If anyone thought mainframes were passé, news from IBM last month set the record straight. And it’s prompted questions from a few enterprise IT pros as to whether a mainframe is a more reasonable approach than a private cloud. After all, mainframes run 70 percent of the world’s mission-critical business applications today, so why shift to another approach?
First, consider IBM’s announcement on August 28: The zEnterprise EC12 mainframe, which features the world’s fastest chip (5.5 GHz), can run hybrid workloads of real-time transactions and near real-time analytics. These capabilities further augment the mainframe’s present ability to run a hybrid of both mainframe operating systems and distributed operating systems like Windows, Linux, and Unix -- all within the mainframe footprint, via an integrated zBX Bladecenter.
Does it sound a lot like cloud in a box? It’s not far from it.
Yet, the news still has the ability to startle a generation of IT’ers who have cut their teeth in a distributed computing environment of Intel servers running Linux, Unix, and Windows -- which they see as the pathway to the cloud. Why would you even use a mainframe if you have servers to run the cloud?
The best way to answer the question is to review the main function of servers, i.e., to handle requests for computing resources and data. In this sense, mainframes qualify as servers as much as any other type of computer. Add to this the fact that virtualization, a cornerstone of cloud computing, originated and existed on mainframes as early as the 1960s.
Regardless of this mainframe heritage, most cloud infrastructures, even in mainframe shops, are being founded on distributed computing platforms first. Not every IT department has a mainframe, and for those that do, it's taking additional time to determine exactly how they want to plug their mainframes into their private clouds.
Still, there are enterprises and even cloud providers basing their networks on mainframes. For example, Oildex subsidiary Transzap, a cloud-based SaaS (software as a service) provider, has opted to use a mainframe in its data center to run virtualized Linux -- even though the company had no prior history of running any mainframe systems. The cloud provider likes the mainframe’s reliability, capability, and overall lower cost of ownership.
Many new banks and telecom companies in developing countries are selecting mainframes because these mega-servers are still best in class for the mission-critical applications that these organizations run.
Mainframe services are also popping up in the cloud; a range of SaaS providers provision mainframe resources on an on-demand basis. First National Technology Solutions, for instance, provides managed hosting of mainframe resources to companies that have their own mainframes, but require additional temporary mainframe resources for activities like application testing.
There are plenty of specific business cases that make an argument for the mainframe as a server in the cloud.
Does this mean that mainframes will challenge other servers in cloud presence? Hardly. Even IBM clearly indicates the opposite, as its PureSystems solution released earlier this year indicates. The culmination of a three-year, $2 billion research investment, PureSystems is based on an Intel server foundation and is being touted as a pre-configured and pre-optimized “Smart Cloud” solution for enterprises and SMBs (small and medium-sized businesses).
The bottom line here, for both enterprises and cloud service providers, is that there are many different virtual and physical server choices for private cloud development. Most of these server choices will come from Intel-class machines. But for many others, the mainframe will be a cloud-player fully capable of “serving it up” as well as any other server out there.
RufusJones - The tech industry finds it hard to believe that you can learn an enormous amount about the Internet simply by reading about the history of business use of the telegraph and telephone. Every industry has that degree of blindness to some degree, but it seems to exist in spades here.
Except that a book about that very subject, The Victorian Internet, has proven popular. 66 Amazon reviews, for 4.5 out of 5 stars. Jason Kottke, a very popular tech blogger, says it's one of his favorite books (one of my favorites as well).
Mitch, every industry has fashions-- wide ties, the running game in football-- but it's understood (or at least comprehended) that there are 'business cycles", "changing priorities" or just "fads".
In the tech industry, everything is presented as new wisdom which is gme-changing and require completely new thinking. The smugness and self-satisfaction, coupled wuth the lack of historical perspective, boggles the mind.
The tech industry finds it hard to believe that you can learn an enormous amount about the Internet simply by reading about the history of business use of the telegraph and telephone. Every industry has that degree of blindness to some degree, but it seems to exist in spades here.
RufusJones - These things seem to run in cycles. Users want to outsource everything. Then they find they prefer local control, so they bring it in house. Then they find they don't want the hassle of managing, so they outsource again.
mhhfive - Local backup is necessary but so is remote backup. That's true for enterprises as well as individual users. What if your office or home burns down? Cloud backup is a good solution for that.
I find this sort oif stuff endlessly amusing, probably because I am old-- but still have a functioning memory and a sense of humor.
From an end-user point of view, there is no difference between a mainframe and "the cloud". None. They're both black boxes that you don't control-- you send your little computing requests off to the Great Processor In The Sky and hope the High Priests who run it will send you back what you want.
You can kill billions of pixels trying to identify differences that don't actually exist. But the majority of employees in the enterprise-- who "pay no attention to that man behind the curtain" and couldn't care less what's in the black box-- have no religious allegiance to anything.
And that goes up to and including the C-level, folks. Which, as several studies have recently concluded, does not include (at least not at any meaningful level) the red-headed stepchild known as the CIO or CTO.
