Subject:	Re: Mainframe Nattering.
Date:	1999/09/02
Author:	cory hamasaki <kiyoinc@ibm.XOUT.net>
	Posting History

On Wed, 1 Sep 1999 13:47:30, Henry Ahlgrim <doitnow@gol.com> wrote:   > And also, I should worry because 400 shops are running DOS/MVT?  Are you > sure that's not MFT?  Are we in a time machine?  Why, that stuff's so > old, it would be as ridiculous as the FAA running air traffic control > with 3000 series IBM mainframes.  hahahahaha ha  ha    ha  h. . . er. > .. . ah.   Here's the problem. A mainframe is one butt-kicking computer.  It's like a tactical nuke, a supertanker.  Whatever a mainframe is doing, if it stops, people notice.  If two or three go dark for an extended period of time, it begins to jab at you.  If dozens of 'frames fall over (not literally, the apps will fail.), the shockwave will rattle the economy.   I've listened to flocks of Pollies chirp and peep about how the problem ain't that bad, we'll fix it in a few hours.   It's not gonna be like that.  We're gonna see companies, big ones, go down hard and not come back.   Over the last 6-9 months, the polly rhetoric has gotten better.  Kosky has learned a few new words; he's gotten that horn-haired confidence that only the clueless can have.   It doesn't matter.  We're at 121 and counting and the big boys are still playing games.   Get a bunch of 1 foot linoleum tiles, stack them up.  A 2 inch stack is stable.  2 feet, no problem.  20 feet, 200 feet, at some point the middle will bulge out and it will let go and you can't stop it.   Each day that passed the pollies (I'm not picking on our polly-pals here, I'm referring to Kosky, the ABA, the CIO's) put another tile on the stack.   We should have contingencies and heavy duty triage a priority at Day 500.  We should have gone for full disclosure.  We should have shouted down the bad pollies like Kosky.  It's too late now.    It's time to take defensive measures.   -------------   Re: DOS/MVT.  You're not a mainframer.  Mainframe DOS was a small multi programming operating system for S/360.  It had a 12K nucleus, kernal, and a fairly constrained job control language.  The current offering of DOS is called VSE.   Using the freely available source for DOS/360, a California company created their own improved version of DOS.  They call it DOS/MVT. It is a niche OS but again, a 4381, 9370, ES9000 9221 is nothing to sneeze at.   These are all low end, out of date, free for the hauling mainframes but they will clock more MIPS than national governments and the Fortune 50 had at their disposal in the 360 and 370 days.   The problem is, even old mainframes can wheeze out the work like nothing else in the computer world.  A free 9221 and DOS/MVT will crank work til the cows come home.   Close on the FAA though.  And funny too.   cory hamasaki http://www.kiyoinc.com/current.html  Gotta get that WRP (and the LED project done.) 

-- a (a@a.a), September 02, 1999

Answers

Cory commented:

"We should have contingencies and heavy duty triage a priority at Day 500. We should have gone for full disclosure. We should have shouted down the bad pollies like Kosky. It's too late now. "

Now there's a mouthful!!

Thanks Cory, that about says it ALL!!

Ray

-- Ray (ray@tottacc.com), September 02, 1999.

"We should have contingencies and heavy duty triage a priority at Day 500. We should have gone for full disclosure. We should have shouted down the bad pollies like Kosky. It's too late now."

Seems too late for these companies: (taken from sanger's review, thanks pshannon)

London Councils Fight to Avert Y2K Fiasco (Tony Collins and Mike Simons, Computer Weekly)
http://www.computerweekly.co.uk/pagelink.asp?page=article&link=%2Fcwar chive%2Fnews%2F19990902%2Fcwcontainer%2Easp%3Fname%3DA1%2Ehtml

"Two London councils have abandoned a joint bespoke software system in what may be one of the first year 2000 project disasters where there is no clear fall-back position. Haringey and Tower Hamlets councils are now urgently seeking off-the-shelf packages to collect business rates after agreeing to waive standing orders on seeking competitive bids. Their old IBM-based mainframe systems that were used this year to collect business rates are not fully millennium compliant... ICL, the developer of the aborted bespoke system, has accepted partial responsibility for the problems and has agreed to pay for replacement systems at a potential cost to the supplier of hundreds of thousands of pounds. Andrew Travers, head of corporate finance at Haringey, insists the councils are taking firm action to ensure they have fully compliant systems in time..."

and

Bang & Olufsen Sounds a Discordant note With SAP (Computer Weekly),br> http://www.computerweekly.co.uk/pagelink.asp?page=article&link=%2Fcwar chive%2Fnews%2F19990902%2Fcwcontainer%2Easp%3Fname%3DC12%2Ehtml

Bang & Olufsen, the Danish hi-fi manufacturer, began a "SAP project in 1997. The DKK30m (#2.7m) move had three main goals: to protect the company against Y2K problems; to replace the existing IT system, and to enhance working procedures. However, the project has encountered problems and is running late. Moreover, SAP has been blamed for damaging Bang & Olufsen's supply chain, resulting in a lower cash flow." It goes back and forth between the two companies from there.

-- Chris (%$^&^@pond.com), September 02, 1999.