I would say that low-end consumer SSDs on SATA are sometimes so damn slow that they almost feel like an HDD if there's any write contention at all, but their read performance is usually lightyears ahead of HDDs, because of the way flash memory works... it's much more expensive to make write-heavy workloads fast on SSDs vs. read-heavy workloads.
@allquicatic Consumers are usually doing much more reading than writing though. You're usually just installing stuff to use later, and have very little wriitng to do once it's installed.
@bwDraco If you got proper backups, the worst that could happen from ransomware is wipe and restore. You just lose a few hours from it, a day at worst. You do have backups, right?
I heard in a meeting a long time ago at work that there is apparently some kind of emulator or virtualization platform, offered by IBM themselves, for developers and learners to install and run IBM z/OS on an emulated z/Architecture mainframe, on their desktop computer (probably, on top of Windows). But I can't find anything like that looking at their website. Does anyone know if that's a thing, and can I get it without paying $180000?
I thought they mentioned it was freeware, and I missed the product name... but I would love to be able to learn the mainframe from the comfort of home instead of trying to go through the processes to get needed access from the organization that I work with that runs a mainframe.
@bwDraco I've heard of Hercules, but it just emulates a z/Architecture CPU. The software, z/OS, isn't available from them. I could run Linux on z/Architecture on Hercules, but that wouldn't teach me anything from a usability standpoint.
It's z/OS and its various "facilities" that I need to be more familiar with, and it's really hard to learn when touching anything sets off alarm bells and could potentially disrupt others' work.
Apparently they're not about maximum developer education...
I want to use their platform and know enough about it that I could actually speak from an experienced, first-hand perspective about what makes it good.
But my organization is extremely restrictive with security policy, so any time I get the opportunity to do anything, someone just gives me a magic set of keystrokes to do to get it done, without explaining a lick of the how and why.
And I'm locked out of huge swaths of functionality for obvious reasons.
I don't want to do anything dangerous, I just want to know what's possible, so that I can make intelligent suggestions when people are trying to interface with mainframe systems. I want to be able to reason about the inner workings of the platform so I can make suggestions for what a team should do when they're faced with issues.
> A style of operation, often involving dedicated operations staff who use detailed operations procedure books and highly organized procedures for backups, recovery, training, and disaster recovery at an alternative location.
Interesting. So they operate mainframes like aircraft?
@bwDraco Indeed. IBM can't force a customer to behave in any specific way, but they can refuse to provide support if you don't follow their instructions, so in practice, most mainframe shops do follow the extremely structured, procedure-driven operations principles that IBM suggests.
You could still buy their hardware and software and use it like it's a toy if you really wanted, but then when you break it they would not be obligated to fix it under a support contract, I think
Besides, most companies and governments that buy mainframes do so because they prefer a structured and procedure-driven IT environment, which the mainframe provides by design because IBM has built up so many user operating principles.
@bwDraco If you start an IT organization built around commodity hardware, any discipline and rigor (and structured operating principles around system administration, disaster recovery, etc.) have to be either hand-rolled, or you have to find them out there somewhere on the Internet, decide they're good as a starting point, and adopt them.
If you start an IT organization built around the mainframe, your hardware and software vendor gives you a series of people-oriented processes that they have tested and found to be a correct, efficient, and secure way to safely and reliably operate their hardware in a production environment.
It's practically a third layer of vertical integration.
Hardware. Software. Process.
With Linux and Supermicro, you get zero vertical integration. With Windows on an HP server, you get a moderate amount of vertical around the hardware-software, but still no process vertical.
So a mainframe is designed to just work and you don't even have to deal with deciding how to do backups, run applications, etc., because there's one standard, tested, and proven way to do it.
@bwDraco Right. All you have to do is train your people to follow the procedures, and make sure everyone does it "by the books", and it should just work.
Including all the robust high-end capabilities that production enterprises want, like 24x7x365 availability....
@bwDraco Yeah. And if you're a WinTel shop, or a Linux/Supermicro shop or something, it could take your company five or ten years to develop enough discipline (processes) to keep things running as smoothly as a mainframe... and in that early going you'll have plenty of failures and downtime.
Look at SE. They've got pretty good uptime, but random patches still cause all kinds of breakage because they test in production, etc. -- and their availability used to be pretty horrible back in the old days.
SE has improved, as a disciplined IT environment, but it was admittedly very bad in the early days because they were starting with nothing but a bunch of experienced IT dudes with varying ideas of what to do.
I'd boil it down to risk management -- if you're a senior executive of a big company, you might be okay with paying more for a mainframe environment, in exchange for a lower risk that the processes being used will have defects/loopholes/omissions that could lead to, say, irretrievable customer data loss.
The risk of letting your own in-house process rule your IT discipline is that you don't know how well it'll work until it's tested.
You don't really have to test IBM's way because they've been refining it for 50 years.
@bwDraco Different approaches for different aspects of yourself. :)
There's a lot to do to "grow up", and instead of it being a laundry list of checkboxes, it's more of a thing where you have to do a frank evaluation of how you feel, and when you've reached it, you'll know it because you can feel confident in what you've accomplished.
Also, like Louis Rossmann insightfully said in one of his recent videos, you can't follow the literal path of someone else to success. You have to forge your own paths. The opportunities that one person got led them to taking a wholly unique and irreproducible path through life, which anyone else will be unable to follow.
Also, you should realize that no one ever fully grows up. Or at least, a whole lot of people don't. There are still going to be situations, and possibilities, that completely scare the crap out of you and will send you back into your instincts, wishing your parents would take care of you and make it all go away.
A lot of people "grow up" insofar as they have a successful career; but if that career is pulled out from underneath them and they're desperate to make ends meet financially, they don't feel so grown up anymore. So, yeah. It's not a permanent thing, and it's not boolean, either.
The thing that gets me is how many aspects of growing up there are -- and at 30, there are still lots of entirely new areas of my life that I realize I've matured in, and it surprises me, because I had a pretty good feeling going through my late 20s that I was pretty much already "there".
A key principle of mine has always been preparedness. I was never a Boy Scout or anything like that, but I always try to make sure I have the tools on hand to handle what might happen while I'm on the field.
Nonetheless, I still have trouble making good decisions due to a combination of impulsiveness and lack of experience, and I'm working on addressing that.
I realize that the world can be a dangerous and unforgiving place and you need to be ready to protect yourself and your possessions and loved ones at any time.
It's this, along with the practice of using extensive disclaimers, etc. that shows how far businesses go to maximize profits and minimize risk. This is part of the inspiration behind my current approach to discipline.
The economy is harsher than ever. The world is a dangerous place to live in. Small mistakes can cost thousands or millions. If businesses are taking every possible measure to ensure the best possible outcomes, why shouldn't individuals do the same?
@allquicatic heh, people in that thread suggesting the gov take control of the physical fibre. Maybe they'll manage to do a better job than ours. Like actually finishing it. Or having a plan to finish it.
