NASA Shuts Down Last Mainframe, Signals End of an Era
NASA announced that it has abandoned its last mainframe, an IBM Z9 system.
The mainframe was located at Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. The massive, 6-year-old 2094-s54 model has 54 main processors and 512 GB of memory. According to Wikipedia, S54 mainframes cost "millions of dollars" when new. NASA CIO Linda Cureton wrote in a blog post that the shutdown of the Z9 ends the "mainframe era" at NASA. She noted that mainframes still have their place in computing where it does not matter if "end-user interfaces are clunky and somewhat inflexible," when there is a need for a system that delivers "extremely reliable, secure transaction oriented business applications."
According to Cureton, NASA kept the Z9 operational for older applications that are now being phased out. NASA apparently has not developed mainframe application in some time, which made the mainframe a rather costly proposition. Cureton also noted that NASA an save some money by shutting down some software licenses that are tied to the system, which runs Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 (RHEL4).
NASA's first IBM mainframe, a 360/91 Model, shipped to NASA in 1967.
Also makes me wonder what kind of machines the government uses to crack encrypted data.
Another option is to sell it, before it becomes slower than a hand cellphone!
Because the business of killing people has always been more profitable than any business dedicated to the bettering of mankind. That's why the defense industry laughs all the way to the bank, while the rest have to tighten their belts.
it would be much better and way more cheaper. I mean all these organizations have thousands of pc's around. either for more complex tasks or for very simple tasks like word processing etc. these pc's have a huge processing power that is wasted. with distributed computing they could take advantage of it and save billions of dollars on everything while getting the very same results.
When your country gets taken over by another one because you had nothing to defend yourself with, that space program you're so proud of is going to look pretty useless.
I think it is a stretch to describe the primary purpose of NASA as "for the betterment of mankind." Teflon, Tang and velcro are all nice inventions, but hardly worth the budget that NASA has had to invent them if as you claim, NASA's purpose is to better mankind. NASA, itself, has done very little beyond generating jingoistic pride when it comes to having any sort of significant impact on human lives.
NASA has done some very interesting and amazing things, and there is absolutely a place for it in our national budget, but don't kid yourself about bettering mankind. It's not doing that. At least it hasn't yet.
I think it is a stretch to describe the primary purpose of NASA as "for the betterment of mankind." Teflon, Tang and velcro are all nice inventions, but hardly worth the budget that NASA has had to invent them if as you claim, NASA's purpose is to better mankind. NASA, itself, has done very little beyond generating jingoistic pride when it comes to having any sort of significant impact on human lives.NASA has done some very interesting and amazing things, and there is absolutely a place for it in our national budget, but don't kid yourself about bettering mankind. It's not doing that. At least it hasn't yet.
http://space.about.com/od/toolsequipment/ss/apollospinoffs.htm
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/50-years-50-giant-leaps-how-nasa-rocked-our-world-879377.html
http://curiosity.discovery.com/topic/physics-concepts-and-definitions/ten-nasa-inventions.htm
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Those useless bastards, think of how many more guns could've been made with their part of the budget!