[ Thanks to Niki
Scevak for this link. ]
“IBM plans to relight the mainframe computer business with a
version of Linux running on its mighty S/390 systems. Now seeing
that all you Linux people reading this are so young and trendy,
I’ll take a minute of your valuable time to explain the unfamiliar
jargon here. A mainframe computer is a really, really big and
rather boring PC that can’t play Doom but can churn out lots of
telephone bills and store vast quantities of pirated MP3 files. My
Dad tells me they were quite popular back in the last days of disco
with people who belonged to a strange religious cult known as
‘operations staff’.”
“In technical terms a suitably equipped high end S/390 with a
dozen processors and 1600 mips of raw processing power can, in
theory anyway, run up to as many as 41,400 simultaneous copies of
Linux, though most desktop publishing specialists say it isn’t
quite powerful enough to run Adobe Photoshop properly and can you
sign this requisition for a hardware upgrade.”
“In practice, IBM says you would only run some 200 or 300
simultaneous Linux servers. The company’s sales pitch says that
because the S/390 typically only goes offline for 5 minutes a year,
it can be far more cost effective than multiple NT servers.
I’m convinced – right now I’m waiting for my interior design
consultant and my Fung Shui expert to help me decide which corner
of the living room needs a tasteful touch of black and red.”