5 ms·

At least with IBM the documentation is freely available, but you're pretty SOL if you encounter non-IBM platform. Some have docs, some don't, but finding IBM is

by p_l 6y ago

At least with IBM the documentation is freely available, but you're pretty SOL if you encounter non-IBM platform. Some have docs, some don't, but finding IBM is at least reasonably easy.

908B64B197 6y ago
Doesn't matter: the industry has moved-on. They had to make it open decades ago. Now it's too late.
- gnu8 6y ago
  I don't think that is really accurate; nothing processes transactions like an IBM mainframe. To draw a crude automotive analogy, no matter how much you soup up a truck, it is never going to be a locomotive. It is simply a different scale of machine.
  - astrange 6y ago
    Are there actual objective benchmarks for things like this? Everything you actually see out of IBM is so bad (blockchain 5G AI cloud nonsense) and Moore's law exists, so it's hard to believe this stuff is that good as opposed to just having a really good moat. I am surprised how many government/bank systems run on 50s-70s code; it makes you wonder if we kept in practice writing those kinds of things since then.
    - bawolff 6y ago
      IBM is a shell of what it used to be. I don't know if what the grandparent is saying is true, honestly i highly doubt it, but its unfair to compare old ibm with its current incantation of marketing fluff and bad high priced consultants.
    - rbanffy 6y ago
      > Are there actual objective benchmarks for things like this? Probably not, but they are machines designed for throughput, with a multitude of intelligent peripherals that pipe data in and out of the CPU, which will be running at close to 100% speed all the time. The CPUs themselves are quite impressive (they present at Hot Chips regularly) and each cluster of 4 sockets share almost a gigabyte of L4 cache. Everything is also constantly checked, audited, logged for security and reliability. I wouldn’t be surprised if these machines thoroughly smoked a rack of souped up x86s at a similar budget in transaction processing applications.
  - 908B64B197 6y ago
    Problem is, it's a machine that's from one and one vendor only. You can buy a truck anywhere and run it on almost any road. The locomotive has to be from the one locomotive company and good luck running it outside of (really expensive) tracks.
- anthk 6y ago
  Not even close. Mainframes can hot swap stuff while running jobs.
  - lstamour 6y ago
    So can distributed systems? All you need is a queue in the right place or some other kind of data store? It’s relatively easy to decouple data models from processing, you just have to consider failure scenarios? I mean, the distributed non-mainframe way of doing things is you just use more units of hardware to make up for deficiencies? I imagine the hardest thing to port is well, the equivalent to “if we scale up this machine and buy lots of RAM, our data fits in RAM and we can run this code that much faster,” but even then, can mainframes really handle that much more data by virtue of being mainframes with all their legacy? The way I’ve heard it described, it’s not the features of a mainframe that sell it now, those are commodity. Instead it’s the existing code that ties companies to mainframes - they don’t want to rewrite logic they likely don’t actually understand the details of if it’s already been tuned and tweaked to work for their business? To that end the future of mainframes is probably virtualization of hardware and improved static analysis tools to better support codebases we don’t understand because they’re decades old, etc.?
    - rbanffy 6y ago
      You are right in the sense that a modern mainframe is reminiscent of a cluster of specialised computers connected through multiple ridiculously fast interconnects. The difference is that IBM offers the software you’ll need to manage the environment.
    - toomanybeersies 6y ago
      Aren't we facing the exact same problem, but now rehashed in the cloud? A lot of companies are running applications that rely heavily on AWS managed services. If you're tied to DynamoDB or Athena, you're in no better position than being tied to IBM mainframes.
      - lstamour 6y ago
easton 6y ago
Are there other non-IBM companies that have a lot of active mainframes? I was under the impression that the vast majority of mainframes in use were System Z or its kin, but maybe I'm just falling for marketing.
- p_l 6y ago
  There's significant amount of COBOL running outside of mainframes, mostly with MicroFocus offerings and combined with various other presently less-known technologies. Then there's a bunch of mainframe stuff still running around on IBM clones (especially in Japan, afaik). Unisys is still up, and there are still active Burroughs Large Systems deployments (now under ClearPath name, I think?) and few other niche systems.
- yellowapple 6y ago
  COBOL exists beyond mainframes; usually in that case the alternative would be a Unix server (or something approximating one; I've seen COBOL-on-CentOS in the wild). But yeah, as far as mainframes go, at least here in the US, IBM - and specifically AS/400 - is pretty much the only game left in town.
  - jsymolon 6y ago
    I have a couple of Vendor supplied programs that run on MicroFocus COBOL in a Linux environment. The product line supports IBM mainframes and a few other platforms, so I assume it's easier to target the mainframe first and then the other platforms.
- tablespoon 6y ago
  > Are there other non-IBM companies that have a lot of active mainframes? I was under the impression that the vast majority of mainframes in use were System Z or its kin, but maybe I'm just falling for marketing. I think Unisys is still around... https://www.unisys.com/offerings/clearpath-forward/clearpath-forward-products https://www.unisys.com/offerings/clearpath-forward/clearpath... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OS_2200 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OS_2200 https://www.unisys.com/news/News%20Release/New-Unisys-High-End-ClearPath-Systems-Deliver-Mainframe-Performance-on-an-Intel-Based-Platform https://www.unisys.com/news/News%20Release/New-Unisys-High-E...

by p_l 6y ago

At least with IBM the documentation is freely available, but you're pretty SOL if you encounter non-IBM platform. Some have docs, some don't, but finding IBM is at least reasonably easy.

