6 ms·

Has Mainframe Computing Inadvertently Started Its Own Culture War?

31 points by omnibrain 4y ago

mikewarot 4y ago
Mainframes are fast because each given "run time" (aka VM) has a fixed set of resources (aka Capabilities). Unlike the PC world, the default access is NO to any other files, etc. We in the PC world keep reinventing our terms, the Mainframe folks just keep using the ones settled on decades ago. You can run a VAX 11/780 in an Emulator, the same is true of many older Mainframes. There's nothing magic about them, they're just optimized for throughput, in a very specific context.
- arethuza 4y ago
  I didn't think a VAX 11/780 was considered a mainframe - rather a minicomputer?
  - lproven 4y ago
    Agreed. The VAX 9000 range tried to become mainframes, and the effort to make them bankrupted DEC. But there are non-IBM mainframes. They do run under emulation on x86, but they are still real. Unisys Clearpath, for instance.
    - arethuza 4y ago
      The CS course I did in the 1980s had us use a Burroughs mainframe for the first year (complete with MCP) - I think this was a cunning ploy to make us really appreciate Unix when we got to use for the remaining three years....
      - lproven 4y ago
        Just curious: in what ways? I started out on VAXen before I learned DOS or Xenix, and frankly, I preferred it. File versioning was wonderful and with that as a basis, we'd never have needed the vile baroque mess that is Git.
        arethuza 4y ago
        The Burroughs user environment was a thing called CANDE - which really wasn't much fun at all: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CANDE https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CANDE
        lproven 4y ago
        How odd. That sounds very strange, but now I want to try it. :-)
quantified 4y ago
I'm not sure "started" is the right word. To the degree it's "war", seems like the minor escalations have been regular ever since the VAX was released.
cptnapalm 4y ago
I bumped into some of this in the hobby world. I rescued a 1999 Multiprise 3000 from becoming scrap metal. It has no hard drives and it would be extraordinarily expensive to try to populate even the minimum. It could, though, be used using the IDE port on the PICMG-1.0 PC card, though. I got OS/2 up and running and sought help for the rest. One guy had tons of utilities he got from someone else, but plainly refused to even run a single ftp command. Another was helping, but wouldn't upload more than the bare minimum for each tiny step and quit right when it was time for the stuff needed to talk to the mainframe portion. Most other responses to inquiries, when anyone replied, was to cut IBM a check. It was a frustrating and fruitless effort.
- MichaelZuo 4y ago
  I think that kind of stance is partly intentional on IBM's part. Right now it's practically impossible to develop viruses/ransomware/etc. for any mainframe product, so mainframe owners get security equivalent to commodity air gapped servers, even when it's connected to the internet. Though behind firewalls of course. Allowing hobbyists real software/firmware access will inevitably incentivize the creation of attacks since so much valuable financial data flows over mainframes, which everyone knows about.
  - cptnapalm 4y ago
    I do get that, but... my little mainframe is 23 years old...
anonygler 4y ago
Mainframes are locked into an antiquated IBM business model: charging by the CPU usage. This incentivizes writing code in Assembly, and prevented me from writing code in Java. They sell a “Java co processor” which is just an unmetered CPU for running JVM. It’s an insular world in large part because of the pricing model that IBM/SAS doesn’t want to give up. No amount of claimed benefits can make adopting the mainframe a sane decision.
- bitwize 4y ago
  > Mainframes are locked into an antiquated IBM business model: charging by the CPU usage. As opposed to more modern platforms, like the cloud!
  - _fat_santa 4y ago
    (I have very limited experience in Mainframe systems to take my comment with a grain of salt) The problem as I see it is IBM wants to have its cake and eat it too. Typically a Mainframe is leased and then setup onsite. Under this model, it would seem that you would get unlimited use out of it because you’re paying for the power, and it’s literally on site. However by charging per CPU usage, even though you’re using it on site, you still treat it as a “cloud” appliance in terms of pricing If I spin up something in AWS for example, it’s metered yes but that comes to be at the benefit of not having the machine on site and therefore not having to worry about it’s power, upkeep, etc. It would be like a car company selling you a car and then charging you to drive it per mile.
    - MichaelZuo 4y ago
      Well isn't that because most IBM customers don't actually pay upfront for their mainframes, but instead effectively lease them? Car companies DO charge you per mile to drive a leased car beyond the standard allotment. I think your comparing apples to oranges here.
      - lupire 4y ago
        A CPU doesn't have wear and tear like a car does.
treesknees 4y ago
Are there free resources for truly learning how to use and manage a mainframe? I would love to add "mainframe" to my resume, but I just don't have the understanding of where to start with it. Let's say I were to get an emulator running, or somehow install a mainframe in my basement. Then what? What could an average person like myself do on a mainframe that would be useful and benefit me in terms of the job market? I can download a Linux ISO and run anything I want to on a distributed system (x86 or ARM PC.) That type of tinkering is how I got my start/interest in technology to begin with. But it's not as though I'm about to process financial transactions in my basement for fun. How do you get started "tinkering" with mainframes?
- theideaofcoffee 4y ago
  There are open-source projects that attempt to do emulation of some of the larger mainframe systems (S/370, ESA/390, z) like [0] but you have a number of things working against you in that. You are more than likely not to find any newer version of, say, z/OS to run. Couple that with the fact that most mainframe programs deployed at FIs like core banking are so heavily customized commercial packages to fit an individual institution's needs, Hogan and similar [1], that they might as well be bespoke, internally developed systems. You may be able to get away with learning the basics of CICS [2] but it would be a struggle, not near as easy as fetching a linux distro ISO. That said, I personally think that the Z architecture is completely bonkers and I would love the opportunity, like you, to learn it more in depth. My info above comes second-hand from what I've been able to piece together in my own searches. [0] http://www.hercules-390.eu/ http://www.hercules-390.eu/ [1] https://www.luxoft.com/banking/core-banking/ https://www.luxoft.com/banking/core-banking/ [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CICS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CICS , https://www.redbooks.ibm.com/abstracts/sg247952.html?Open https://www.redbooks.ibm.com/abstracts/sg247952.html?Open
  - ksaj 4y ago
    This is a pretty reasonable synopsis. Read my other comment in this thread for related info. "Z architecture" isn't all that different from the Linux for MVS integration, so it's not all that bonkers. Trying to understand mainframes in terms of Unix/Linux is totally bonkers, though.
caterama 4y ago
A friend of mine recently left a mainframe assembler programming job. They didn't want to get stuck as a mainframe assembler programmer. They were part the first batch of new hires the company had made in over 10 years for the role. The company didn't pay like they wanted to keep their talent though. And, to top it off, a high level execs criticized growth in that product: "it's in the wrong bucket!".
snorkel 4y ago
Mainframe devs remind me of mechanics who specialize in repairing classic cars.
oswamano 4y ago
What new developer would go into mainframe development? Heck, at this point, what developer who hadn't worked on mainframes before would decide to go into mainframe development?

