For Some Users, Multiprise and VSE May Have a Bright Past Ahead
by Hesh Wiener

Far, far from the big iron world of 10,000 MIPS shops there are some very different customers who need just a little mainframe power. If they get new iron, it will be a z9 BC. But if they can't afford a new machine or can't pay for the transition to 64-bit software that's required to qualify for IBM's best deals, they have to do something a bit different. Basically, they have two choices. They can find a mainframe hosting company. Or they can ride the wayback machine all the way to a Multiprise 2000. READ MORE >

Top Mainframe Stories from Around the Web

(SearchDataCenter) Always the target for criticism relating to the mainframe's reputation as overly expensive, IBM fired back with its total cost of ownership defense. According to the Big Blue big iron line of thought, a customer is money ahead if the mainframe is being compared to 100 or more distributed servers that it takes to do the same work. READ MORE >

(Computerworld) If your aim is to shoot holes in the competitors' charges that the System z is a money pit, you might as well have your top gun doing the shooting. That would be Jim Stallings, the GM of IBM's mainframe kingdom. He says just look at the cost of electricity, look at the cost of changing infrastructure every two years, and look at the cost of training system administrators on those other systems. READ MORE >

(Channel Register) Let's get off this total cost of ownership argument and take a stab at ease of use issues. (This is sort of like going from a gun fight to a knife fight.) Would you be surprised to learn that IBM is in a five-year plan to make the mainframe a joy to work with? Probably not. But you might be surprised about some of the details. READ MORE >

(IT Jungle) Out in the business world there are CEOs pretending to be CIOs and CIOs pretending to be CEOs. It's an interesting, sometimes lethal, masquerade. In most cases, competition takes care of this foolishness because on the bottom line IT can play a huge role in business, but it does not drive business. Good business decisions drive business. Bad decisions kill companies. READ MORE >

Chats, Webinars, Seminars, Shows, and Other Happenings

See our full calendar of events at
http://www.itjungle.com/big/big-calendar.html

August 12-17 -- San Diego, California - IBM technical training tailored for enterprise-class IT professionals will be featured at the SHARE user conference. More than 700 technical sessions and hands-on labs will be presented by industry experts, top developers, and experienced users. Session topics range from implementation of new software releases to in-depth views of the latest technologies. Session topics will include services-oriented architecture, Web services, ITIL, and mobile computing. A preconference workshop on DB2 for z/OS is also on the agenda. If you don't know about SHARE, you should. It has been educating IT professionals since 1955--the longest history of any IT user group. LEARN MORE >

September 17-21 San Antonio, Texas - The IBM System z Conference and Expo presents sessions on topics such as virtualization, security, resiliency, workload management, and integration. Morethan 350 in-depth elective sessions will highlight IBM System z9 and zSeries and Systems Storage. The sessions are divided into the following focus areas: General Interest and Management, z/OS, z/VM, z/VSE and Linux. LEARN MORE >

December 2-7 -- San Diego, California - The 33rd annual Computer Measurement Group conference, CMG2007, brings together data processing professionals interested in system evaluation to maximize performance measured in terms of response time, throughput, and through capacity management. Sessions are geared toward making enhancements to existing systems or the designing new systems with the aim of providing adequate performance at a reasonable cost. The courses are divided into two groups. One group consists platform agnostic sessions and provides attendees with basic knowledge that is independent of any specific hardware or operating system. The second group is platform specific specializing in operating systems such as that z/OS, Windows, Unix and Linux. LEARN MORE >