Re: Inside an IBM z17

Lawrence D'Oliveiro  <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:

What exactly are they good for? Nothing, really, except perhaps
compatibility with ancient legacy code that has long passed its EOL, just
like the companies that might still be running it.

It's a weird thing... it's an I/O machine that happens to have a CPU
controlling it.  You can run a database and most of the database operations
take place in the disk controllers without anything more than mediation
by the CPU.  You can back up a disk to a tape with the CPU shut down.

It's a very different way of thinking about computing and it's still
a good thing for transaction processing systems with big databases
behind it, the sort of thing that is I/O intensive but cannot be
easily distributed.

Not many MIPS but plenty of TIPS.

It's kind of a shame that the software hasn't kept up with the hardware
on those machines, though.
--scott

--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."