The pendulum is swinging back towards centralised
computing. If you want to save money on your IT budget, the key
word is "utilisation", according to Bernard Tomlin, a consultant
with HP Services.
The problem is that most business computers sit around doing
nothing most of the time. The solution is to track them all down
and relocate them to your giant datacentre, where you can
standardise, integrate and consolidate all your servers, thus
benefiting from HP's Utility Data Centre.
Listening to Tomlin gave me a bad flashback. Suddenly I was 20
years younger, listening to IBM extolling the virtues of the
mainframe. And dark, stultifying clouds started to gather on the
horizonÉ
Of course, there has never been anything wrong with building large
datacentres: they are often the cheapest and most efficient way to
do things. I have never confused "the death of the mainframe" with
"the death of the datacentre".
The problem with the traditional IBM liquid-cooled mainframe was
that it was a hugely expensive monster and it was incompatible with
almost everything else in the IT business. That included IBM's
three or four ranges of minicomputers, which were also incompatible
with one another. Thus, although it cost a small fortune to clamber
into IBM's mainframe lobster pot, it cost even more to get
out.
But although the business case for a Utility Data Centre may be the
same as it was for the mainframe, Tomlin said, "At least HP is
doing it with open systems. We are building things out of very
cheap components, and people get incredible value for money."
And you get a choice of operating system: you can load Windows or
Linux, or whatever else you like, and configure the whole system
remotely.
Clearly there are benefits to building mainframe-class systems
using PC parts, where prices are reduced by competition and
economies of scale. And in theory, having a Utility Data Centre
could encourage even more creative experiments than the
availability of cheap Dells. But I suspect it will not: the
datacentre mindset could turn out to be just as stultifying today
as the mainframe mindset was in the past.
Jack Schofield is computer editor of the
Guardian