Thanks for this Gordon. And thanks to each person participating in this
discussion. I appreciate the GPL-ish open source approach everyone here
takes in dispensing knowledge.
I've known about the differences between s390 arch and pc arch task wise
(there is a RedPiece or paper on the subject I believe), and have always
been a little leery when in "sell mode" because I felt that a rack of blade
servers could handle graphics rendering and the like better than the s390.
Couple that with a belief that web apps are generally headed for more and
more complex visuals and you can picture my worry. But, I have no problem
touting the strong points of the s390/VM/Linux combo that others have
already mentioned, it's just that in the back of my mind I wonder if we
will we still be competitive 3 or 5 years down the road.
Anyway, thanks for the intelligent talk, lively discussion and brilliant
summarized synopsis/synopses in the realm of s390 vs. others.
Matt Lashley
Idaho State Controller's Office
"Wolfe, Gordon W"
<gordon.w.wolfe@b To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
oeing.com> cc:
Sent by: Linux on Subject: Re: URGENT! really low
performance. A related question...
390 Port
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]
IST.EDU>
02/14/2003 10:16
AM
Please respond to
Linux on 390 Port
There's also the fact that your cheapo-cheapo PC has one processor and has
to do all the I/O for itself. The PC's processor spends 90% of its time
handling I/O, formatting data for some port or the screen, running a driver
program, polling and waiting for a response from some peripheral and so on.
Mainframes hand the I/O off to the I/O subsystem processor, which hands it
off to the channel processors (Last I heard, an ESCON channel used the same
processor chip as the Macintosh, but that's been a while) which hands it
off to the controller for the device. You've got a lot of processors
working for you, and everything's cached along the way so you may not even
be doing any real I/O half the time. The point is, the central processor
has very little to do with any I/O processing.
Someone once told me that my 9672-R36 with three processors at 117 mips
each should, with all the I/O processors, actually be rated at around
30,000 mips.
But that 30,000 is for I/O only, the other 351 mips are for computing
only. Use the right tool for the job at hand. Don't try to use a pair of
pliers for a wrench.
They say there are three signs of stress in your life. You eat too much
junk food, you drive too fast and you veg out in front of the TV. Who are
they kidding? That sounds like a perfect day to me!
Gordon Wolfe, Ph.D. (425)865-5940
VM & Linux Servers and Storage, The Boeing Company
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