Hacker News Reader

Comment by drivebycomment | Hacker News Reader

In terms of component failure handling, there's very little difference nowadays between a cluster of x86 servers running well-written software connected with high performance network and cluster management system vs mainframe - why should there be, since there's no "magical" advantage mainframes have.

Almost all value of mainframe lies in software compatibility. There's no theoretical or practical advantage they have over clusters of x86 servers.

View on HN

Well besides not requiring you to solve for HA, sync between nodes, etc. Also the fact that the IO on mainframe is MASSIVE and they have their own IO controllers to sort for IO scheduling.

I have worked on, designed and built both type of systems. Distributed systems cloud style are hard and require the software to sort for everything. For the most part the HW/OS on the mainframe just handles it. It is just a different way to build.

Do you think there's any mainframe lessons that don't exist in today's cloud architecture that could actually be applied (obviously software, not hardware)?

The OS of the mainframe is software. The software running the distributed system is software. For the most part, the software running the distributed system just handles it. It's slightly different.

Earnest question: when is it cheaper for a business to use mainframes rather than x86 clusters? If they are easier to develop on (no need to solve distributed problems) even if mainframes have a 1000x upfront cost, they would still likely be cheaper over time due to smaller development budgets? Where am I misunderstanding?

there's still quite a bit of different on the interconnect side + replaceability side

Reply on news.ycombinator.com