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Server issues: robustness, reliability and cost
10th March 1999 Jayanta @in.ibm.com
future is Supply chain management, e-business and back to Main Frame technology.......serious I indeed am!!!!!!! Have a Good Day Jayanta (IBM India) Ph: (022) 820 0463/4/6, 0454/6/7(O), (079) 6742325 (R), (Mobile): 98201 01165, e-mail : [email protected] "...some men see things as they are and ask "WHY" ; I dream things that never were and ask "WHY NOT"
12th March 1999
Devang Shah @giasbm01.vsnl.net.in
Why back to mainframe? Devang
16th March 1999
Jayanta @in.ibm.com
Cause friends from Intel/Microsoft never had and nor do I foresee inthe
next 5 years to comeout with such systems. Online banking, online
ticketing, online audio/video download, e-business, video on demand and the
mamoth database systems can be managed by such machines only. At least my
Win98 crashes/hangs when I open more tthan two applications (lets not
confine ourselves to word processor/ spreadsheet and accounting software
only, please), forget them handling 300,000,000,000,000 hits in a month
just on one popular Websites. Is Bill listening. (please note that I mean
no offence towards him. He is a very good and shrewd business man, and I
respect him for that)
Please remember, BSE, NSDL, the MNC Banks, some private Banks, Airline
Booking, Corrier Companies, etc are providing you online service round
the clock because of the ever faithful and fail proof highend systems
(S/390, highend As/400 (both from IBM) and highend HP systems, etc)
based not on Wintel combo but our faithful UNIX/RISC combo. And with
e-commerce having already become a habit in the West, where is the
alternative. That is why is said " Mainframes"
Regards and Good Day
Ph: (022) 820 0463/4/6, 0454/6/7(O), (079) 6742325 (R), (Mobile): 98201
01165, e-mail : [email protected]
"........... WHY BUY A PRODUCT WHEN IT TAKES FIVE HUNDRED
FLUSHES TO GET RID OF IT ?????............"
17th March 1999
ss148 @cornell.edu
I am not sure i agree with your analysis. You are correct in that the Unix clone OSes are typically very reliable. But they have the problem that they have very few people developing for them and so are expensive and hard to maintain. A Microsoft IIS/SQL Server based product while it may not be as fast or as capable of handling hits as a Unix box, will typically cost thousands of dollars less and therefore will be the first choice for a small to mid range company looking to enter e-commerce. The thrust towards mainframes that you mentioned, i think will be supplanted by client servers. The servers will probably be linux clusters running on alphas or xeons specially now with all the hardware companies backing linux so seriously. I suppose that looking at the matter from an efficiency point of view, you are correct in that unix based machines have more to offer. but microsoft has made its billions not on efficiency but on user-friendliness, and i think that same thing will eventually put them on top of the web server market. cheers subhabrata
18th March 1999
Udhay Shankar N @pobox.com
>I am not sure i agree with your analysis. You are correct in that the
>Unix clone OSes are typically very reliable. But they have the problem
>that they have very few people developing for them and so are expensive
>and hard to maintain.
I have some issues with a few of your points. I will take Linux as the
premier example of a "Unix clone OS" here. Then, your argument that they
have "very few people developing for them" falls apart, as Linux
development is driven by a distributed worldwide network of *users*.
Thus, not only can they mount the kind of programming resources that no
one company can match, but the feedback cycle is compressed so much that
the product under development becomes robust and bug-free extremely
fast.
See http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/writings/cathedral-paper.html
> A Microsoft IIS/SQL Server based product while it
>may not be as fast or as capable of handling hits as a Unix box, will
>typically cost thousands of dollars less and therefore will be the
>first
>choice for a small to mid range company looking to enter e-commerce.
I am unaware of why you say "it will cost thousands of dollars less" --
that is factually untrue. Linux is free. Apache is fee. SSLeay is free.
You have an open, *robust*, and tested infrastructure for e-commerce
right there.
See http://www.unix-vs-nt.org/kirch/#web for a comprehensive, factual,
annotated rebuttal to various marketing stunts that the NT camp attempts
to propagate.
>The
>thrust towards mainframes that you mentioned, i think will be
>supplanted
>by client servers.
No argument here.
