5 ms·

I think I’ve made this comment before, but there really are some jobs that monolithic big iron does better, particularly in banking where you need guaranteed ex

I think I’ve made this comment before, but there really are some jobs that monolithic big iron does better, particularly in banking where you need guaranteed exactly-once delivery scaled massively to support transaction processing, where re-creating the system with a modern architecture would need multiple times the infrastructure and maintenance. That combined with existing COBOL/Natural codebases that work pretty reliably and are regulator approved gives mainframes an element of inertia that I suspect will outlive even me.

effie 3y ago
This is what IBM and people living off mainframes tell the world all day long, but I think you'll have trouble showing that mainframe's job can't be replaced by a few hi-end x86 servers under cost. Inertia, regulators, and company having lots of money to the point they don't care (banks...) explains mainframes. They do the job well, so why bother replacing them if you don't care that they cost more.
- freedomben 3y ago
  > This is what IBM and people living off mainframes tell the world all day long, but I think you'll have trouble showing that mainframe's job can't be replaced by a few hi-end x86 servers under cost. It's been tried many times before, and it never works out. Whether it's system complexity that can't be replicated, or woes from floating point imprecision, it's a hell of a lot harder than people who haven't dug into it think.
  - unmole 3y ago
    > It's been tried many times before, and it never works out. Seems to work just fine for Indian banks and the Income Tax Department.
    - freedomben 3y ago
      Is the story published anywhere that you know of? I'd be interested in reading more about this
      - unmole 3y ago
        A Majority of large Indian banks use Finacle for their core banking. It's specifically marketed by Infosys as a replacement for legacy mainframe systems and can be deployed on AWS: https://www.infosys.com/services/cloud-cobalt/insights/finacle-banking-suite.html https://www.infosys.com/services/cloud-cobalt/insights/finac... Infosys marketing copy for the GST portal talks about leveraging opensource building blocks: https://www.infosys.com/services/application-modernization/case-studies/centralized-administration-platform.html https://www.infosys.com/services/application-modernization/c... My Google-fu is failing me, you might have better luck searching for specifics about Finacle.
        freedomben 3y ago
        Neat, thanks that's a super helpful launch point!
  - effie 3y ago
    > It's been tried many times before Can you link some specific example? That may be an interesting read.
    - freedomben 3y ago
      Im on mobile at the moment but I'll see if I can find some when I'm back on desktop. The stories I've read were nearly all on HN over the last 10 years, some as articles and some as comments, that came up on threads about cobol (mainframe rarely seems to make it to relevance lol)
- pjmlp 3y ago
  For starters they don't suffer from C and C++ related exploits, given the systems languages that were used to write them like PL/S and NEWP, or the business languages being mainly COBOL, RPG and nowadays Java.
  - effie 3y ago
    That depends on what the customer does, no? > However, z/OS also implements 64-bit Java, C, C++, and UNIX (Single UNIX Specification) APIs and applications through UNIX System Services – The Open Group certifies z/OS as a compliant UNIX operating system – with UNIX/Linux-style hierarchical HFS[NB 3][NB 4] and zFS file systems. These compatibilities make z/OS capable of running a range of commercial and open source software.[3] z/OS can communicate directly via TCP/IP, including IPv6,[4] and includes standard HTTP servers (one from Lotus, the other Apache-derived) along with other common services such as SSH, FTP, NFS, and CIFS/SMB. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z/OS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z/OS Although I like the argument that having an OS that does not require use of C is an interesting feature. Then it's really about the quality software platform, more than about the magic hardware.
    - pjmlp 3y ago
      If the customer decides to bring UNIX into their workloads, well they should not complain afterwards.
sillywalk 3y ago
IBM still invests in it's mainframes, and you can also run Linux on VMs, if you wanted to start to transition over some things. You can run an official IBM emulator for only $5,980.00 per user per year[0]. I've never done it, but this[1] guy did. Or you can run the open source Hercules[2] emulator, but this is limited to Linux, or older IBM operating systems. [0] https://www.ibm.com/products/z-development-test-environment https://www.ibm.com/products/z-development-test-environment [1] https://colinpaice.blog/2020/06/29/getting-z-os-installed-on-my-ubuntu-laptop/ https://colinpaice.blog/2020/06/29/getting-z-os-installed-on... [2] http://www.hercules-390.org/ http://www.hercules-390.org/

effie 3y ago

This is what IBM and people living off mainframes tell the world all day long, but I think you'll have trouble showing that mainframe's job can't be replaced by a few hi-end x86 servers under cost. Inertia, regulators, and company having lots of money to the point they don't care (banks...) explains mainframes. They do the job well, so why bother replacing them if you don't care that they cost more.

