Full Cycle

I always thought it was a little odd that IBM abandoned its 8 parallel copper data channels (the Bus and Tag cables, each 2+ cm in diameter) for a single fiber channel even though the fiber was superior in every way. So they are finally coming back to parallel throughput at fiber speeds. I wonder if slew varience is still a problem.

L33t g33k sh33k

Polished meteorite? Whoa, I need to don my industrial-strength shades before gazing upon your exalted status. I am not worthy and bare my neck. ;-^ [Never thought I'd use this icon]

It's interesting how chatty folks are about this news item.

You Bet Your Business

I submit no organization's working component is more likely to terminate that organization's very existence than its aggregate IT component. Any CxO that doesn't understand that overarching risk should not have his/her position because, sooner or later, that organization will be bitten hard as a consequence of underfunding the crucial areas of IT, with security at the top of the list followed by loyalty and competency of the key IT employees. Competent IT employees will never buy Brand X because nobody ever got fired for doing so--to decide on such a basis demonstrates incompetency. Competent IT employees do their homework and well consider the major big picture risks of all possible choices.

I expect a lot of incompetent CxOs are going to be exposed as these cloud security lapses multiply.

Epilog

Dang. Seriously late to the party again. 65 comments and here I am.

Great article, especially if you didn't know any of this before reading it.

This is mostly about history. Today you can order a z114 for less than a hundred USD grand (but a working environment is at least one order of magnitude more). What will you get for that vis-à-vis other platforms? In short, your money's worth.

z/VM can virtualize itself, as could VM/370.

Those z cores can run 24/7 at 100% and PR/SM and CP enable that (yes, I'm ignoring spin cycles).

My point? If you are in a position to check this out for the benefit of your employer and you choose not to because some college professor told you the mainframe is dead, you are not doing your job very well at all. That's it, plain and simple.

3001: The Final Solution

Am I the only one here reminded of Clarke's last 2001 series story by this article? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3001:_The_Final_Odyssey#Plot_summary

How To Route Around Censorship

We still have a long way to go before the global network envisioned by John Brunner in "The Shockwave Rider" is functioning and able to work no matter how any government might be motivated and empowered to control it. The key is complete mobility, as every member of Ender's teams understood--when dealing with serious opposition, never stand still. Services must be provided by a mesh of thousands of systems, each always on the move, physically and via connections, always popping in and out of addressability and always changing addresses; not dependent on centrally controlled infrastructure that is not essential for all network transactions. In other words, the only way to censor the service is to interrupt all networking.

Paying For Journalism

Here I am, typing a comment on the Web site of a for-profit news provider, considering an article it published involving journalistic business models. This seems somewhat surreal to me.

I must contend journalism is not your basic business. Maybe when troubadors went from town to town singing the news and learning the news, entertainer first and vendor of objective, unbiased reporting (as best anyone could determine) second, it wasn't so special. But as communications technologies evolved and more local news elsewhere became local news locally, the stakes began to rise with the technology. I believe the global majority opinion remains honest news reporting is more important than entertainment. This planet now is finding it more difficult to discern the vendors of honest reporting. The quality of the basic product appears to be watering down everywhere.

News providers seem to think their business models are the problem. I would suggest the quality of their journalistic ethics lies at the heart of the loss of eyeballs. Walter Cronkite was the single most trusted public figure of his time according to many well-respected polls. Where are his peers today? Lord knows we need them--reporters, editors, anchors who are driven to present real news even if Powers That Be object for reasons not serving the public welfare, even if there is potential to hurt ratings. The quality of news reporting was marketable once upon a time. Can it not become so again? None of us have the time to vet everything we must consider. We must have sources we can trust to be ethical, especially when real-time events become very personal.

Fit that into your business model.

Another Factor

Decentralization is a wonderful attribute when a major regional disruption occurs. How much is such insurance worth?

What About...

Microsoft? I think Oracle is looking at them as "best practice," not IBM, who still gets more hard science patents every year than anybody, let alone Microsoft. IMHO, of course.

Fundamentals

Compare the skill sets of typical high school graduates in the East vis-à-vis the West, in addition to their motivation. Also note that since 10% of India's high school students are in honors programs, India has more honors high school students than the USA has high school students of ANY academic standing or associated motivation.

It's Worse Than That

Frankly, my impression is the firms are rare that can recognize real talent even when it is already working for them, let alone on the outside. That is, if you can't identify it on the inside, you're clueless regarding what to look for outside.

Consider This

"Nobody seems to be looking at this situation as regards product liability. That may be due to the lack of concern many IT vendors display about this subject. IBM, however, has taken it _very_ seriously for a lot longer than those companies have been in existence. They, too, ride in aircraft designed on platforms they market. The error handling of mainframes is legendary and IBM’s proprietary operating systems are designed to dovetail with this hardware very tightly. If they do not wish to be held responsible for their software running on hardware they did not design or manufacture, who can or should be able to compel them to do so?"

—posted by me on Jim Zimlin's blog at the Linux Foundation (http://www.linux-foundation.org/weblogs/jzemlin/2010/04/07/ibms-open-source-patent-pledge/#comment-20892)