[Info-vax] [OT] Architectures, was: Re: What is more important now, VMS software or hardware?

Kerry Main kerry.main at backtothefutureit.com
Thu Sep 4 23:20:13 EDT 2014


> -----Original Message-----
> From: Info-vax [mailto:info-vax-bounces at info-vax.com] On Behalf Of
> Keith Parris
> Sent: 04-Sep-14 5:48 PM
> To: info-vax at info-vax.com
> Subject: Re: [New Info-vax] [OT] Architectures, was: Re: What is more
> important now, VMS software or hardware?
> 
> On 8/29/2014 7:28 AM, Kerry Main wrote:
> > Actually, my preference for a post x86-64 port would be for a
> > Power8 / Power9 port
> 
> Seems a pretty risky target.
> 
> IBM's semiconductor manufacturing business is reportedly up for sale.
> 
> And OpenPower? "IBM's open hardware move is 'driven by desperation
> more
> than hope.'...'Adding open to Power doesn't make Power open, nor will
> it
> make Power more appealing to the vast majority of people who are
> deploying Intel servers today,' he said. 'Power is a very innovative
> architecture, but buyers tend to be very reluctant to buy into [an]
> architecture they're not using if it looks like the architecture is on
> its way out.'" - EE Times. 4/24/14,
> http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1322087
> 

IBM is investing billions of $'s in WW data centres to prepare for the
perceived massive migrations to private / public cloud service 
offerings. In the majority of these types of offerings, the underlying
HW is not nearly as much of an issue as long as the "IT service" being
offered is very highly available and secure.

[it's also a key future market for OpenVMS as well btw]

Reference:
http://tinyurl.com/llr6ngo 
"IBM has confirmed it will build a new cloud datacentre in London this 
year as part of a $1.2 billion global investment that includes opening 15 
new cloud datacentres worldwide.

The move will bring IBM's total number of global datacentres delivering 
cloud services to 40, including the 13 gained through its acquisition of 
cloud provider SoftLayer last year. The move will allow the company 
to offer locally-based cloud facilities to customers in all the world's
major financial centres and geographies."

I have no doubt that IBM is planning to maximize these offerings with
as much of their own HW, SW and Services as possible. PowerX 
provides a pretty good solution with faster CPU speeds, better 
virtualization (e.g. sub cpu partitioning) and some would likely argue 
better scalability than X86-64.

We also need to remember:
- giving up on Power would mean giving up on AIX which is not going 
to happen any time soon.
- IBM recently sold their X86 server business. Imho, they did this
because unless you own the OS, there is very little future in selling
server HW. Custs typically go to MS (Windows) or RH (Linux) for
services and support so why continue in market where HW margins 
are continuing to drop?

Having stated this, I did suggest this would be a post X86-64 port so 
by then the future of PowerX will be much clearer.

:-)


Regards,

Kerry Main
Back to the Future IT Inc.
 .. Learning from the past to plan the future

Kerry dot main at backtothefutureit dot com






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