefit one iota by subjecting
a well tuned IMS system to the TPC standard.  Who are they going to sell it to?  No
one that isn't already highly dependent upon IMS, like the airline reservations
system, is not going to install IMS.  DB2 is the current way to go with IBM data
bases.  IBM doesn't even put DB2/390 to the TPC benchmark tests.  Why should they?
DB2 is far and away the fastest and most reliable data base engine on the mainframe.
They have little to prove.  They do, however, put up the best numbers when running
DB2/UDB on any other platform, such as Linux or NT.  I think it is very cool that
DB2/UDB significantly outperforms SQL Server on Windows 2000.

>
> > Unix variants are pretty reliable, but not compared to the mainframe.
> > OS/390 has something like an average 99.9999% uptime.
>
> It'd be interested to track down exactly how and why this is (or isn't) true.
> In my limited experience in a industrial Unix environment, virtually all of
> the downtime seems to be caused by operator error, or, to a lesser degree,
> application errors.
>

Exactly.  These errors should not bring down the OS.  Does a KDE abend bring down
Linux?  I did encounter a problem with the USB-serial driver hanging up my entire box,
however.  But as Jonathan Hutchins pointed out, applications don't bring down the OS.

>
> Just handwaving a bit, maybe 390's extreme reliability is due to the
> (possible) fact that very few new people are learning 390 and very little new
> code is being written for it.  If this were true, I suppose it would have the
> effect of significantly increasing the reliability of the platform (since the
> people would mostly be masters, and the code would mostly be debugged).
>

I think there are a couple of million of COBOL programmers that would beg to differ
about there being no new code written for it.  I can also attest that most coders are
not masters.  Many are barely better than adequate.  I suspect the reason the
mainframe is so stable has a great deal to do with the fact that it is a closed
system, much like the Macintosh, the OS vendor and the hardware vendor are one and the
same.  There are far fewer "surprises" when this is the case, and also less finger
pointing.  IBM has to take responsibility, and they do.  Also, as far as new code
where the OS is concerned, there is a new incremental release of OS/390 coming out
about every quarter with a major release coming every 2 or three years.  A new major
release of DB2 comes out just about once a year with incremental enhancements coming
three to four times a year.  Hell, IBM changes the name of the OS about every five
years, MVS/SP, MVS/XA, MVS/ESA, OS/390, and next is z/OS.

>
> > The mainframe is NOT dead.  It's merely been reinvented as a REALLY big
> > server.  :-)
>
> Yes.
>
> Hardware is hardware, I think.  If OS/390 is anywhere near as ugly and
> primitive as OS/400 though <donning my flame suit>, I'd much rather use Linux
> on mainframe hardware instead.
>

I've never used OS/400, so I can't defend that "flame", but I'm sure you might
consider TSO/ISPF "ugly" if you hadn't used it for ten or fifteen years as I have.  I
consider UNIX command line "ugly" simply because I'm not familiar with it.  I'm trying
really hard to withhold my prejudice while I get over the learning curve.  Beauty and
elegance is, as they say, in the eye of the beholder (anyone seen "Shrek"?).  It's
what you're familiar and comfortable with.  I must admit, like it's any secret to
those that have been reading my posts, that I am quite comfortable with the
mainframe.  I have never been one to remain in the center of my comfort zone for
long.  I have pursued the knowledge of various alternative systems in the past, some
I've learned well, some only cursory. OS/2, C, Java, Oracle, HTML, and now Linux have
all pushed my comfort zone, while my bread and butter remains where my expertise
lies.  It's hard to walk away from what you're good at to do something you're marginal
at when you have to put shoes on the kids.  :-)

>
> --
> Mike Coleman, mkc at mathdogs.com                                      Windows XP
> http://www.mathdogs.com                                               Linux :)
> problem solving, expert software development

Keep pushing my comfort zone Mike, and I'll push yours.  ;-)

This has been a great thread.  Now let's get back to Linux on our PCs.

Peace,
Jim Herrmann

Having gone back and read what I wrote, I now apologize for such a long post.