Buying an IBM Mainframe

https://blog.mainframe.dev/2019/05/buying-ibm-mainframe.html

by nollbit • 7 years ago

212 106 7 years ago

blog.mainframe.dev

OldManAndTheCpp• 7 years ago

Dissatisfied with the performance of a home raspi? Buy a mainframe!

Causality12• 7 years ago

He dropped over $23,000 on a mainframe just to "play with and learn how it works"?

Finally he can run a personal Minecraft server.

dang• 7 years ago

Please don't post shallow dismissals or be snarky on HN. This is in the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

bluecmd13• 7 years ago

Would you have liked the project more if the price was not disclosed?

Causality12• 7 years ago

Oh I love the project. I'm just in awe of spending that much money for something you don't have a clear and present need for.

diarmuidc• 7 years ago

You're on the wrong website

cominous• 7 years ago

Is it just for the fun or is there actually a legit use case for having a mainframe at home apart from accelerating climate change?

Nextgrid• 7 years ago

Fun and learning.

I doubt there’s a legit use-case for a mainframe even in business environments. All the “reliability” it gives you can be re-implemented on commodity hardware and still come out ahead compared to the costs of buying & maintaining a mainframe.

badpun• 7 years ago

I wonder how much cheaper it is to implement software for one, huge machine that „just works”, vs the usual way of implementing for a network of distributed machines. Distributed programming is NOT easy, and, even if the hard parts are supposedly implemented by various protocols/frameworks, these solutions constrain the way you can program and also have a ton of „interesting” failure states - just take a look at logs of say Hadoop cluster that’s been running for a while - even though the cluster is supposedly running fine (or is it?), you’ll find various kinds of exceptions related to the distributed model (socket timeouts and whatnot). Not to mention trying to thoroughly understand various eventual consistency models.

On th plus side, we’ve basically moved complexity from hardware to software (it was pioneered by Google, a software company, so no wonder) which increases salaries of software people, at the expense of hardware people. So yay for us I guess.

neverartful2• 7 years ago

"I doubt there’s a legit use-case for a mainframe even in business environments"

You're incorrect. The most common one is to run legacy software, and not just banks. Insurance, retail, utilities, financial, manufacturing, etc. Some companies have been around before x86 hit the scene and already had significant investments in their in-house computing infrastructure.

puzzlingcaptcha• 7 years ago

He lists 'Datacenter setup' in his bill of materials at the end so it likely won't be kept at home.

classichasclass• 7 years ago

I have my own "home server room" with a POWER6, but it's just a couple U in an extended tower. I can't imagine connecting this kind of a beast to household power, let alone getting it in the door. It takes a special kind of skill to maintain big iron like this and definitely the appropriate environment to house it.

bluecmd13• 7 years ago

Correct, it will run at https://datacenterlight.ch using 100% renewable energy. It the least I can do to offset the ~3 kW everything (z114 + dasd + everything else) will consume.

_lbaq• 7 years ago

I think its a great career niche to be fluent in everything Mainframe, they are still used in critical places and will be for the foreseeable future and they are largely overlooked as a opportunity.

So if you want to work in this niche, having your own Mainframe will greatly speed up learning the system.

It probably also looks awesome when you market yourself.

So all in all, 25k USD for kickstarting a potentially very profitable career sounds like a bargain ....

lexs• 7 years ago

I think we have very different definitions of "a bargain".

bluecmd13• 7 years ago

Hi, author here. Spot on! It is pretty common to see mainframe courses for $10k each - so given how much I hope to learn I kind of justify the cost just on that. Now, I do not expect to change to work on mainframes full time, but maybe it can grow into a side gig? Who knows! I do enjoy the process anyhow so it feels like a win-win :-).

