[4006] in WWW Security List Archive
RE: OS/390 and WWW -Reply
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Gregg Berg)
Fri Jan 17 10:30:28 1997
Date: Fri, 17 Jan 1997 08:33:05 -0800
From: Gregg Berg <GBERG@BOOLE.COM>
To: hallam@ai.mit.edu, www-security@ns2.rutgers.edu, arjan@pino.demon.nl
Errors-To: owner-www-security@ns2.rutgers.edu
>>> "Phillip M. Hallam-Baker" <hallam@ai.mit.edu> 01/16/97 08:23am >>>
> But, why would one want their corporate datatabes connected to the Net? It
> is now possible to query DB2 databases, like in UNIX they've been doing
> with Oracle databases since ages :-))
> As far as I can see, one would not want to place corporate databases, or
> high-transactional online systems on the Internet in the first place....
> Some people still don't get it. SQL is not a viable means of
> database access. Not unless you are an over trained professional.
> The Web owes much of its existence to the IBM mainframe we had
> at CERN, and hated. Like most mainframes it was run for the benefit
> of its priests and acolytes.
Well if IBM Mainframes have priests and acolytes then UNIX is the one
with wizards and gurus.
> Its probably sub-optimal to have a mainframe connected to the
> Internet. I would agree that having a front end machine to
> handle the Internet stuff would be better. This is the config
> that Alta-Vista uses.
> On the other hand such an arrangement would be likely to lead to
> the mainframes obsolescence. Once you have the front end
> operating on a modern machine its not too hard to move the back
> end. The maintenance costs of most machines in that class could
> easily support purchase of faster replacements. Few "mainframe"
> class machines can keep up with the machine on my desk and
> fast backplanes are no longer exorbitantly expensive.
Hey man what planet are you from. Lets get real...
You might be suprised to know that such things as your paycheck
probably comes from a mainframe, your checking accounts are
maintained on a mainframe, I can not think of one corporation
of any size that does not do its main data processing on a mainframe.
Have you not heard IBM mainframes are in such demand they can not
make them fast enough. Also you might not want your management to
start adding up the costs of putting C/S workstations in place as
they may not be happy with the bottom line.
I'm afraid to tell you that the mainframe would smoke your workstation
when it comes to doing commercial DP (ie. transactions per second) that is
unless your PC has 256+ SCSI cards running at 26+MB per second to its
DASD and has a rating of 500+ MIPS on a CISC instruction set.
Gregg
