4 ms·

I will be hated for saying that but .... Little reflection: The Cloud (PaaS & SaaS) is nothing else than the new Mainframe 2.0. Same staff, different time. -

by adev_ 6y ago

I will be hated for saying that but .... Little reflection: The Cloud (PaaS & SaaS) is nothing else than the new Mainframe 2.0. Same staff, different time. - Mainframes provides you HA by hardware redundancy, The Cloud do the same using distributed consensus and virtualization. - Mainframes offer a way to scale your infrastructure through vertical scaling. The Cloud does the same through horizontal scaling. - Mainframes jail its users through proprietary software stack (COBOL&IBM), the Cloud do exactly the same through proprietary APIs & services (SQS, lambda, Aurora). - Mainframes make you jailed financially to an hardware provider (support contract). The Cloud make you jailed financially to a service provider (BW, $/h). - Mainframes were provided by Big-Corps in close to duopoly situation. Same for Cloud providers today.

dijit 6y ago
The main difference is that I can kinda almost run the software on my laptop. Until you use Cloud Spanner or SQS or any other cloud specific technology.
- lboc 6y ago
  If you're assuming 'for free', then yes I agree. A full z/OS cluster on a laptop is well within the realms of feasibility using (non-free) zPDT however. https://www.redbooks.ibm.com/abstracts/sg248205.html https://www.redbooks.ibm.com/abstracts/sg248205.html (Edit: poorly phrased the first time around...)
  - trasz 6y ago
    Yeah, with an emulator. You could as well use Hercules instead, it’s Open Source.
    - lboc 6y ago
      But z/OS isn't. You need both for a functioning local environment. (Yes, yes, leaving aside IBM z/OS licensing restrictions which preclude use under Hercules)
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
  - qayxc 6y ago
    The "for free" or "for cheap" is implied. IBM doesn't exactly hand out VSE or z/OS licenses for peanuts...
    - lboc 6y ago
      Yes, I thought so but didn't want to assume.
- tams 6y ago
  Even with cloud specific technologies still have to option to use locally running alternatives for development with a little abstraction. Unless your core business specifically targets the capabilities of chosen cloud specific tech, you can get away with developing on a supplemental solution and rely on CI plus staging environments to uncover and fix the edge cases that you miss this way. This is especially true with low-level stuff like databases and queues. I've worked like this for years and never had to worry much about it.
  - qayxc 6y ago
    Agreed - containers and VMs have made this approach even simpler these days. Mainframes on the other hand are next to impossible to get in hardware and pretty much useless when emulated (what good is Hercules if you still can't get z/OS or VSE for it?).
  - luma 6y ago
    If you're going to run alternatives to cloud services and call that good enough, then the same is also true for mainframe development. Meaning, I can't run DynamoDB locally but PostgreSQL is close enough for most tasks, so sure I can kinda run that workload locally, but I won't learn any implementation-specific issues about how it would behave in AWS. Similarly, I might have a hard time running DB2 for Z/OS, but I can also run it on Windows or Linux, and in this case I'm far closer to the actual development environment. Same is true for most of the dev tools and services commonly found in Z series environments. I would argue the commenter above you is flat-out wrong: for most core AWS and Azure services, it's far easier to put together a home, single-desktop-PC-based dev environment for mainframe than it would be for cloud if you don't have the ability to actually use the cloud directly.
- adev_ 6y ago
  Yes and you got the major difference here: accessibility - Where with Mainframes, you had to be part of a medium corp / university to be able to touch one. With the Cloud, anyone worldwide with a laptop and 15$ in its wallet can learn how to use it. That's a big difference and explain (partially) the exponential development of the Cloud. Howevet in this world nothing is free. And we traded this accessibility for our confidentiality - Where IBM had pretty low control on the usage of the hardware they were selling to you, Amazon now physically own both of your data and your software, and could technically know the color of the underwear of your CEO if they want to.
  - dijit 6y ago
    Actually, I see the opposite of what you said. It's possible you see it this way because you've grown into your position before there was a cloud, or perhaps you had more free money to spend on things (pocket money or so on). When I was younger, I was poor. The kind of poor I was (not starving, but no disposable income of any kind and certainly no personal money) is enough to kill the premise of learning a cloud provider dead. What I mean is: if you need a credit card, it's probably not going to work. There's no way I could attach a credit card to something, there's no way I could spend $5/mo on learning, I didn't have $5 to my name, much less a credit card. And the risk of overspending even if you do have some spare income is fucking -scary- as a person who is poor. The idea that I could not have money for food because I forgot to delete something is stifling. I learned nearly everything I know on 10 year old hardware that I picked up for free or near free. That is accessibility. As it stands today I'm pretty flush with cash, but I -still- worry about unexpected cloud costs. Mostly because I work with it every day and know concretely how easy it is for the costs to balloon. So, no, I think it's the same level of accessibility as mainframes, you can't work against an "old" cloud provider that you picked up for almost nothing. You have to put your money where your mouth is, and experimentation has a financial cost. Only people who can help you foot the bill (university, employer) or who can clean down environments properly (tutorial labs) are going to make it even remotely more accessible, but it still wont be as accessible even then. Accessibility of running things at home is why many of us are able to do this job, I think the majority of people my age spun up a PHP/MYSQL pairing and started messing with things, it was easy, and it was "free" if you already had a PC, and it could be exposed to the internet.. you learned a lot, incrementally. This is the fundamental reason why certain tech prevails for so long.
mindslight 6y ago
These parallels are rooted in centralization, not the technology of mainframes. The centralization-decentralization pendulum has swung back and forth a few times now. Let's hope the next swing is towards decentralized distributed apps under the control of users, instead of this "edge" push that's still centrally controlled.
kyuudou 6y ago
I was saying 6 years ago that virtualization seemed like a sloppy and expensive way to return to the mainframe model. Probably many others saw the trend as well.
bobbydreamer 6y ago
Dont say this out loud. I said this in 2011, I was mocked and treated as a kid. I just showed equivalent products in mainframe and respective offhost products. Only difference offhost had many options on softwares, mainframes only few vendors(CA/BMC or IBM). By the way how many of you planning on moving from Nodejs to Deno. In mainframe there is a language Rexx, no change for last 10yrs.

