The "M" is for Machines

Hardware was king when I started with IBM, or at least that's what I remember being told by the hardware engineers. At the time, software and hardware performance at the Glendale Lab was made up of several first-line departments that met at a third-line level. VM/SP Development was a separate organization. Part of this was done so that the development owners and the development QA wasn't under the same management. There were also a lot more people involved in the product at the time. The hardware and software performance groups had a good relationship. I learned a lot from my peers in hardware. Often hanging out or doing lunch with them. Marty Curtin was one of them. He had been in software and then crossed over to processor performance. Years later he'd be doing software again, for one of the other System z operating systems. I think it's called z/OS. Marty continues to be a friend.

One of the Endicott processors in the 1980s was the 4381. It was a very good VM box. I don't think it was a coincident that both were influenced heavily by Endicott. People who worked, played, and ate together were able to bring some good synergy to the hardware and software. The 4381 was a very good seller; it set high expectations and met them.

Over the years, the IBM annual report has shifted from focusing on hardware to more software and even more services. However, hardware is still king as it's the start of the IBM stack. Upon the hardware foundation, we add hypervisor, operating systems, and middleware. Hardware, particularly System z just lends itself better to be qualified with the word 'legendary': Legendary Availability, Legendary Security, Legendary Innovation, etc.. The innovation continues to amaze me, such as RAIM (redundant array of independent memory) introduced in the z196 processor family.

I was visiting a customer once and discussing a possible system design. In this case, I was a little cautious about setting expectations. Someone had quoted 40 years MTBF (mean time between failures) stat. I commented, "That is for the hardware, remember software is written by mortals". One of the customers smiled and asked, "Oh, so the processor designers aren't mortal, they're gods?". That made me smile and I quipped something about visiting Mount Olympus/Poughkeepsie.

As I look back, perhaps Atlas is the System z hardware team, they hold everything on their shoulders, tirelessly.