Doug's Mailbag: Return of the Mainframe?, Dell's Business Model
Doug asked you if IBM's plan for '100,000 VMs in one big box' is a sign of the return of the mainframe. Here's some of your responses:
The IBM 360/370 was a great machine back in the day. Multiple partitions, virtual memory, etc.
And overall, the trend in IT is moving back to centralization -- Cloud computing is part of that trend.
But the bigger question is how to centralize? One big machine to me sounds like an expensive, single point of failure. I like the Google model where thousands of simple, off-the-shelf machines are plugged into a networked machine. And, while the Google model solves a simple key-value table database structure (Big Table), it does demonstrate that a networked OS is possible.
-Andrew
Microsoft should tie up with IBM to explore the possibilities of taking its Windows Operating System to truly enterprising levels. I know Windows has an enterprise-class, Data-centre edition that can support great hardware. But running Windows on a Mainframe is something which I would like to see and something that could put Windows on a level playing field with RISC-based solutions.
-Umesh
So what is the fail-over path?
When your "One Big Box" goes down then 100,000 applications go with it. And if not, what is the redundancy scheme?
-Donald
One reader shares his thoughts on Dell's shady past:
Years ago, I remember that Dell was caught putting used parts back into machines that were sold as new.
Maybe it's just a cultural problem with Dell where they feel they can make their own rules.
-Andrew
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Posted by Doug Barney on 07/30/2010 at 4:59 PM