by adev_ 6y ago

dijit 6y ago

The main difference is that I can kinda almost run the software on my laptop. Until you use Cloud Spanner or SQS or any other cloud specific technology.

lboc 6y ago
If you're assuming 'for free', then yes I agree. A full z/OS cluster on a laptop is well within the realms of feasibility using (non-free) zPDT however. https://www.redbooks.ibm.com/abstracts/sg248205.html https://www.redbooks.ibm.com/abstracts/sg248205.html (Edit: poorly phrased the first time around...)
- trasz 6y ago
  Yeah, with an emulator. You could as well use Hercules instead, it’s Open Source.
  - lboc 6y ago
    But z/OS isn't. You need both for a functioning local environment. (Yes, yes, leaving aside IBM z/OS licensing restrictions which preclude use under Hercules)
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
- qayxc 6y ago
  The "for free" or "for cheap" is implied. IBM doesn't exactly hand out VSE or z/OS licenses for peanuts...
  - lboc 6y ago
    Yes, I thought so but didn't want to assume.
tams 6y ago
Even with cloud specific technologies still have to option to use locally running alternatives for development with a little abstraction. Unless your core business specifically targets the capabilities of chosen cloud specific tech, you can get away with developing on a supplemental solution and rely on CI plus staging environments to uncover and fix the edge cases that you miss this way. This is especially true with low-level stuff like databases and queues. I've worked like this for years and never had to worry much about it.
- qayxc 6y ago
  Agreed - containers and VMs have made this approach even simpler these days. Mainframes on the other hand are next to impossible to get in hardware and pretty much useless when emulated (what good is Hercules if you still can't get z/OS or VSE for it?).
- luma 6y ago
  If you're going to run alternatives to cloud services and call that good enough, then the same is also true for mainframe development. Meaning, I can't run DynamoDB locally but PostgreSQL is close enough for most tasks, so sure I can kinda run that workload locally, but I won't learn any implementation-specific issues about how it would behave in AWS. Similarly, I might have a hard time running DB2 for Z/OS, but I can also run it on Windows or Linux, and in this case I'm far closer to the actual development environment. Same is true for most of the dev tools and services commonly found in Z series environments. I would argue the commenter above you is flat-out wrong: for most core AWS and Azure services, it's far easier to put together a home, single-desktop-PC-based dev environment for mainframe than it would be for cloud if you don't have the ability to actually use the cloud directly.
adev_ 6y ago
Yes and you got the major difference here: accessibility - Where with Mainframes, you had to be part of a medium corp / university to be able to touch one. With the Cloud, anyone worldwide with a laptop and 15$ in its wallet can learn how to use it. That's a big difference and explain (partially) the exponential development of the Cloud. Howevet in this world nothing is free. And we traded this accessibility for our confidentiality - Where IBM had pretty low control on the usage of the hardware they were selling to you, Amazon now physically own both of your data and your software, and could technically know the color of the underwear of your CEO if they want to.
- dijit 6y ago
  Actually, I see the opposite of what you said. It's possible you see it this way because you've grown into your position before there was a cloud, or perhaps you had more free money to spend on things (pocket money or so on). When I was younger, I was poor. The kind of poor I was (not starving, but no disposable income of any kind and certainly no personal money) is enough to kill the premise of learning a cloud provider dead. What I mean is: if you need a credit card, it's probably not going to work. There's no way I could attach a credit card to something, there's no way I could spend $5/mo on learning, I didn't have $5 to my name, much less a credit card. And the risk of overspending even if you do have some spare income is fucking -scary- as a person who is poor. The idea that I could not have money for food because I forgot to delete something is stifling. I learned nearly everything I know on 10 year old hardware that I picked up for free or near free. That is accessibility. As it stands today I'm pretty flush with cash, but I -still- worry about unexpected cloud costs. Mostly because I work with it every day and know concretely how easy it is for the costs to balloon. So, no, I think it's the same level of accessibility as mainframes, you can't work against an "old" cloud provider that you picked up for almost nothing. You have to put your money where your mouth is, and experimentation has a financial cost. Only people who can help you foot the bill (university, employer) or who can clean down environments properly (tutorial labs) are going to make it even remotely more accessible, but it still wont be as accessible even then. Accessibility of running things at home is why many of us are able to do this job, I think the majority of people my age spun up a PHP/MYSQL pairing and started messing with things, it was easy, and it was "free" if you already had a PC, and it could be exposed to the internet.. you learned a lot, incrementally. This is the fundamental reason why certain tech prevails for so long.

mindslight 6y ago

These parallels are rooted in centralization, not the technology of mainframes. The centralization-decentralization pendulum has swung back and forth a few times now. Let's hope the next swing is towards decentralized distributed apps under the control of users, instead of this "edge" push that's still centrally controlled.

kyuudou 6y ago

I was saying 6 years ago that virtualization seemed like a sloppy and expensive way to return to the mainframe model. Probably many others saw the trend as well.

bobbydreamer 6y ago

Dont say this out loud. I said this in 2011, I was mocked and treated as a kid. I just showed equivalent products in mainframe and respective offhost products. Only difference offhost had many options on softwares, mainframes only few vendors(CA/BMC or IBM). By the way how many of you planning on moving from Nodejs to Deno. In mainframe there is a language Rexx, no change for last 10yrs.