So, after 50+ years of empowering users, by bringing them closer to technology (I'll consider the PDP and VAX as empowering, since they were smaller boxes, and the guys in the white lab coats sometimnes allowed you to wave to the black box and even pet it), we're back to where we were. Sigh....
Well, they certainly have their role in the industry. I was reading that IBM said their solutions could be more energy-efficient, require less space, etc... I guess most people are clear on what they need based on their requirements... theirs no middle grounds, or are they?
It's a bit easier for consumers to rely on the cloud b/c most consumers don't even have proper local backups, so remote cloud storage is actually a step up in the world.
Also, it's easier for consumers to store things locally -- since consumers generally don't have exabytes of data lying around. (I have a few 3TB drives, and it's actually cheaper to store my data locally on them than to upload the data to Amazon Glacier or other cloud storage.)
The ThinkerNet does not reflect the views of TechWeb. The ThinkerNet is an informal means of communication to members and visitors of the Internet Evolution site. Individual authors are chosen by Internet Evolution to blog. Neither Internet Evolution nor TechWeb assume responsibility for comments, claims, or opinions made by authors and ThinkerNet bloggers. They are no substitute for your own research and should not be relied upon for trading or any other purpose.
The average yearly tuition cost for brick-and-mortar colleges and universities in the US today is more than $20,000, an expense that has increased 1,120 percent since 1978. By comparison, students of all ages can often earn an online education for one fourth of this annual cost -- and more businesses are starting to acknowledge online degrees.
Enterprises are discovering that using social networking within the secure setting of a SaaS provider's network gives them an unusual opportunity to freely collaborate with partners, suppliers, and even competitors.
Microsoft's recent decision to bundle its Office software with business partner offerings indicates that cloud software may be in the news, but licensed packages are still in demand for failover.
All the recent hoopla about cloud security overlooks an important point, which is that it's not strictly a cloud problem. The linkage of online services into cooperative chains creates the risk, and only biometrics and federation of providers can save us.
Multi-tenant clouds assure security for clients, but not necessarily for their ideas. Here's one thing you should discuss with your cloud provider before you sign on.
The Amazon smartphone rumor and the Apple mini-iPad rumor show that the mobile device giants think they have to be in all the device spaces to win. Why? Because the cloud can create an ecosystem where every device can cooperate to support the user, and if you don't supply all the devices you miss out on the total value.
With 24/7 processing and business continuation paramount, more organizations are considering having three datacenters, where primary and secondary datacenters are in their immediate region and a third is in a remote geography. Why? To avoid repercussions of a major disaster that could hit every IT resource in a specific region.
New York's Metropolitan Transit Authority is conducting a pilot test of digital kiosks to guide subway users to where they want to go more efficiently and at lower cost.
The whole Amazon.reader debate is a double-stupid. It's stupid to think that there's any e-book buyer who doesn't know Amazon's URL, and it was stupider to let ICANN launch the whole free-form TLD initiative to start with.
While NFC's original goal was to enhance mobile commerce applications, it is finding its way into a number of other uses, which is creating both opportunity as well as challenges for IT departments.
Enterprises would like to move to cloud computing but are hesitant because they are concerned about providers’ ability to secure company data. Here are some tips that help to ensure that if breaches occur, the business is not left holding the bag.
Edmunds separates customers into segments based on the info it collects on its site and from partners, and uses that to push out custom content, said Brian Baron, director of business analytics for Edmunds.com, at Predictive Analytics Innovation Summit.
The automotive website uses propensity modeling to target ads and customer registration forms, said Brian Baron, director of business analytics for Edmunds.com, at Predictive Analytics Innovation Summit.
Expert Integrated Systems: Changing the Experience & Economics of IT In this e-book, we take an in-depth look at these expert integrated systems -- what they are, how they work, and how they have the potential to help CIOs achieve dramatic savings while restoring IT's role as business innovator. READ THIS eBOOK
your weekly update of news, analysis, and
opinion from Internet Evolution - FREE! REGISTER HERE
Wanted! Site Moderators Internet Evolution is looking for a handful of readers to help moderate the message boards on our site – as well as engaging in high-IQ conversation with the industry mavens on our thinkerNet blogosphere. The job comes with various perks, bags of kudos, and GIANT bragging rights. Interested?
To save this item to your list of favorite Internet Evolution content so you can find it later in your Profile page, click the "Save It" button next to the item.
M2M: Rise of the Machines? Not Yet David Weldon In the 1970 science fiction thriller Colossus: The Forbin Project, two giant supercomputers from the United States and Soviet Union secretly join forces to take control of the collective nuclear might of the two countries. In the film, the two machines discover each other's existence, communicate back-and-forth, share their collective data, and cut their human creators out of the process. It is the ultimate example of machine-to-machine communications, or M2M. CLICK FOR MORE
M2M: Rise of the Machines? Not Yet David Weldon In the 1970 science fiction thriller Colossus: The Forbin Project, two giant supercomputers from the United States and Soviet Union secretly join forces to take control of the collective nuclear might of the two countries. In the film, the two machines discover each other's existence, communicate back-and-forth, share their collective data, and cut their human creators out of the process. It is the ultimate example of machine-to-machine communications, or M2M. CLICK FOR MORE
Email This
