
IBM Launches New Mainframe with Focus on Security and Hybrid Cloud - protomyth
http://techcrunch.com/2016/02/15/ibm-launches-new-mainframe-with-focus-on-security-and-hybrid-cloud/
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nickpsecurity
What shocks me is that they still lack highly assured endpoints despite IBM's
prior work in that area through Karger. The chips were already fabbed. They
could cram a bunch in there alongside computd and I/O processors. Run legacy
with ttusted code in secure envirinment.

Instead, more features still with same breakable model.

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blakesterz
I don't quite understand what they're used for. Who buys these things and what
are they doing with them that can't be done with other cheaper alternatives
now? The article says they're over $100k.

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scott_s
A decent background: [http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2015/01/24/heres-
why-i...](http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2015/01/24/heres-why-ibm-is-
still-building-mainframes.aspx)

Basically, highly transactional workloads that have severe performance _and_
reliability requirements. If you're serving a web app, maybe you can spin up a
bunch of instances on AWS because while performance and security are
important, they're not _that_ important. And by "not _that_ important", I mean
not important enough to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on. To a large
consumer bank, it is that important. You also may be able to get away with
having an eventual consistency model because it's okay if two different users
see two different views of your app. But that's not okay for a bank processing
credit card transactions, so they are forced to deal with highly transactional
workloads which are _now_ consistent.

I had the same questions as you did, but after talking to some of the z
systems folks, I think it may be the case that mainframes, or things that look
like mainframes, will always be around. Consider that basically the entire
consumer banking and insurance industries still use mainframes. It's possible
to consider that an artifact of legacy, but it's also possible evidence that
their use-case doesn't fit well with the alternatives (clusters of smaller
systems).

Disclaimer: I work for IBM Research, but not in this area.

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scholia
_> Consider that basically the entire consumer banking and insurance
industries still use mainframes. It's possible to consider that an artifact of
legacy_

Legacy is certainly a large chunk of it. The vast majority of Fortune 500
companies have been using IBM mainframes since the 1960s or 1970s, and some
were IBM "shops" before computers were invented.

The cost of moving software and data from a proprietary IBM stack would be
enormous, even if you could guarantee that it would work. However, the failure
rate and cost overruns that appear to be endemic to very large systems
development (including IBMs) make moving a risky proposition.

The average CEO is focused on quarterly numbers and is unlikely to stay around
for very long. If IBM mainframes were in place decades before the CEO arrived,
and will likely be around for at least a decade to come, why take the risk?

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PhantomGremlin
That mainframe picture is so _boring_.

Back in the good old days, here's what an IBM mainframe front panel looked
like!
[https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9e/360-91-p...](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9e/360-91-panel.jpg)

It was really fun to watch the lights blink, even if you didn't know what
their significance was.

