Linked by Mo Mckinlay on Fri 31st Oct 2003 17:35 UTC
There's been much discussion over the past few months about the marriage of databases and filesystems - with Microsoft's Longhorn reportedly sporting the
Yukon integrated SQL Server, and GNOME Storage in heaty debate, if not development, there's been lots to talk about.
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Having run IBM OS/400 for years, there are a few points I feel I must address.
1. People are confused about a few things. IBM AS/400 / OS/400 was and is still largely today a system built from the ground up, on a single level storage based design. The system does not differentiate between RAM and DISK storage-seeing it rather as a single layer DASD/RAM available to the system.
2. It is only now possible to call it a mini system, it was a replacement for the IBM system/36, and 38, and was more a midrange system. Its whole design was really based around database type applications, and reporting. Its widely used in banks, building societies, life assurance and so forth. Today with logical partitioning its stretching to ISP and internet use, Linux and beyond.
3. Low end performance was and remains nothing to speak of on AS/400. It comes into its own only when you start spending, and only when you supply that single level storage with a lot of disks/actuator arms. We used to run 4 gig drives instead of 8 gig drives and double up on how many we had to drive throughput on the disk systems. In addition, people have totally missed the boat on the whole build of AS/400, as no one has twigged that AS/400 has IO processors beyond its mere CPU subsystems/systems. Then there is microcode on all the hardware and very tight control about access to the operating system. Programs are very ridgid on OS/400 as there are strict adherance to rules when it comes OS/program usage.
There are other aspects to the 400. Backups are a pain timewise with subsystems needing to be closed of and applications closed - a subject that used to drive our business nuts
Uptime is nigh on unbreakable. If you have the correct setup and pay the right money, IBM are onsite before you have a problem. The low level microcode monitoring on hardware is remarkable. The system offers internal diagnostics the PC industry is really still only dreaming off. But all of these things are borne from a system built and planned in a way that I can't see Longhorn being done in a similar way. The OS/400/AS/400 System was designed this way. Longhorn is just trying to adapt the filesystem to be similar, but OS/400 is not just a filesystem, nor is its single level storage and its internal additional IO processors and subsystems
I think its interesting to think of a database filesystem, but the comparison to OS/400 is a little off base. They are different animals
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