freedomben 3y ago
> This is what IBM and people living off mainframes tell the world all day long, but I think you'll have trouble showing that mainframe's job can't be replaced by a few hi-end x86 servers under cost. It's been tried many times before, and it never works out. Whether it's system complexity that can't be replicated, or woes from floating point imprecision, it's a hell of a lot harder than people who haven't dug into it think.
- unmole 3y ago
  > It's been tried many times before, and it never works out. Seems to work just fine for Indian banks and the Income Tax Department.
  - freedomben 3y ago
    Is the story published anywhere that you know of? I'd be interested in reading more about this
    - unmole 3y ago
      A Majority of large Indian banks use Finacle for their core banking. It's specifically marketed by Infosys as a replacement for legacy mainframe systems and can be deployed on AWS: https://www.infosys.com/services/cloud-cobalt/insights/finacle-banking-suite.html https://www.infosys.com/services/cloud-cobalt/insights/finac... Infosys marketing copy for the GST portal talks about leveraging opensource building blocks: https://www.infosys.com/services/application-modernization/case-studies/centralized-administration-platform.html https://www.infosys.com/services/application-modernization/c... My Google-fu is failing me, you might have better luck searching for specifics about Finacle.
      - freedomben 3y ago
        Neat, thanks that's a super helpful launch point!
- effie 3y ago
  > It's been tried many times before Can you link some specific example? That may be an interesting read.
  - freedomben 3y ago
    Im on mobile at the moment but I'll see if I can find some when I'm back on desktop. The stories I've read were nearly all on HN over the last 10 years, some as articles and some as comments, that came up on threads about cobol (mainframe rarely seems to make it to relevance lol)
pjmlp 3y ago
For starters they don't suffer from C and C++ related exploits, given the systems languages that were used to write them like PL/S and NEWP, or the business languages being mainly COBOL, RPG and nowadays Java.
- effie 3y ago
  That depends on what the customer does, no? > However, z/OS also implements 64-bit Java, C, C++, and UNIX (Single UNIX Specification) APIs and applications through UNIX System Services – The Open Group certifies z/OS as a compliant UNIX operating system – with UNIX/Linux-style hierarchical HFS[NB 3][NB 4] and zFS file systems. These compatibilities make z/OS capable of running a range of commercial and open source software.[3] z/OS can communicate directly via TCP/IP, including IPv6,[4] and includes standard HTTP servers (one from Lotus, the other Apache-derived) along with other common services such as SSH, FTP, NFS, and CIFS/SMB. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z/OS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z/OS Although I like the argument that having an OS that does not require use of C is an interesting feature. Then it's really about the quality software platform, more than about the magic hardware.
  - pjmlp 3y ago
    If the customer decides to bring UNIX into their workloads, well they should not complain afterwards.

sillywalk 3y ago

IBM still invests in it's mainframes, and you can also run Linux on VMs, if you wanted to start to transition over some things. You can run an official IBM emulator for only $5,980.00 per user per year[0]. I've never done it, but this[1] guy did. Or you can run the open source Hercules[2] emulator, but this is limited to Linux, or older IBM operating systems. [0] https://www.ibm.com/products/z-development-test-environment https://www.ibm.com/products/z-development-test-environment [1] https://colinpaice.blog/2020/06/29/getting-z-os-installed-on-my-ubuntu-laptop/ https://colinpaice.blog/2020/06/29/getting-z-os-installed-on... [2] http://www.hercules-390.org/ http://www.hercules-390.org/