The C is dead, long live the C

[Adam Turk]

The end of you argument in the first paragraph is only true b/c of
people like you who are afraid of moving forward. The beginning is
unequivocably true. I cannot argue with that. I have seen a mainframe
running Linux - I/O like I have never seen - processing ability of my
old clone box. Mainframe backups may be mature, but your children will
mature before it is back up and running. I would never trust my web
infratructure to a monolith; I believe in distributed technology. If you
can prove to me that a mainframe running OS/390 is more cost-effective
than a linux server farm, you can quell me. Could you also explain
exactly why the government is making Project Purple out of PCs (Maybe
even Linux)? They were once the only big buyers of mainframes. What
gives?

The mainframe has its place and I respect that. But it is not the 'up
and coming'. Mainframes would not have evolved as quickly if PCs did not
threaten their very existence.

Adam

>>> Jim Herrmann <Jim at ItDepends.com> 02/10/02 11:17PM >>>
Obviously people who have never worked with mainframes.  99.9999% up
time.
Contains 70% of the worlds data.  Runs Apache.  Runs Linux.  Runs
thousands
of Linux images.  Last year, mainframe sales increased 12% while the
rest of
the computer industry was growing in negative numbers.  Mainframes are
more
cost effective than server farms.  They require less staff, less
maintenance,
have more mature disaster recovery procedures, handle more data, and
process
more transactions than any other system in wide usage today.  If all the

mainframes turned to dust, you wouldn't have a bank account, you
wouldn't be
able to book an airline reservation, you wouldn't have insurance, your
Charles Schwab account would be gone, and your lights would probably go
out.
If a large company has a major mission critical application, it is most
often
entrusted to a mainframe.

And now, you can get a mainframe with Linux running on the bare iron!
No, my
friend.  Mainframes are not going away anytime soon, if ever.  Today's
mainframe is not your father's mainframe.  Just like everything else,
the
mainframe has evolved into something new.

Peace,
Jim