Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!bu-cs!bzs
From: bzs@bu-cs.BU.EDU (Barry Shein)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: What is a mainframe?
Message-ID: <34038@bu-cs.BU.EDU>
Date: 30 Jun 89 01:25:11 GMT
References: <27709@lll-winken.LLNL.GOV>
Organization: Boston U. Comp. Sci.
Lines: 42
In-reply-to: brooks@maddog.llnl.gov's message of 28 Jun 89 20:08:34 GMT


>What is a mainframe?  It's an OBSOLETE COMPUTER!
>
>
>brooks@maddog.llnl.gov, brooks@maddog.uucp

For most people I do agree with you on this point. The situation is
that processing speed has grown a lot faster than most organization's
needs particularly in the business data processing arena. People who
needed a 2 MIPS, 4MB state of the art mainframe in 1980 are now being
sold 100+MIPS, 256MB state of the art mainframes and it's not clear at
all that their processing needs on that one machine have grown 50X in
under a decade (ok, maybe they were dissatisfied with performance on
that older machine, but still, 20X?) Especially with the distribution
of a lot of the processing out onto small machines which are still
faster than those 1980 mainframes.

There of course exists that relatively small group of customers with
massive hunger like the American Expresses, Master Cards and JC
Penneys of the world who can still swallow these machines in one gulp.

But, for example, universities who continue to buy and upgrade their
mainframes out of habit to handle maybe a few hundred thousand records
are being ridiculous, most of what they do can be easily handled today
on a good desktop machine or perhaps a little bigger system if there
is a good need (shared data base) to hook up a few dozen dumb
terminals to one system. It's mostly old guard administrators trying
to preserve an empire. It's sort of hard to justify an MIS staff of
100+ people just to manage a desktop or little mini.

So, I'd agree that mainframes are mostly obsolete for all but perhaps
the fortune 500 companies who really do need to quickly manage on the
order of hundreds of gigabytes of data in a timely matter.


-- 
	-Barry Shein

Software Tool & Die, Purveyors to the Trade
1330 Beacon Street, Brookline, MA 02146, (617) 739-0202
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