Thanks for reading!

icedchai• 7 years ago

If you just want to learn the software, you can set up Hercules mainframe emulator for free. Finding an image of z/OS is left as an exercise to the reader, but won't take you long.

http://www.hercules-390.org/

dx0343• 7 years ago

I'm not even sure if there are still use cases where companies use main frames for newly developed systems. Even core banking systems can be build without using a main frame.

new4thaccount3• 7 years ago

If you Google around a bit, mainframes are pretty expensive, but have very high up times and other benefits.

bluecmd13• 7 years ago

Do you have a source on that new banks do not use mainframes? I'd love to learn what new banks use to talk to older banks.

bluecmd13• 7 years ago

For what it is worth, it will run using 100% renewable energy at https://datacenterlight.ch :-).

cosmodisk• 7 years ago

This is what you do when you don't get PlayStation when you are a kid...

purplezooey• 7 years ago

1700 watts, all the time. Yikes.

glogla• 7 years ago

That's pretty solid space heater.

quickthrower23• 7 years ago

Very inefficient though. But solid!

Koshkin2• 7 years ago

Does all the energy get converted to heat? What about “useful work”?

segfaultbuserr• 7 years ago

;-) It still uses slightly less power than a 1U bitcoin miner (~2200 W, maximum for a 10 A outlet)

kev0094• 7 years ago

It's a lot cheaper in to do this in the US and with a long term view, my total outlay was under $3000 for a z800, z114, ds6800 all in with transportation. I also temporarily had two DS8870s but resold them because they were worth a lot more than I paid and I will pick up another for cheaper over the course of this year. Both of my frames have HMCs, the z114 was even IBM banded and "MSQ" maintenance service qualified which means they'd come and set it back up for some not-too-outrageous monthly fee if it were in production use.

The z800/z890 are probably optimal for hobby use even though they are old because they have modest power requirements and are relatively light and not too wide like the z114 which is absolutely massive.

Actually a P/390 (MCA or PCI card), or Multiprise 3000 (deskside hybrid CMOS/PC server thing) would be even easier but those are very very old 31-bit systems at this point. (I also have a R/390 setup and can comment on that if desired)

Now that said, this requires A LOT of dedication to get right. You need to understand at minimum shipping/transport issues, as well as electrical requirements and installation (or be willing to consult someone that can advise you on phase and conversion if necessary).

After that, you definitely need an HMC (a PC used to do things like load the OS) or at least a recovery disk and a lot of patience to set that up in emulation or on other hardware.

And then, you need a FICON (or older ESCON) capable array. Connor Krukosky goes into detail about what it's like without that, and you are extremely limited (basically Linux) in what you can do without FICON. A ds6800 is the easiest way to do that because it is a small rackmount unit, but they are also in demand for that reason. DS8ks are quite cheap all things considered, but serious iron like the frame itself.

And then finally you need some OS media which is also non-trivial to get (although there is or was some "out there" on file sharing).

I am willing to help anyone interested in this kind of thing for fun and preservation of incredible technology and history.

bluecmd13• 7 years ago

Hi kev! Thanks for your comments, you are 100% right. Yes, living in the states make this hobby waaay easier. The surplus auctions help as well, having various goverments with various languages going in Europe does not make it as easy :-).

Was $3000 your outlay for the system + the DS6800? Or just the shipping? That is a great find in that case!

I just want to correct a small thing: You need SEs (the frame mounted laptops), you do not actually need an HMC as far as I know. Do you have any information that tells another story? If so I will update the article.

Thanks again!

rbanffy2• 7 years ago

Yes, living in the states make this hobby waaay easier.

It's unbelievable how thoroughly Europeans recycle their old computers. I can't find anything.

kev0094• 7 years ago

IIRC $2k for the z114, $1 for the z800 and a few hundred for a one way moving truck rental I moved it myself, and maybe a few hundred for the ds6800 which I got lucky when it was FICON enabled the auction did not specify. There are three off-label mainframe support companies in the US that broker machines and parts for companies trying to bleed out their machines due to some transition plan or whatever. I've made acquaintance with one of them so I got the z114 for a great price because it wasn't suitable for any of their common customers and they were able to move it quickly from decom to me.

For the HMC I recall reading this in a manual or hearing it from a mainframe professional but I can't quickly cite it. It may be for some things that a home user doesn't necessarily need, like remote access. Can you access the z/OS System Console from the SEs, that is the only critical thing I can think of.

pickle-wizard4• 7 years ago

If you want to dabble with mainframe. Another option is the IBM zPDT. It is an emulator that runs on AIX or Linux. It does require a physical USB hardware key. It is kind of pricy about $5K from IBM, but there might be discounts. I believe that also get the z/OS and z/VM software and licenses also.

kev0094• 7 years ago

Yes that entitles you to a lot of software, so it is a good deal for professional use.

