BY BILL CARICO AND WILLEM J. VAN DER ZEL INTEROPERABILITY INSIGHTS OpenEdition MVS: The System, the Strategy, the Significance: Part I — Overview n the last few months of 1995, Willem van der Zel and I took an “up close and personal” look at OpenEdition MVS. Willem is an old friend and colleague, and is by far the sharpest UNIX specialist I have ever met. I went into the project with a lot of preconceived notions, the most Why combine MVS I and UNIX into one prominent due to my skepticism that UNIX would ever play well in the main- frame environment. For example, I was aware that AIX/ESA was only comprehensive system? installed by a half-dozen customers, and that Amdahl’s UTS had only sold Simply because several hundred licenses since 1981. Do the math; it doesn’t take a genius to OpenEdition MVS conclude that UNIX plus mainframes equals limited revenue potential. Well, eliminates UNIX’s imagine my surprise when I heard Amdahl’s president, Joe Zemke’s, proph- shortcomings of esy at Amdahl’s fall 1995 user group meeting: “OpenEdition MVS will dom- scalability, stability, inate the high-end marketplace for the next 10 years.” After several months of research, my skepticism turned into support for the strategy. In a and manageability. three–part series, here are Willem’s and my observations about OpenEdition MVS: the system, the strategy, the significance. UNIX IS HEADED FOR A SHOWDOWN UNIX to lure applications away from MVS The high-end UNIX server marketplace have little choice but to brace for the impact. is headed for a showdown. In one corner, OpenEdition MVS neutralizes what was traditional UNIX vendors led by Hewlett previously a primary advantage of UNIX Packard Co. (HP), Sequent Systems Inc., servers — allowing customers access to the AT&T’s GIS division, Digital Equipment plethora of multi-user UNIX applications in Corp. (DEC), Tandem Computers, Inc, and the marketplace. many smaller companies. In the opposite OpenEdition MVS is now competing with corner, IBM’s System/390 servers running the high-end UNIX-server market. It is not UNIX applications on IBM’s flagship MVS being positioned to compete with the low-end operating system. That’s right, IBM S/390 UNIX platforms. Most UNIX multi-user developers have blended MVS and UNIX applications will thrive on OpenEdition into one comprehensive operating system. MVS, while personal productivity applica- This new combo, given the trendy name of tions –- games and countless other single- OpenEdition MVS, is one of the most signif- user programs –- will stay on the desktop. icant software developments to come out of Thus, don’t expect an applications catalog for IBM in recent years. Suppliers claiming to OpenEdition MVS to ever rival the thickness offer mainframe alternatives and promoting of one for desktop computers. Note: In this series, the acronym MVS, which stands for Multiple Virtual Storage, is used to refer to IBM’s MVS/ESA operating system at its most current level. While this series focuses on OpenEdition MVS, many of the points discussed are also relevant to the OpenEdition VM version of the system, but no attempt will be made herein to highlight any differences. © 1996, ACTS Corporation, all rights reserved. TECHNICAL SUPPORT APRIL 1996 INTEROPERABILITY INSIGHTS THE UNIX MARKET a move to compete with UNIX, just to 1975 MVS has been the system the majority The UNIX market covers a broad range c re ate an image of openness within [its] of those 20 million users rely on day-in and of systems, from PCs and workstations to installed base.” d ay-out to handle bu s i n e s s - c ritical wo rk . multi-user serve rs. As PCs have become Pip Smith, S e q u e n t ’s senior director During that time, UNIX vendors have made m o re powe r f u l , the distinction between of NT and Major Account Sales, i s n ’t a meager showing in effo rts to displace PCs and workstations has blurred, causing worried either. “If MVS, by meeting Spec MVS systems. growth of the workstation market to slow 1170 can be called UNIX, the next thing Ac c o r ding to the London Tim e s , No vember 1, some. In this series, the use of the term we can expect is for cabbage patches to quali- 1995, page 4, a recent study completed by “desktop” systems refers to both PCs and fy as putting greens; if we get the cabbages England market re s e a rch fi rm , C a m b ri d ge personal workstations. close enough, we can call them gra s s ! ” Market Intelligence, estimates that 75 percent Since vendors keep actual sales data confi- Smith said. of all client/server projects are a