I do not know where this was published but it seems interesting... --- Reality leaves a lot to the imagination. jinn@inetnebr.com ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Thu, 19 Feb 1998 13:13:20 -0500 From: "Labry, Phillip" <Phillip.Labry@CWI.CABLEW.COM> To: intp@jubjub.wizard.com Subject: Mainframe solution,Lengthy but interesting... Resent-Date: Thu, 19 Feb 1998 10:14:27 -0800 (PST) Resent-From: intp@jubjub.wizard.com

Got this interesting article from an old friend of mine.........the best approach seems to be to build GUI-based applications on the front-end and use mainframes as big servers.

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By Martin J. Garvey

The mainframe, once the IT backbone for many enterprises, is regaining that stature. Next month, several large companies will lead the charge back to big iron in an attempt to rescue unwieldy or stalled client-server projects. Mainframes, these companies say, provide better price/performance and return on investment than their sleeker Unix and Windows NT systems, while delivering proven security, scalability, and reliable centralized management.

GTE Data Services, Motorola Semiconductor, University Health System, and others are at the cusp of a trend toward leveraging the mainframe to back out of costly or unmanageable Unix and Windows NT client-server implementations. Brian Jeffery, an analyst with International Technology Group, an IT consulting firm in Los Altos, Calif., says about 70 sites worldwide are porting Unix or NT applications back to IBM OS/390-based mainframes. By fall, he estimates, as many as 300 sites will convert Oracle, SAP, and PeopleSoft projects to OS/390. "By 1998, there will be thousands of these accounts," predicts Jeffery.

"It's a brand new life for the mainframe," says Cal Braunstein, a consultant with Robert Frances Group, an IT market research firm in Westport, Conn. "It's far less expensive to tie Unix and client-server information into mainframes than it is to spread it out across much smaller systems."

University Health System, a 450-bed hospital in San Antonio, hopes to begin in August to move data-intensive applications, such as patient accounting and discharge, to the IBM Parallel Sysplex mainframe. The project is expected to be completed by year's end. "We can't go in a direction of more and more resources for a nonending distributed environment," says Tim Geryk, director of technical services for University Health. "We need to turn it back the other way for a better scale of economy."

Currently, University Health's enterprise has 2,500 desktops attached to LANs, 100 RS/6000 Unix servers, about 600 other Unix machines, 2,000 dumb terminals, an IBM ES/ 9000 bipolar mainframe, and an IBM 9672 CMOS mainframe. "It's time-intensive to keep so many workstations and servers up and running when so many different things can go wrong," says Geryk. "We can't put our hands around it anymore."

The company is installing an IBM Parallel Sysplex architecture that supports Unix applications to provide a single-platform image across its enterprise. Bill Tudor, director of systems product management for mainframe maker Hitachi Data Systems in Santa Clara, Calif., says it's not uncommon to see multiple racks with 200 Unix servers in the data center. "It's just cheaper to run that same information on the mainframe," he says.

According to Jeffery of ITG, it's cheaper and easier to increase network bandwidth for integration between Unix servers and the mainframe than it is to add more Unix servers. Also, customers are demanding that systems management, as well as enterprise data itself, be centralized.

And according to the Clipper Group, a consultancy in Wellesley, Mass., Unix's security hasn't caught up to the mainframe's. Some intrepid IT users aren't just migrating some applications to mainframes. They're also consolidating client-server architectures onto big iron. One financial services company reportedly is consolidating as many as 600 Unix servers onto one mainframe, sources say.

The hidden costs of Unix servers may be the final incentive to push many customers back to the mainframe. For example, CMOS mainframes may cost three times more than Unix servers, but management costs for distributed Unix servers are 20 times greater than those for supporting a mainframe, according to Giga Information Group in Cambridge, Mass.

IT managers can port Unix applications to the OS/390 mainframe operating system for acceptable performance in a production environment. Moreover, enterprise applications, including those from Oracle, PeopleSoft, and SAP, are available on OS/390. And the CMOS processor architecture, the heart of IBM's Parallel Sysplex mainframe cluster that scales to 32 processors, is for the first time as powerful as older bipolar mainframes.

Motorola's $7.9 billion semiconductor business unit in Phoenix will begin moving all of its SAP R/3 data to the mainframe in the next four months.

Its architecture will then include PC clients, Unix servers as application servers, and an IBM OS/390-based Parallel Sysplex mainframe as host for about 500 Gbytes of data. The company says it is one of five pilot sites for SAP's R/3 on the mainframe. Before taking on the pilot, the semiconductor manufacturer evaluated multiple Unix servers and databases. The Unix systems lost to the mainframe because they lacked the power and manageability Motorola was looking for. "It was the best way to keep the database in one place," says Patrick Horrigan, corporate VP and IS director for Motorola's SPS division. "And it's 40% cheaper than the Unix solutions."

'Tons Of Unix' At GTE Data Services in Temple Terrace, Fla., shifting its distributed applications to the mainframe conforms to the division's motto of "right data, right device." The group is consolidating six systems into three or four. "With our so-called distributed systems,we have tons of Unix out there, but it's really not even distributed," says operations director Pat Remick. "We're just piling a lot of Unix boxes on raised floors next to the mainframes, so we decided to look at the better reliability and scalability of the mainframe."

Analysts point out that server consolidation isn't relegated solely to mainframes. HP and Sun Microsystems recently both announced enterprise-class servers that many say will suffice as Unix consolidation servers. "There is increasing value in consolidating Unix servers and PC servers separate from mainframes," says John Young, VP of enterprise systems planning for the Clipper Group. "People are realizing the savings behind the re-emergence of the data center. It's the place for consolidating processing, management, accountability, and data storage."

The pioneers in the migration back to mainframes say they aren't ready to dismiss Unix. "Our client and application server tiers of R/3 will remain distributed with Unix," says Motorola SPS's Horrigan. However, distributed computing could benefit from greater reliability, availability, and scalability. "Downtime from distributed systems costs too much in management, and I know a lot of processing is on Unix," says GTE's Remick. "But some transition must happen. Something has to be done."

SIDEBAR:Reasons For Returning * Mainframe security is at least two years ahead of Unix or Windows NT * OS/390 can run Unix, NT, and enterprise applications such as SAP R/3 * Mainframes have the capacity to store a database of 500 Gbytes or more without splitting it up * Parallel Sysplex configurations have no single point of failure and are easy to update and maintain while the system is running

Data: InformationWeek

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