* Posts by x-IBMer

11 publicly visible posts • joined 8 Mar 2019

For a moment there, Lotus Notes appeared to do everything a company needed

x-IBMer

The mainframes are still there

"Just look at how personal computers largely replaced the hulking mainframes and minicomputers that came before them, then proceeded to slowly accumulate the advanced features of those older systems, like multi-user support, redundancy, and security." Demonstrates a fundamental ignorance of what actually happened from the late 80's through to the early 00's in the enterprise IT landscape.

x-IBMer

"Just look at how personal computers largely replaced the hulking mainframes and minicomputers that came before them, then proceeded to slowly accumulate the advanced features of those older systems, like multi-user support, redundancy, and security." Demonstrates a huge misunderstanding of what actually happened.

Fujitsu confirms end date for mainframe and Unix systems

x-IBMer

All you've shown here is how little you know about mainframe hardware and transaction processing.

A floppy filled with software worth thousands of francs: Techie can't take it, customs won't keep it. What to do?

x-IBMer

Not your data anymore

I worked for a national Gov department of statistics whose charter included a clause about data privacy, basically any data that came into our possession was immediately 'classified' and could not be released in an un-redacted form via any means other than our proper channels. One day we received a tape from another government agency containing some data that would go into our processing and eventually form part of one of our published reports. Later that same day, a courier arrived from the other agency with a request to have a copy of the tape just submitted made and returned to them - their original had become damaged somehow. Unfortunately we could no oblige, as the data had already crossed our threshold and was now beholden to the legislation under which we operated. We could not give back a copy of the data to its original owners. Never found out what they did without their own data in the end...

The classic hits keep coming from IBM: z/OS set for big update in September

x-IBMer

The cash cow that keeps on giving...

Though I'm a die hard mainframer through and through with a complete understanding of the reasons companies keep on buying this kit, I also know just how much of IBMs revenue, and especially IBMs profit margin, comes from this 7 billion dollar a year business. Without competition, the mainframe has become an exploiter of its unique niche, and in a nasty not a nice way. It's a pity that this is the way the business world for large scale enterprise computing has become, because it is great technology and it need not have become the exploitative monopoly it has.

Controversial American bigwig in London... no, not Trump: HPE ex-CEO Meg Whitman to give Autonomy trial evidence

x-IBMer

Lawyers have friends?!?!

LzLabs kills Swisscom’s mainframes – but it's not the work of a vicious BOFH: All the apps are now living on cloud nine

x-IBMer

International Beverages Machine

The new IBM:

https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6535785170232975360

x-IBMer

The problem has never been about how great the mainframe hardware and integrated software is - it’s always been about the cost. We had to teach our new manager at IBM to answer the question he constantly got from our customers about why it was so expensive with the answer “expensive compared to what?” - which is the correct position to take when analyzing which hardware/software combination solved your business problems at the most cost effective point. While no-one denies the mainframe is a great computing platform, the question is whether an alternative platform is ‘good enough’, especially if the costs are significantly lower.

If you dig a little into the PR, I think you’ll find that either 4 or 8 virtualised x86 cores were enough to rehost the 2500 MIPS - that’s a pretty good ratio considering how cheap intel is when compared to SystemZ cores.

x-IBMer

Re: So many questions, so few answers

And none of the points you make prevent larger workloads also being migrated in the same way. A particular focus many of us mainframers have is on the traditional Reliability, Availability and Scalability (RAS) strengths used to market the mainframe and justify its enormous costs. However it’s long been the case that properly configured x86 based servers can also meet these RAS needs. The same applies to the, again traditionally touted, mainframe I/O rates.

x-IBMer

Re: Reliability?

To be truthful, you have the exact same issues with your legacy system - you still need an Internet upstream to actually have customers access the system, and you still need a properly managed datacentre. Swisscom manage datacentres and they are a major Telco, so you’d hope they know something about Internet, and connections.

Sure, we've got a problem but we don't really want to spend any money on the tech guy you're sending to fix it

x-IBMer

A few travel stories

Working for the International Brotherhood of Magicians, at a reasonably senior level, as high as you can get without becoming a mangler basically, and in the sales side of the business though still a technical consultant - so I was a pretty expensive resource to waste my time on nit picking. We booked all our travel via Amex, just call them, tell them where and when, they get back with a itinerary, approved hotels (there's a list), approved travel class, management approval is pretty much automatic. So this one trip I get back home and the expense claim, I had spent three nights of the trip in a hotel in the Philippines, 4 star place, I recall about 80USD per night (cheap). Expense claim people a refusing the re-imburse, because the hotel had charged $1 per night more than the agreed rate. The amount of time I had to spend arguing with the process workers cost IBM at least a dozen times more than the $3 over the limit that had been incurred.

Next one, in Hong Kong at the final leg of a six week trip through Asia Pacific, all client facing, all sales generating, two countries per week, three or four client meetings per country, really exhausting - but I had figured easier on me and the family than many smaller trips over a period of months (all long haul, as origin was Australia). I'm standing in the lobby, in a queue to pay my hotel bill, get a call from a mangler about two levels up, he shouts down the phone at me "How dare you spend 20 grand of my money on this travel" - it was him who had approved the expense request 2 months earlier when we had planned this big sales tour. I always thought it was a bad sign when a mangler begins to think that the company money is actually something they personally own.

Last one, first trip with this company, my colleagues explained the lurk to me. Business Class is permitted if traveling more than 8 hours. Sydney to Singapore is only 7 or 7.5. Hong Kong though is closer to 9. So always book an Asia Pacific tour via HK first, then wherever you need to go next can all be short hops, but the Business Class will stick with you through the entire itinerary. That was a nice time to be traveling, even got bumped to First Class once on a 14 hour to Bangkok - champagne and caviar on being seated. All this ended in 2008 though, none of the actual workers got BC after then, beginning of the end for me...