alt Hacker NewsThey aren’t standardizing the way the PC was standardized. They’re making custom hardware with custom connectors. Their parts are interchangeable with themselves but the rack is the unit of delivery and operation. Their software is closer to standardizing in the normal sense of the word.
That’s a mainframe, sport. At their height they were modular and in at least IBM’s case they could run with damaged parts and were delivered with dark hardware that could replace damaged parts until a maintenance person could arrive, or be remotely enabled to increase throughput for a fee.
All of this cloud stuff, except the geographical redundancy parts, is recreating software that business had versions of forty years ago.
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Some of us still touch mainframes, almost daily.
It really depends on what you mean by “mainframe.” Architecturally, we are nothing like mainframes. But for what mainframe seems to mean for you, I can see your perspective.
(While the rack is the unit of delivery overall, we can ship individual sleds and they’re operator replaceable, if say, one of your sleds dies, incidentally.)