CNET’s Steve Shankland reports that an era has ended. NASA has shut down its last mainframe. He cites a post by Linda Cureton, the space agency’s chief information officer, who says they just powered down NASA’s last mainframe, an IBM z9. Apparently, NASA has moved much of its processing to IBM’s Blue Gene systems and Linux on Intel and AMD x86-based servers and Unix on IBM Power-based servers. 
“Mainframes” and “moonshots” are two words that were almost synonymous, as are “iPhones” and “apps” today. These days, in fact, it’s often pointed out that we hold more computing power in the palms of our hands than the mainframes that guided the Apollo missions to the moon and back.
The mainframes that did help send people to the moon were two “super-speed” System 360 Model 95 machines NASA acquired in 1968. These machines were capable of computing 14-digit multiplications at a rate of over 330 million in a minute, IBM said. Steve points out that nowadays, the fastest supercomputer performs 10.5 quadrillion calculations per second.
And also, the IBM system at the time had 4MB of main memory supplemented by 1MB of “ultra-high-speed thin-film memories.” With all the compute power we now carry around in our pockets and purses, one wonders why we can’t all launch our own personal space programs.
The mainframe itself, however, continues to thrive as one of the more popular business technology platforms, and has seen a renaissance in recent years. With companies looking to build cloud capabilities and handle big data, expect to see IBM sell a lot more big iron in the years to come.
(Photo: IBM.)
Joe McKendrick is an author, consultant and speaker specializing in trends and developments shaping the technology industry.
Disclosure
Joe McKendrick
Joe McKendrick is an independent consultant, editor and speaker.
Joe has performed project work (white papers, articles, blogs, research and presentations) for the following companies in the IT marketspace:
- CBS Interactive/CNET/ZDNet (this blog)
- ebizQ
- Evans Data
- Gartner
- IBM
- Informatica
- IDC
- Microsoft
- Systinet/HP
- Teradata
- Unisphere Reseach, a division of Information Today, Inc.
- WebLayers
Joe has also performed research work for the following sponsoring organizations in partnership with Unisphere Research, a division of Information Today, Inc.
- IBM
- Luminex
- Noetix
- Oracle Corp.
- Teradata
- Informatica
- International Oracle Users Group
- Oracle Applications Users Group
- Professional Association for SQL Server
- International DB2 Users Group
- International Sybase Users Group
- SHARE (IBM large systems users group)
Biography
Joe McKendrick
Joe McKendrick is an author and independent analyst who tracks the impact of information technology on management and markets. Joe is co-author, along with 16 leading industry leaders and thinkers, of the SOA Manifesto, which outlines the values and guiding principles of service orientation. He also speaks frequently on Enterprise 2.0 and SOA topics at industry events and Webcasts, and serves on the program committee for this year's SOA & Cloud Symposium in London. As an independent analyst, he has also authored numerous research reports in partnership with Unisphere Research, a division of Information Today, Inc. for user groups such as SHARE, Oracle Applications Users Group, and International DB2 Users Group. In a previous life, Joe served as director of the Administrative Management Society (AMS), an international professional association dedicated to advancing knowledge within the IT and business management fields. He is a graduate of Temple University.
