Yes, there are organizations that use zEnterprise servers for "heavy numeric computation." Like decimal floating point. Cryptography is another excellent example. And you can buy optional CryptoExpress adapters if you want to augment the excellent capabilities found in every machine. You can also buy the optional zBladeCenter Extension (zBX) if you want to add DataPower accelerators, Power blades, and/or X86 blades. You can also add an optional IBM DB2 Analytics Accelerator, to boost many types of DB2 queries. So we're way ahead of you, John. ;-)
I think the simple answer is that it depends what you optimize for in designing a server processor (or complex). But IBM has broken a lot of "rules" already about which server should do what, and I predict more rules will be broken. With respect to the 370-on-a-chip, IBM sort of did that with the 1975 introduction of the IBM 5100 Portable Computer starting at $8,975 (1975 dollars), although it was for a relatively narrow initial purpose (to get APL running). The 5100 sold reasonably well from what I've read, but I think there were three basic problems which prevented it from becoming a blockbuster: 1. The price was not low enough for mass market appeal. (Apple had a similar problem with the Lisa in the early 1980s.) 2. The software selection didn't exactly hit the mark, although it was a good try for the time. (IBM learned the value of software somewhat later in its evolution but not in time for the 1981 IBM PC.) 3. It probably didn't have the right third party marketing and distribution channels. With some very notable exceptions, like typewriters, at that time IBM would have had some challenges with this type of product. Keep in mind that for 1975 this was absolutely amazing technology, but amazing technology required some expense. Being early is pricey. If the 5100 debuted in, say, 1977 or 1978, it would have still been well timed but could have dramatically reduced the chip and board count. I also think the small built-in monitor could have been sacrified (at least as an option) in favor of a display port of some kind -- ideally RF for TV hookup. And IBM might have gone with a diskette drive for storage -- the 5100 was too early for the 5.25 inch drive, which debuted in 1976. Finally, if IBM had provided a little more guidance on the 370 subset instruction set they implemented, software developers could have taken over from there. So I think the 5100 could have been a nice 5110 by tweaking the recipe a bit. But history didn't happen that way. IBM had some success with the System/4 Pi avionics processors which are descended from System/360. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Timothy Sipples Consulting Enterprise IT Architect (Based in Singapore) E-Mail: sipp...@sg.ibm.com ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