>I suppose that looking at the matter from an efficiency point of view,
>you are correct in that unix based machines have more to offer. but
>microsoft has made its billions not on efficiency but on
>user-friendliness, and i think that same thing will eventually put them
>on top of the web server market.
I have to take issue with this. The sever market has *never* been about
user-friendliness. It has been about efficiency. End users are not the
people who set up and administer servers.
Udhay
--
_________________________________________________________________
http://www.unimedia.net/ http://pobox.com/~udhay
finger [email protected] for PGP public key
16th March 1999
Satish Hulyalkar @vsnl.com
> I have to take issue with this. The sever market has *never* been about > user-friendliness. It has been about efficiency. End users are not the > people who set up and administer servers. I have one question here. Agreed server market is dominated by efficiency cause it has set up by experts but not too long ago the situation was same for even setting up of internet account and making html pages etc.along with host of man-machine interfaces. If, things become user-friendly will it not be easy for a small person/organisation to be able to set up his own server and manage it eventually at a price which is affordable to him. Is it likely to happen? If yes, what could be the time frame? Satish Hulyalkar ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Satish Hulyalkar Consultant Pune/India Ph: +91-20-530597 Fx: +91-20-539724 mailto: [email protected]
19th March 1999
Udhay Shankar N @pobox.com
> Yes, but how many global companies are using Linux as a mission-critical > enterprise platform ? Linux definitely embodies all the advantages of > having a worldwide team of dedicated, extremely good programmers working > on a system, but the fact remains that a company won't want to trust an > operating system until they can be sure that bugs will be fixed when > they are found and not when the creater of the particular software feels > like it.This is the standard FUD (fear, uncertainty, doubt) tactics that closed, cathedral type companies use to try and halt the advance of Open Source software such as Linux. Typically, bugs are fixed in hours in the Open Source world. This form of feedback loop is impossible to duplicate in the closed world. Windows 98, which is essentially a bugfix release (never mind that it is buggier than what it is supposed to fix) took 3 years to come out. Some examples: The infamous Pentium "f00f" bug would halt your computer dead. Linux had a patch for it in a couple of days. Al other vendors took a couple of weeks to respond, and this was a CRITICAL bug. When Netscape Open Sourced the code for Mozilla, a group of Aussie hackers had a full-strength crypto version out in TWENTY FOUR HOURS! > same args as above. Linux is intellectually a far better product and one > that as you say is evolving all the time. But a server needs stability, > not compliance with every new standard out there. I think you have not reviewed the link I posted. Here it is again. http://www.unix-vs-nt.org/kirch/#web You can see, from here that Apache is more stable, faster and has a larger installed base than any other web server. And what does "new standard" mean ? To be ratified as a standard, an RFC has to go through a long, complex process. Bodies such as the W3C and ANSI are constantly in session. Also, the whole idea of having a standard is to aid interoperability. Therefore, compliance is usually a good idea. >case in point is nasa > which is still using old technology to control it's spacecraft simply > because they distrust the new machines to provide the reliability > necessary. Citations, please. What do you mean by "old technology" ? Are you aware of Beowulf ? It is a technology to cluster together inexpensive Linux machines to produce a "home-made" supercomputer. This is typically done at a cost of a few hundred thousand dollars, when comparable proprietary systems cost several million dollars. And yes, Beowulf was developed at NASA. http://www.beowulf.org http://www.esd.ornl.gov/facilities/beowulf/ >But then again, you are right in that at > some point every sane sysadmin will flatly refuse to give up the degree > of control a text based config file offers over a flashy window and > menu. You are making the mistake of assuming that sysadmins are sane...:-) Udhay -- _________________________________________________________________ http://www.unimedia.net/ http://pobox.com/~udhay finger [email protected] for PGP public key
20th March 1999
Aseem Asthana @bom4.vsnl.net.in
I agree with the following totally. Administrators are professionals who get taken in by efficiency and not friendliness. >I have to take issue with this. The sever market has *never* been about >user-friendliness. It has been about efficiency. End users are not the >people who set up and administer servers. > >Udhay >-- - Aseem. Aseem Asthana, 239 A, New Swarg Mandir, Mhow 453441, MP, India. Final Yr, Comp Sc. Sri Govindram Sekseria Institute of Technology, 23, Park Rd, Indore. MP. India.