31 points by omnibrain 4y ago

Mainframes are fast because each given "run time" (aka VM) has a fixed set of resources (aka Capabilities). Unlike the PC world, the default access is NO to any other files, etc. We in the PC world keep reinventing our terms, the Mainframe folks just keep using the ones settled on decades ago. You can run a VAX 11/780 in an Emulator, the same is true of many older Mainframes. There's nothing magic about them, they're just optimized for throughput, in a very specific context.

arethuza 4y ago
I didn't think a VAX 11/780 was considered a mainframe - rather a minicomputer?
- lproven 4y ago
  Agreed. The VAX 9000 range tried to become mainframes, and the effort to make them bankrupted DEC. But there are non-IBM mainframes. They do run under emulation on x86, but they are still real. Unisys Clearpath, for instance.
  - arethuza 4y ago
    The CS course I did in the 1980s had us use a Burroughs mainframe for the first year (complete with MCP) - I think this was a cunning ploy to make us really appreciate Unix when we got to use for the remaining three years....
    - lproven 4y ago
      Just curious: in what ways? I started out on VAXen before I learned DOS or Xenix, and frankly, I preferred it. File versioning was wonderful and with that as a basis, we'd never have needed the vile baroque mess that is Git.
      - arethuza 4y ago
        The Burroughs user environment was a thing called CANDE - which really wasn't much fun at all: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CANDE https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CANDE
        lproven 4y ago
        How odd. That sounds very strange, but now I want to try it. :-)

quantified 4y ago

I'm not sure "started" is the right word. To the degree it's "war", seems like the minor escalations have been regular ever since the VAX was released.

cptnapalm 4y ago

I bumped into some of this in the hobby world. I rescued a 1999 Multiprise 3000 from becoming scrap metal. It has no hard drives and it would be extraordinarily expensive to try to populate even the minimum. It could, though, be used using the IDE port on the PICMG-1.0 PC card, though. I got OS/2 up and running and sought help for the rest. One guy had tons of utilities he got from someone else, but plainly refused to even run a single ftp command. Another was helping, but wouldn't upload more than the bare minimum for each tiny step and quit right when it was time for the stuff needed to talk to the mainframe portion. Most other responses to inquiries, when anyone replied, was to cut IBM a check. It was a frustrating and fruitless effort.