If you are just curious on the software side at home, Hercules is an amazing project.

For students IBM does a "Master the Mainframe" contest where you can get remote access to an environment and see what it is like as a user and developer.

_b8r02• 7 years ago

It's not the same, but if you'd like to have a go at mainframe technologies you can do it with a Pi Zero:

https://www.rs-online.com/designspark/my-raspberry-pi-thinks...

Once you have the basic emulator setup working, check out the Turnkey system below. It's MVS 3.8 so not current Z/OS. If you google around for z/os ADCD, you might find an actual Z/OS CD to try next.

http://wotho.ethz.ch/tk4-/

tyingq4• 7 years ago

"MVS 3.8 so not current Z/OS."

Bit of an understatement, MVS 3.8j was released in 1981.

_lwad2• 7 years ago

You'd be amazed at how little the underlying ecosystem has changed over the decades. Because it basically keeps compatibility forever, software that was written in the 60's can still run on modern machines. Because of this, learning using 80's software in the mainframe world is not too bad. For example, I keep a book on MVS on my desk from the 80's for reference, and most of the time it suffices for what I need to consult.

_b8r02• 7 years ago

80% of what a beginner to IBM big iron would learn at first can be done on MVS 3.8.

It's more like the difference between SysV and Linux, or Windows NT and modern Windows. Major differences and lots of features in the newer stuff, but for first principles it'll do.

Like I said, if you want modern(ish) Z/OS, ADCD is your best bet.

new4thaccount3• 7 years ago

Now this is an expensive hobby. I spent this on my last car (a necessity where I live).

It was a great read though and I'd probably buy one as well if I had the money, time, and space. They seem like underrated machines.

unixhero2• 7 years ago

This was an insanely cool read.

bluecmd13• 7 years ago

Thanks! Glad you enjoyed it :-)

altmind• 7 years ago

Are there any sucess virtualizing z/OS on x86_64? This mainframe is quite anemic even by modern desktop standarts.

tyingq4• 7 years ago

See the Hercules emulator: http://www.hercules-390.org/

hsnewman• 7 years ago

If you do go with virtualization, in addition to Hercules, you can possibly find a copy of the ADCD, which is a full release of the OS on the cheap.

tyingq4• 7 years ago

"which is a full release of the OS on the cheap"

It's a $900/year subscription if you go the legit route, and not "approved" to use with Hercules. You're supposed to pay ~$4k for zPDT to be fully legit. Thus, most hobbyist use is pirated torrents of ADCD on Hercules.

monocasa2• 7 years ago

In addition to Hercules, qemu supports s390x guests.

jasonhansel4• 7 years ago

IBM makes it illegal for customers to build emulators for most mainframe products, to protect their business.

monocasa2• 7 years ago

Everyone in that scene knows that it's not enforceable. Gene Amdahl literally started his own company making plug and software compatible mainframes, and IBM got hit with antitrust rulings trying to shut him down with lawyers.

jandrese• 7 years ago

My interest in doing this (my wife would kill me anyway) kind of evaporated when in almost every paragraph he hit on licensing issues you might have. What a headache for someone who just wants to tinker on the hardware and maybe buy a few parts off ebay for the full experience. I have no doubt software updates, documentation, and everything is locked behind some portal that requires you to have a stupidly expensive support contract to access.

jschwartzi• 7 years ago

My second thought about this was "no wonder IBM is largely dead outside of stodgy corporate IT. Nobody can actually learn to use it without dropping $100,000+ on equipment."

Jtsummers• 7 years ago

https://www.ibm.com/it-infrastructure/z/education/master-the...

There's a contest open to students, but anyone can sign up to use these resources.

Spooky23• 7 years ago

It’s worse than that. Most of these environments are in the stodgiest corner of those companies. I worked with one a long time ago as a consultant where we struggled with an authentication related issue.

