Re: COBOL Compiler for Windows

On Wed, 30 Apr 2008 10:58:52 -0600, Howard Brazee <howard@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
wrote:

>On Thu, 1 May 2008 02:56:51 +1200, "Pete Dashwood"
><dashwood@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>
>>> It's not free, though. It's not even cheap. Emulating the mainframe
>>> operating environment is not trivial.
>>
>>Sure it is.
>>
>>But the people who want it are used to paying through the nose so why
>>disappoint them?
>>
>>One day the mainframe world will wake up to the fact that they have a
>>choice. There WAS a time when mainframe hardware was the only game in
town
>>and vendors (both hardware and software) could charge anything they
liked.
>
>Why should they worry about emulating the mainframe environment on a
>PC?
>
>The future of mainframes is as a component in the system.  It will be
>the database full of security rules and powerful behind-the-scenes
>action.    There is no reason to duplicate real data on PCs (security
>audits will make sure we don't), nor to create allowable test data.
>The DBAs and systems people will handle that component, just as the
>network people handle the routers and ****ts.

Unix database servers are already doing the same, cheaper. 

For example, Sabre (airline reservations, Travelocity) cut its total
expenses 50% when it
switched from mainframe to Unix. It handles 15,000 transactions per
second. The database
resides on 17 HP S86000 boxes (now obsolete). 

For example, US telephone networks run entirely on Unix machines. About 10
servers handle
200,000 transactions (calls) per second. Each transaction creates at least
one database
row. 

For example, PULSE, the largest ATM/EFT clearing system in the US, runs
entirely on Unix
servers. 

"The base zSeries 990-332 machine, without disk and memory, costs around
$15 million. If
you had to beef it up with an appropriate amount of memory and disk, the
mainframe
hardware might cost $30 million. If you have to add monthly software fees
for three years
to this machine, it is probably on the order of $50 million for this
machine over three
years, including maintenance. Mainframes don't have list prices--which
used to be against
the law for IBM--so it is hard to say for sure. Even if you assume a 50
percent discount,
after adding in the software costs, you are talking about $55 per TPM.
That's a 10 to 1
price premium. And it will get worse as the Power6 and Power7 generations
roll out, unless
IBM consolidates the zSeries into one of these future Power-based servers.
And that is why
many people believe IBM will do just that, as it has already done with its
proprietary
OS/400-based servers."

http://www.itjungle.com/tug/tug120204-story02.html