MichaelZuo 4y ago
I think that kind of stance is partly intentional on IBM's part. Right now it's practically impossible to develop viruses/ransomware/etc. for any mainframe product, so mainframe owners get security equivalent to commodity air gapped servers, even when it's connected to the internet. Though behind firewalls of course. Allowing hobbyists real software/firmware access will inevitably incentivize the creation of attacks since so much valuable financial data flows over mainframes, which everyone knows about.
- cptnapalm 4y ago
  I do get that, but... my little mainframe is 23 years old...

anonygler 4y ago

Mainframes are locked into an antiquated IBM business model: charging by the CPU usage. This incentivizes writing code in Assembly, and prevented me from writing code in Java. They sell a “Java co processor” which is just an unmetered CPU for running JVM. It’s an insular world in large part because of the pricing model that IBM/SAS doesn’t want to give up. No amount of claimed benefits can make adopting the mainframe a sane decision.

bitwize 4y ago
> Mainframes are locked into an antiquated IBM business model: charging by the CPU usage. As opposed to more modern platforms, like the cloud!
- _fat_santa 4y ago
  (I have very limited experience in Mainframe systems to take my comment with a grain of salt) The problem as I see it is IBM wants to have its cake and eat it too. Typically a Mainframe is leased and then setup onsite. Under this model, it would seem that you would get unlimited use out of it because you’re paying for the power, and it’s literally on site. However by charging per CPU usage, even though you’re using it on site, you still treat it as a “cloud” appliance in terms of pricing If I spin up something in AWS for example, it’s metered yes but that comes to be at the benefit of not having the machine on site and therefore not having to worry about it’s power, upkeep, etc. It would be like a car company selling you a car and then charging you to drive it per mile.
  - MichaelZuo 4y ago
    Well isn't that because most IBM customers don't actually pay upfront for their mainframes, but instead effectively lease them? Car companies DO charge you per mile to drive a leased car beyond the standard allotment. I think your comparing apples to oranges here.
    - lupire 4y ago
      A CPU doesn't have wear and tear like a car does.

treesknees 4y ago

Are there free resources for truly learning how to use and manage a mainframe? I would love to add "mainframe" to my resume, but I just don't have the understanding of where to start with it. Let's say I were to get an emulator running, or somehow install a mainframe in my basement. Then what? What could an average person like myself do on a mainframe that would be useful and benefit me in terms of the job market? I can download a Linux ISO and run anything I want to on a distributed system (x86 or ARM PC.) That type of tinkering is how I got my start/interest in technology to begin with. But it's not as though I'm about to process financial transactions in my basement for fun. How do you get started "tinkering" with mainframes?

theideaofcoffee 4y ago
There are open-source projects that attempt to do emulation of some of the larger mainframe systems (S/370, ESA/390, z) like [0] but you have a number of things working against you in that. You are more than likely not to find any newer version of, say, z/OS to run. Couple that with the fact that most mainframe programs deployed at FIs like core banking are so heavily customized commercial packages to fit an individual institution's needs, Hogan and similar [1], that they might as well be bespoke, internally developed systems. You may be able to get away with learning the basics of CICS [2] but it would be a struggle, not near as easy as fetching a linux distro ISO. That said, I personally think that the Z architecture is completely bonkers and I would love the opportunity, like you, to learn it more in depth. My info above comes second-hand from what I've been able to piece together in my own searches. [0] http://www.hercules-390.eu/ http://www.hercules-390.eu/ [1] https://www.luxoft.com/banking/core-banking/ https://www.luxoft.com/banking/core-banking/ [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CICS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CICS , https://www.redbooks.ibm.com/abstracts/sg247952.html?Open https://www.redbooks.ibm.com/abstracts/sg247952.html?Open
- ksaj 4y ago
  This is a pretty reasonable synopsis. Read my other comment in this thread for related info. "Z architecture" isn't all that different from the Linux for MVS integration, so it's not all that bonkers. Trying to understand mainframes in terms of Unix/Linux is totally bonkers, though.

caterama 4y ago

A friend of mine recently left a mainframe assembler programming job. They didn't want to get stuck as a mainframe assembler programmer. They were part the first batch of new hires the company had made in over 10 years for the role. The company didn't pay like they wanted to keep their talent though. And, to top it off, a high level execs criticized growth in that product: "it's in the wrong bucket!".

snorkel 4y ago

Mainframe devs remind me of mechanics who specialize in repairing classic cars.

oswamano 4y ago

What new developer would go into mainframe development? Heck, at this point, what developer who hadn't worked on mainframes before would decide to go into mainframe development?