RE: AS/400

The PC is a bad analogy.  How often do you hear people talking about:  RAM,
cache memory, video ram, etc?  But then again, this may be a good analogy,
depending on which point you are trying to make.

Rob Berendt

==================
A smart person learns from their mistakes,
but a wise person learns from OTHER peoples mistakes.


                                                                                
                                         
                    "Goodbar, Loyd                                              
                                         
                    (AFS-Water Valley)"        To:     
"'MIDRANGE-L@midrange.com'" <MIDRANGE-L@midrange.com>             
                    <LGoodbar@afs.bwaut        cc:                              
                                         
                    o.com>                     Subject:     RE: AS/400          
                                         
                    Sent by:                                                    
                                         
                    owner-midrange-l@mi                                         
                                         
                    drange.com                                                  
                                         
                                                                                
                                         
                                                                                
                                         
                    07/30/2001 11:13 AM                                         
                                         
                    Please respond to                                           
                                         
                    MIDRANGE-L                                                  
                                         
                                                                                
                                         
                                                                                
                                         




These are some interesting points. Let's go back to the car analogy real
quick. My Honda Accord has cruise control. Its speedometer maxes at 140,
but
my cruise control doesn't work past 85.

Or another example. The speedometer in (some car) reads 180, but the
manufacturer put a limiter chip so I can get only 5000 RPM in 5th gear
instead of the full 8500 RPM in 5th gear, so my maximum effective speed is
150 MPH. In other gears I can approach 8500 RPM without problem.

Let's say the speedometer is the full potential of the AS/400,
processing-wise (MHz, max CPU, what have you). My cruise control and rev
limiter are the CFINT interactive governor.

My point is that the AS/400 typically has far more processing capability
than customers get to use. When I buy a PC (and I know the AS/400 is not a
PC), there are no real limitations on how I use the processing capability.
When I buy a car, there is little in the engine preventing me from driving
120 + MPH. The CFINT is an artificial restriction on the amount of
processing power available to traditional interactive applications. On one
hand, I agree with you, I paid for X interactive CPW, but when the chip has
X*3 total CPW, why the "interactive CPW" restriction?

Here's the question for what I don't understand. What exactly does 1 CPW
represent? If I have a constant number of users, why do I need to upgrade
my
AS/400? Does it mean my applications are more complex, and a process that
took 1 CPW a few years ago now takes 3? Or does a single signon get a fixed
CPW? How does the AS/400 determine how much "work" an interactive process
uses?

Loyd


-----Original Message-----
From: Buck Calabro [mailto:Buck.Calabro@commsoft.net]
Sent: Monday, July 30, 2001 9:13 AM
To: MIDRANGE-L@midrange.com
Subject: RE: AS/400


>     And finally, what's to stop IBM from making a change in the next
> release of CFINT to close the performance loophole exploited by this
> technique?  As long as CFINT exists in its present form, the
> "governor argument" is not out of date, but a real factor.

Can somebody explain the nature of the problem to me?  I'm really, really
missing it.

I worked for 17+ years in a small (2-3 person) MIS department.  All
software
was home-grown.
1) 1974.  Applications are card-based, batch processes.  "Input" means
keypunching and "output" means printed report.  Requirements change, and
management hear about "terminals."
2) 1978.  Applications are slowly re-written to be able to use disk and
terminals.  Much of the processing is still batch, but "online" data entry
and inquiry are making inroads.
3) 1982.  All key applications are "online."  We open a branch office in
another city and need to use our online applications there.  We buy modems.
We start streamlining the online applications to reduce transmit time.  We
continue to bring new online apps up.  All applications are now disk based.
4) 1988. Modem speeds are faster, but we have more branches.  Total
workstation I/O has jumped ten-fold.  Every application has an online
interface, even if it's just a stupid replacement for a keypunch machine.
Most applications can print to the branches as well as the home office.
That means that all branches can now do their own work without having to
send anything back to the home office.

I could go on, but this is enough to demonstrate several points.
a) Every technology has a governor.  Cards can be read only so fast, modems
transmit at a fixed speed, disks serve sectors up only so fast, CFINT kicks
in at a certain point.  All of these limits can be "rectified" by spending
money.  We were small and cheap, so we didn't spend money, we spent
programmer labour instead.
b) Requirements mean that applications change even for a small company.  It
takes time, but a small group of programmers can indeed make wholesale
changes to mission critical applications without destroying the business
economically.
c) Technology forces changes on applications.  We didn't move to disk until
card readers became prohibitively expensive to maintain.  We kept 5250
terminals until 3196s were way cheap.

Being a small company, we did everything ourselves.  Being small, it took
us
a long time to get everything done, and yes, by the time we were done the
requirements or technology forced changed again.  That's business, isn't
it?

That's why I fail to understand why there's such vitriol about the
interactive limit.  You paid x amount for x horsepower and you did in fact
get that horsepower, right?  You don't complain to the modem manufacturer
that you paid for a 2400 baud modem and you expect the performance of a 56k
modem, do you?  When I'm plodding along on my Wintel PC and it takes 25
seconds to open Word 97, I don't complain that my 64meg 266mHz Pentium II
should be performing like a 256meg 1gHz Athlon.  Am I just too simple to
comprehend this?

Buck
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