RE: Scalability

James,

While what you say is true, it's not an accurate comparison for Joe's comments 
I think.  I believe the original reference was to the platform (hardware) not 
the software (OS).

Rick

-----Original Message-----
From: midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx]On Behalf Of James Rich
Sent: Friday, February 04, 2005 3:43 PM
To: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion
Subject: RE: Scalability


On Fri, 4 Feb 2005, Joe Pluta wrote:

> Since I'm the one who said this, Murali, I think it needs some
> explaining.  The iSeries is definitely the most scalable midrange
> platform available (someone can correct me if I'm wrong).  It's
> certainly more scalable than any Unix platform, which is the context in
> which I made the statement.
>
> Also, while the S/390 may be able to handle a larger workload, the
> iSeries can start at a much lower end than the 390 (again, anybody feel
> free to correct me).  If what you want is a box that can work with a
> small business and then scale up to a Fortune 100 company, nothing
> compares to the iSeries.

As you point out, scalability is about more than the biggest size to which
a machine can grow.  It is also about the smallest size.  In which case
the iSeries is a big loser.  Consider:  linux runs some of the world's
largest computers (it has several entries in the top 500 list) down to
running on a wrist watch (made by IBM no less).  So while GNU is not unix,
many people consider GNU/Linux to be basically the same.  So it is
probably accurate to say that unix is far, far more scalable than the
iSeries.

side note:  afaik the iSeries is not on the top 500 list at all.  So it
loses on the big end as well.  Even if you leave clusters out, unix still
stomps all over the iSeries.  It definately beats on the big end and since
most *nixes also run on PC size computers, at least matches it on the low
end.

James Rich

It's not the software that's free; it's you.
        - billyskank on Groklaw

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