an ominous comment

[odinn]

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an ominous comment

On 07/19/2015 07:53 PM, Stephen Williams wrote:
> On 7/19/15 7:13 PM, Troy Benjegerdes wrote:
>> On Sun, Jul 19, 2015 at 06:58:18PM -0700, Stephen Williams
>> wrote:
>>> .. If you are large and/or savvy enough, the thing to do is to
>>> borrow cloud system methods and run a cloud for yourself.
>>> Currently, that's not completely easy or turnkey.  At some
>>> point, we should get to a clean utility computing model, but it
>>> will take a few more generations of evolution.
>>> 
>>> sdw
>>> 
>> IBM would tell you the z13 is the best platform to run a cloud
>> on. Claims are you get 8000 or so cloud servers per machine [1].
>> I'm sure fujitsu or some other vendor will sell you something
>> equally expensive in the same 'mainframe' class that can
>> virtualize like that.
>> 
>> A lot of what I hear about 'cloud' and virtualization are things
>> that were first deployed in 1970's-ish on mainframes.
>> 
>> Now, you're absolutely right that a 1TB hard drive that has been
>>  qualified to work with that machine will cost about 10x what you
>> can get at staples.
> 
> It's 10x for the drive, another 10x for the box to put it in,
> another 10x for a license for the software to get to it, ...
> (Roughly. ;-) ) You can be nickle and dimed up front or over time.
> In the latter case, it will continue to get more competitive and
> begin to have local systems with the same characteristics.
> 
> How much does an additional 4TB of storage for a z13 cost?
> 
>> But the point about mainframes is they are built to have lots of
>>  *memory bandwidth*, and a 'compute minute' on a Z13 is going to
>> process a lot more transactions and write them reliably to that
>> overpriced disk than any cloud solution is ever going to do.
> 
> Most cloud systems fall into the embarrassingly parallel category.
> Many smaller, cheaper, cooler units completely outclass, in price
> and scalability, bigger, faster, higher bandwidth solutions, unless
> those are built inexpensively with smaller, cheaper, cooler units.
> We're finding out whether medium sized (Intel/AMD desktop / server
> class CPUs) or small (ARM mobile chipsets) are going to scale
> better, but either way, a many node system has an aggregate memory
> bandwidth that dwarfs old-style mega CPU systems.  It's not clear,
> but it appears that the z13 is just an integrated cloud-style
> clustered system with a bunch of nice added features[2].  If so,
> which is the only way it could compete on scale and cost, it is a
> branded cloud system.  Would it really be less expensive to operate
> than an Open Compute local cloud?  Probably only if you made a lot
> of assumptions about overhead, etc.
> 
> The z13 looks cool, and has a lot of interesting features.  It will
> be interesting to see how it does.
> 
>> You just have to be ready to write a check for a couple of
>> million if you want one of these things on-site, and that's why
>> the cloud exists, for the folks that either don't have that kind
>> of money, or don't understand why they should spend it up-front,
>> instead of getting nickel and dimed to death by cloud vendors and
>> their hackers.
> 
> If you have the type of business where you know what you need and
> how much of it you need, you can competitively provision a local
> solution, although there are still plenty of ways to go wrong.  And
> many do, IMHO.  Many businesses have relatively modest needs, don't
> know what their growth will look like, etc.  Large up front costs
> are bad in a lot of situations, as is committing to a certain scale
> when there is a lot of uncertainty.
> 
> The number of businesses and organizations who fit that narrow
> situation are few and dwindling.  Sales will be able to rope in
> plenty more for a while, but for many it is not a sane choice.
> Security breaks are mostly about passwords, trojans, spear
> phishing, zombie machines, etc.  For every possible exploit of a
> cloud system, which at the infrastructure level should have
> well-funded security, I feel there are many more gaps in the
> typical local alternative: Sloppy, old Windows systems with a 
> sloppy network, open to everyone file servers, poor access
> control, terrible custom programming, no significant physical
> security, etc.  The best systems + networks + policies + personnel
> are more secure, everyone else is just lucky not to be targeted.
> 
> This covers some of this territory: 
> https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2482123
> 
>> 
>> [1]
>> http://www.computerworld.com/article/2872096/ibm-s-z13-and-the-case-f
or-the-mainframe-cloud.html
>
>> 
> [2] https://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/45808.wss
> 
> sdw
> 

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