The response from the service owners was that they weren’t going to switch to a new, unproven methodology. In this case the “new” thing was around since like 1989 (this happened circa 2003). They still use whatever they were using today.

As a new hire, you’re screwed. Anyone getting into mainframes is insane.

pickle-wizard4• 7 years ago

Back when I was at IBM one of the hats I wore was AS/400 administrator and programmer.

I miss working with it and would like to buy one for my home lab, but the licensing is a killer. I find used ones on the market, but they usually don't include the license keys or media, and without a support contract can't get them.

I really wish IBM had a hobbyist program. I wouldn't expect it be free, but I wouldn't mind paying a small yearly fee.

dboreham• 7 years ago

Shout out to HP (fka Dec) with their support for hobby use of VMS. I have a couple of VAXen (just desktop microvax, no need to get excited) that I had running 15 years ago using the hobby license, which it seems still exists : https://www.hpe.com/h41268/live/index_e.aspx?qid=24548

mrbill• 7 years ago

It definitely still exists - I used my old DECUS membership number to get a new set of license PAKs (and a link to download the install media and software kits) last week.

jasonhansel4• 7 years ago

My current side project idea: build a modern programming language with a nice syntax that compiles (transpiles?) to mainframe COBOL, mostly to get mainframe programmers to stop writing code in SHOUTING ALL CAPS.

jasonhansel4• 7 years ago

Note: is anyone interested in using something like this? If so, let me know! I'm curious as to how I can make it useful for people in the field.

danpalmer2• 7 years ago

As I understand it, the field is going in the other direction, namely JVM/CLR COBOL. This means that companies can migrate their COBOL codebases to “commodity hardware”, save on mainframe costs, and then progressively refactor into Java/.NET replacing bits of COBOL piecemeal.

The main company I’ve heard of doing this is MicroFocus, they have all the dev tooling for it for the major IDEs, compilers, etc.

One of the main things that complicates the problem, again as I understand it, is that there is no official COBOL spec. There are several versions from several vendors, but compilers have to account for mainframe hardware bugs, so there are many different targets that have to be supported. Most companies want a different, specific, set of compiler features.

pickle-wizard4• 7 years ago

I cringed when he said he bought a DS6800. When I worked at IBM we had about 20 of them and they were shit. Always broke and getting into weird states. No way I'd run one with a support contract.

kev0094• 7 years ago

My understanding is a team ported the ESS "Shark" code from AIX to the little Linux 2.x embedded controllers. It looked like Adaptec OEM hardware when I tore mine apart. I can see how that would go poorly versus the proper cabinet sized arrays. They are definitely good enough for home use but I agree not what you want any production workload on. I heard from a 3rd party support company there is some part that is prone to failure but I cannot recall what it was.

pickle-wizard4• 7 years ago

Yeah I found the root linux password online. There was more than once I had to SSH in and fix the SLIP connection between the controllers when they went into a brain split.

If I recall correctly they were running SuSE Linux with Websphere App for management and DB2 storing all of the configuration information.

I hadn't heard they traced their linage back to the shark. That surprises me a bit because we had several of those and they were very reliable. Though thinking about it that makes sense.

Hopefully the later software fixed the reliability problems. I got rid of all of ours in about 2010 or so. Replaced them DS5000 on the Open Systems side (which had their own set of problems), and DS8000s on the Mainframe side. The DS8000 was pretty rock solid.

callesgg• 7 years ago

Is there something that makes these ibm mainframes special like some feature?

Are they simply like a big computer?

floatboth• 7 years ago

From what I've heard, redundancy and scalability in a single machine (like, you can hot-swap CPUs on a running machine and have lots of redundant RAM, etc.) and being able to run an OS with backwards compatibility all the way to the fscking 1960s or whatever.

That OS is… something: https://medium.com/@bellmar/hello-world-on-z-os-a0ef31c1e87f

unixhero2• 7 years ago

Just wondering:

What kind of problems do you hope to solve? Are there anything in particular you will use it for?

wglb2• 7 years ago

And for some security bits, check out https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLBVy6TfEpKmGdX1OE_xjK... which as also some general mainframe access info. His twitter feed is https://twitter.com/mainframed767?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ct...

Buying an IBM Mainframe

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