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From: Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: Article on new mainframe use
Date: Thu, 15 Aug 2024 15:37:31 -1000
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mitchalsup@aol.com (MitchAlsup1) writes:
> If one defines a mainframe computer as having the ability to remove and
> replace every component without taking the computer off line--then
> mainframes are still relevant. Reliability, Availability,
> Serviceability.

After Jim Gray left IBM for Tandem, he did study of service availability
& outages, finding hardware reliability was getting to point where
outages were becoming more people mistakes and environmental (aka
earthquakes, floods, hurricanes, tornados, etc). Old overview
"APPROACHES TO FAULT TOLERANCE":
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/grayft84.pdf
also Tandem Technical
reports http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/tandem/technical_reports/
Why Do Computers Stop and What Can Be Done About It?
http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/tandem/technical_reports/TR85-07_Why_Do_Computers_Stop_and_What_Can_Be_Done_About_IT_Jun85.pdf

we got HA/6000 project in late 80s, originally for NYTimes to move their
newspaper system (ATEX) off VAXCluster to RS/6000; I rename it HA/CMP
when I start doing technical/scientific cluster scale-up with national
labs and commecial cluster scale-up with RDBMS vendors (oracle, sybase,
informix, ingres). Out marketing, I coin "disaster survivability" and
"geographic survivabilty"; then the IBM S/88 Product Administrator
starts taking us around to their customers and got me to write a section
for the corporate continuous available strategy document (it got pulled
with both Rochester/AS400 and POK/mainframe complained they couldn't
meet the objectives).

In early jan92 meeting with Oracle CEO, AWD/Hester told them that we
would have 16processor clusters mid92 and 128processor clusters ye92,
but a couple weeks later cluster scale-up is transferred for announce as
IBM Supercomputer (technical/scientific *ONLY*) and we are told we can't
work with anything that had more than four processors; we leave IBM a
few months later (commercial AS400 & mainframe complaining they couldn't
compete likely contributed).

The structure of System/88, a fault-tolerant computer
https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/5387672
IBM High Availability Cluster Multiprocessing
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_High_Availability_Cluster_Multiprocessing

-- 
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970