Why use an AS400?
Lee
is why? What does the AS/400 offer that you can't get on a
conventional server? I know our code is written in RPG and uses a SQL
database.
Any input would be apprecaited. Thank you for your help.
Graybeard
1. Reliability - almost never goes down.
2. Security - no known virus.
3. Usually, a lower TCO (total cost of ownership)
4. Keep the investment in existing code (who else runs RPG?)
Numbers 1 & 2 are why you see most casinos, banks, insurance
companies, and the like running this system.
Bradley V. Stone
Maybe the question should be, what would you rather do?
Suarez (from work)
>I work with a company that really pushes the AS/400. My big question
>is why? What does the AS/400 offer that you can't get on a
>conventional server? I know our code is written in RPG and uses a SQL
>database.
Why not?
I mean write on a paper *all* the things you (or your company) do with the black
box (the most important to me are):
- identity management
- terminal server (not windows style)
- development framework
- application server (not in the jee terms, but you can run RPG code AND COBOL,
JAVA, C, PHP, PYTHON, PERL)
- web server
- database server
- printer server
- file server (using ifs the right way).
all of this (and more, now it works also as a voip switchboard) with the best
reliability, scalability and security available on the market.
Put all this function in a windows or *nix box and then see how much it will
cost you the different solution. I bet it will cost you THE SAME if not a little
bit more.
So why not use an iSeries solution?
Suarez (dall'ufficio)
wrote:
>switchboard)
pbx, sorry
jse...@yahoo.co.nz
Until now, I've always thought there was no such thing as a stupid
question. I'm guessing you come from a windows/unix background and
these machines are strange to you. Think of that as a challenge to
learn something new rather than trying to prove they are not
necessary.
Tim M
"Lee" <lawe...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:b79ba869-e902-4faf...@d45g2000hsc.googlegroups.com...
Simple answer:
If your code is written in RPG then the AS/400 is the only system that
can run it.
Rodney A. Johnson
There are numerous hardware and software architectural features not
available on any other platform including the IBM mainframe. Some of
these features (single level storage, user and system domain storage,
hardware storage protection, objects) are both a blessing and a curse.
The blessing part is much better protection from a virus/worm/spoofing
point of view.
The curse is that it is much more work and effort to port applications
to i5/OS.
--
Rodney A Johnson
Former Technical Team Lead for i5/OS (AS/400) Spool (working on new
project now)
Dept GJC
IBM Rochester, Minnesota
The contents of this message express only the sender's opinion.
This message does not necessarily reflect the policy or views of
my employer, IBM. All responsibility for the statements
made in this Usenet posting resides solely and completely with the
sender.
Stupid Shoe
Because it is the most reliable hardware and software platform on this
planet!
In 10 years of working with the System i I have never had a system
failure. NEVER have I had unscheduled downtime for system problems. Can
you really say that on a Linux/Windows/Unix system? Not at the places I
worked. We also have a very rich development environment not found on
other platforms. Not to mention that you don't need to pay a DBA 500,000
dollars a year to manage your platform. All it takes is some training and
you are set to go.
One of the best features is that the OS and the DB2 product are not
separate. We are the only platform on the planet that I know of that does
this. I would LOVE to see Oracle try to do something like this. I bet the
folks who would manage it would make 900,000 a year!
Jason
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Steve Richter
> Lee wrote:
> > I work with a company that really pushes the AS/400. My big question
> > is why? What does the AS/400 offer that you can't get on a
> > conventional server? I know our code is written in RPG and uses a SQL
> > database.
>
> > Any input would be apprecaited. Thank you for your help.
>
> There are numerous hardware and software architectural features not
> available on any other platform including the IBM mainframe. Some of
> these features (single level storage, user and system domain storage,
> hardware storage protection, objects) are both a blessing and a curse.
curious to know if single level store is a blessing or not. My guess
is the 16meg space limit makes for very diffcult to maintain operating
system code. Pointers from one associated space to another have to be
rebuilt when an object is restored. Are pointers actually used much in
system objects like spooled files, output queues and programs?
>
> The blessing part is much better protection from a virus/worm/spoofing
> point of view.
I dont know the specifics of this, but are not managed code languages
like C# and Java inherently secure?
-Steve
Steve Richter
the facilities for problem determination in i5/OS are very good.
joblogs, journals, the program call stack,. The abilitiy to place a
running job in debug mode, halt it and examine program variables up
and down the call stack. With journaling you can get very fine
grained information on which programs in what jobs are updating your
database tables.
-Steve
Mike
"Steve Richter" <Stephen...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1fa2eb50-5e95-4a3e...@m36g2000hse.googlegroups.com...
-Steve
The concepts of managed code like C# and Java were originated in the
S/38 and then the AS/400 from the very beginning in 1980. Everything
above the "technology independent machine interface" or TIMI, which
includes most of the OS and all user programs are "managed code".
This is true of all languages and is a fundamental part of the /400's
famous reputation for security.
In Windows, Unix, Linux, Z/OS and just about every other system there
is no real difference between pointers and integers. This is why
hackers can manipulate a pointer and then access memory with great
freedom. Pointers on the /400 are a special object type that is
protected by the OS. They carry not only an address to storage but
also the users rights to the object and the valid capabilities (modes
of access usage) of the referenced object. This is why a buffer
overflow attack will not work on the /400 and why both the system and
user programs tend to be more reliable.
The one problem with /400 type pointers is that many programs from
other OSs are sloppy in their use of pointers which is why it can be
difficult to port code from these systems to the /400. The primary
purpose of TeraSpaces in the PASE environment on the /400 is to allow
a block of storage for application programs to manipulate pointers in
the Unix stile and still protect the rest of the system.
One last point. If you were to try to convert C programs to Java or
C# you would run into all the same problems with porting the code.
Mike Sicilian
Rodney A. Johnson
> On Mar 27, 5:37 pm, "Rodney A. Johnson" <rodjo...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>Lee wrote:
>>
>>>I work with a company that really pushes the AS/400. My big question
>>>is why? What does the AS/400 offer that you can't get on a
>>>conventional server? I know our code is written in RPG and uses a SQL
>>>database.
>>
>>>Any input would be apprecaited. Thank you for your help.
>>
>>There are numerous hardware and software architectural features not
>>available on any other platform including the IBM mainframe. Some of
>>these features (single level storage, user and system domain storage,
>>hardware storage protection, objects) are both a blessing and a curse.
>
>
> curious to know if single level store is a blessing or not. My guess
> is the 16meg space limit makes for very diffcult to maintain operating
> system code. Pointers from one associated space to another have to be
> rebuilt when an object is restored. Are pointers actually used much in
> system objects like spooled files, output queues and programs?
>
Yes pointers are used heavily. Performance and security main reasons
for spool. Sadly with rewrite of spool internals in V6R1, some pointer
usage had to be replaced resulting in some performance degradation.
This was due to the implementation needed to improve IPL performance and
concurrent access performance within spool. Additional checking logic
had to be put in place to prevent spoofing and usage of stale references.
16 meg limited spaces has caused some problems for development, hence
teraspaces and mapped memory objects are used when contiguous storage
beyond 16 meg is required.
I suspect that more problems are now coming up with teraspaces and 4
byte integers. One can only reference 2 or 4 gig of memory with 4 bytes.
>
>>The blessing part is much better protection from a virus/worm/spoofing
>>point of view.
>
>
> I dont know the specifics of this, but are not managed code languages
> like C# and Java inherently secure?
>
> -Steve
>
>
--
Rodney A Johnson
Working on a new project. Former technical team Lead for i5/OS (AS/400)
Spool
Dept 33A