failure. They dential, determining who is the found that companies often fail to devel- market leader for UNIX is not an op a solid business case for replacing exact science. It depends on their mainframe computers with wh e re the market lines are client/server, and eventually discover the d raw n , whose survey nu m b e rs new system to be far more expensive and are used, and the time period not nearly as effective as the old. being measured. Clearing up the Just ask the telecommunications giant confusion is an undert a k i n g US West, which last year alone spent beyond the scope of this series, $290 million in a failed attempt to con- but a market model provided by ve rt from MVS to Sequent’s UNIX, Computer Intelligence InfoCorp. called Dynix/PCX. While re l i abl e ( C I I ) , a market re s e a rch fi rm sources at Sequent said they advised based in La Jolla, Calif., helps to against a conve rsion from MVS to establish a quick reference point. UNIX, US West was not to be deterred, CII defines the low-end UNIX and the project turned out to be a total RISC server market as systems disaster.The easiest-to-port online appli- selling for $25K and less, mid-range between cations were converted, but on UNIX, average $25K and $750K, and high-end as any UNIX- AN UNFAIR FIGHT response times for these transactions bal- based system selling for greater than $750K. Regardless of the rhetoric, IBM’s introduc- looned to five seconds. At the time, only 10 Details of annualized 1995 market-share esti- tion of OpenEdition MVS means Sequent, percent of the mainframe workload had been mates, which are updated quarterly, are pro- AT&T GIS (since renamed NCR), H P, c o nve rt e d, and systems management fo r vided for the high-end UNIX market in Figure Tandem, and anyone else selling high-end UNIX took twice as much manpower as was 1. CII estimated that for 1995, a combined UNIX serve rs will soon find themselves needed to manage the remaining 90 percent $5.5 billion would be spent on UNIX systems competing head-to-head with MVS. Even if still running under MVS. In any event, MVS worldwide across these three segments. D av i s o n ’s assessment is accurat e, I B M ’s is alive and well at US West, which is more installed base alone rep resents betwe e n than can be said for the executives overseeing SEQUENT PREDICTS BIG YAWN 40,000 and 50,000 systems wo rl dwide the conversion — they were fired! While such Based on the CII market model, a case s u p p o rting more than 20 million users. could be made that Sequent has the most More importantly, by some estimates these Figure 2: Cost of Computing Summary to lose if OpenEdition MVS is a hit, followed customers spend between 40 percent to 50 by AT&T GIS and HP. Sequent isn’t worried. percent of all IT spending. Due to extensive Hardware, Software, and Maintenance Costs Per Dean Davison, manager of Competitive and cutbacks to their sales force, IBM’s bigger End User Over a Period of Five Years Market Research at Sequent, told ACTS he s h o rt-coming is having too few fe e t - o n - thinks IBM is merely doing everything it t h e - s t reet to find and engage competitors , 30–user system 100–user system can to protect and preserve its mainframe especially since so many vendors sell directly Mainframes $1,920 $1,920 business. He pre d i c t s , “OpenEdition MVS to division and department heads. But when- will be met with a big yawn outside of ever the competition is engaged, head to head, Non–UNIX minis $4,246 $10,452 I B M ’s MVS accounts. IBM is not making it will not be a fair fight. The reason: Since UNIX minis $4,935 $12,337 PCs on LANs $4,060 $9,135 Figure 1: High–End UNIX Market Adding to the above the costs of application software, support, power/space/networking, Other 13.2% Pyramid 10% IBM 6.7% and lost productivity: 30–user system 100–user system Mainframes $7,964 $7,964 HP 13.2 Non–UNIX minis $14,296 $20,502 UNIX minis $14,985 $22,387 PCs on LANs $15,060 $20,135 Sequent 26.8% AT&T/GIS 15.2% Cray Research 8% Digital 7% Source: Xephon, The Dinosaur Myth, 1995 TECHNICAL SUPPORT APRIL 1996 INTEROPERABILITY INSIGHTS fa i l u res are commonplace at large companies that have tried to The first sign of serious trouble came in the form of limited scala- replace MVS with UNIX or PC/LANs, these projects are quietly bility.The UNIX servers could only support about 10 percent of the abandoned because it is inadv i s able to ack n ow l e d ge mu l t i - m i l l i o n - projected workload (they were able to handle only 10 users per server dollar fa i l u res publ i cly.