908B64B197 6y ago

Doesn't matter: the industry has moved-on. They had to make it open decades ago. Now it's too late.

gnu8 6y ago
I don't think that is really accurate; nothing processes transactions like an IBM mainframe. To draw a crude automotive analogy, no matter how much you soup up a truck, it is never going to be a locomotive. It is simply a different scale of machine.
- astrange 6y ago
  Are there actual objective benchmarks for things like this? Everything you actually see out of IBM is so bad (blockchain 5G AI cloud nonsense) and Moore's law exists, so it's hard to believe this stuff is that good as opposed to just having a really good moat. I am surprised how many government/bank systems run on 50s-70s code; it makes you wonder if we kept in practice writing those kinds of things since then.
  - bawolff 6y ago
    IBM is a shell of what it used to be. I don't know if what the grandparent is saying is true, honestly i highly doubt it, but its unfair to compare old ibm with its current incantation of marketing fluff and bad high priced consultants.
  - rbanffy 6y ago
    > Are there actual objective benchmarks for things like this? Probably not, but they are machines designed for throughput, with a multitude of intelligent peripherals that pipe data in and out of the CPU, which will be running at close to 100% speed all the time. The CPUs themselves are quite impressive (they present at Hot Chips regularly) and each cluster of 4 sockets share almost a gigabyte of L4 cache. Everything is also constantly checked, audited, logged for security and reliability. I wouldn’t be surprised if these machines thoroughly smoked a rack of souped up x86s at a similar budget in transaction processing applications.
- 908B64B197 6y ago
  Problem is, it's a machine that's from one and one vendor only. You can buy a truck anywhere and run it on almost any road. The locomotive has to be from the one locomotive company and good luck running it outside of (really expensive) tracks.
anthk 6y ago
Not even close. Mainframes can hot swap stuff while running jobs.
- lstamour 6y ago
  So can distributed systems? All you need is a queue in the right place or some other kind of data store? It’s relatively easy to decouple data models from processing, you just have to consider failure scenarios? I mean, the distributed non-mainframe way of doing things is you just use more units of hardware to make up for deficiencies? I imagine the hardest thing to port is well, the equivalent to “if we scale up this machine and buy lots of RAM, our data fits in RAM and we can run this code that much faster,” but even then, can mainframes really handle that much more data by virtue of being mainframes with all their legacy? The way I’ve heard it described, it’s not the features of a mainframe that sell it now, those are commodity. Instead it’s the existing code that ties companies to mainframes - they don’t want to rewrite logic they likely don’t actually understand the details of if it’s already been tuned and tweaked to work for their business? To that end the future of mainframes is probably virtualization of hardware and improved static analysis tools to better support codebases we don’t understand because they’re decades old, etc.?
  - rbanffy 6y ago
    You are right in the sense that a modern mainframe is reminiscent of a cluster of specialised computers connected through multiple ridiculously fast interconnects. The difference is that IBM offers the software you’ll need to manage the environment.
  - toomanybeersies 6y ago
    Aren't we facing the exact same problem, but now rehashed in the cloud? A lot of companies are running applications that rely heavily on AWS managed services. If you're tied to DynamoDB or Athena, you're in no better position than being tied to IBM mainframes.
    - lstamour 6y ago

easton 6y ago

Are there other non-IBM companies that have a lot of active mainframes? I was under the impression that the vast majority of mainframes in use were System Z or its kin, but maybe I'm just falling for marketing.

p_l 6y ago
There's significant amount of COBOL running outside of mainframes, mostly with MicroFocus offerings and combined with various other presently less-known technologies. Then there's a bunch of mainframe stuff still running around on IBM clones (especially in Japan, afaik). Unisys is still up, and there are still active Burroughs Large Systems deployments (now under ClearPath name, I think?) and few other niche systems.
yellowapple 6y ago
COBOL exists beyond mainframes; usually in that case the alternative would be a Unix server (or something approximating one; I've seen COBOL-on-CentOS in the wild). But yeah, as far as mainframes go, at least here in the US, IBM - and specifically AS/400 - is pretty much the only game left in town.
- jsymolon 6y ago
  I have a couple of Vendor supplied programs that run on MicroFocus COBOL in a Linux environment. The product line supports IBM mainframes and a few other platforms, so I assume it's easier to target the mainframe first and then the other platforms.
tablespoon 6y ago
> Are there other non-IBM companies that have a lot of active mainframes? I was under the impression that the vast majority of mainframes in use were System Z or its kin, but maybe I'm just falling for marketing. I think Unisys is still around... https://www.unisys.com/offerings/clearpath-forward/clearpath-forward-products https://www.unisys.com/offerings/clearpath-forward/clearpath... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OS_2200 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OS_2200 https://www.unisys.com/news/News%20Release/New-Unisys-High-End-ClearPath-Systems-Deliver-Mainframe-Performance-on-an-Intel-Based-Platform https://www.unisys.com/news/News%20Release/New-Unisys-High-E...