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Banks scramble to fix old systems as IT 'cowboys' ride into sunset

reuters.com

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Re: Banks scramble to fix old systems as IT 'cowboys' ride into sunset

#241

Post by binarymax »

dpark wrote: post #238
binarymax wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It helps for the first stage - getting the platform onto a more sustainable environment. Once the interface exists and has full coverage, parts of the backend can begin migration without a doomed-to-fail 'big bang' rewrite.

Does it really help? What does it cost to build a trustworthy emulator for an ancient system that you don't own the source for? What would it cost to just migrate your legacy applications to a newer mainframe that IBM supports?

I wasnt suggesting writing an emulator from scratch. I was suggesting emulating the mainframe. Here is what we, specifically, were looking at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hercules_%28emulator%29

Re: Banks scramble to fix old systems as IT 'cowboys' ride into sunset

#242

Post by beat »

splintercell wrote: post #240
beat wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the South, whites don't mind if blacks are around, as long as they're not uppity. In the North, whites don't mind if blacks are uppity, as long as they're not around. Segregation is worse in the north than in the south.

Lol, I heard it differently, 'In South they are supposed to hate us in theory but not in practice, in north they are suppose to love us in theory but not in practice.'

I'm still waiting for the white people from the north to throw a fit because I said this. It's not always well received...

Re: Banks scramble to fix old systems as IT 'cowboys' ride into sunset

#243

Post by thinkmilitant »

ZanyProgrammer wrote: post #191

And as long as you fit the "correct" demographics for living in the south.

Check this out:

https://wallethub.com/edu/most-diverse-cities/12690/

While it is true that some of the most diverse cities fall on the east and west coast, I think you'll find that the south is not unrepresented. As a resident of Houston, Texas (#23 on their list) it always bugs me to see people paint an entire region and people with one uniform brush. Something kind of bigoted about it, actually...

Re: Banks scramble to fix old systems as IT 'cowboys' ride into sunset

#244

Post by dpark »

binarymax wrote: post #241
dpark wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does it really help? What does it cost to build a trustworthy emulator for an ancient system that you don't own the source for? What would it cost to just migrate your legacy applications to a newer mainframe that IBM supports?

I wasnt suggesting writing an emulator from scratch. I was suggesting emulating the mainframe. Here is what we, specifically, were looking at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hercules_%28emulator%29

Don't you then need to pay IBM for the OS anyway? Will they license the OS for this use?

Or did your system actually include the OS source?

Re: Banks scramble to fix old systems as IT 'cowboys' ride into sunset

#245

Post by parthdesai »

gpderetta wrote: post #206
parthdesai wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well VP could have been exaggerating a bit as well since we were uni students back then and my friend was doing his internship there. He knew the VP through robotics.

Note that, in a bank, VP is not a particularly important position. A senior software developer anywhere else might have the VP title in a bank. It is very possible that your firend's friend wasn't involved in any hiring decision at all and it was just internal hearsay. Source: I'm VP at a large bank.

Ah could be that as well, you know better. We were just young kids (still are) and believed what he said.

Re: Banks scramble to fix old systems as IT 'cowboys' ride into sunset

#246

Post by kbenson »

tyingq wrote: post #100
kbenson wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Am I missing something? That doesn't seem all that odd, but perhaps that's because I'm familiar with IP,TCP and UDP and I've written something to read PNG headers before. Interchange file formats often include variable length blocks, which a part of the header defining the block length. That first part of the record is just a very small header per item, which defines the type of item and the size. Look into the defla…

>Am I missing something? The interesting part is that the fixed and variable record formats are first class things on the mainframe. So, something like DB2 on a mainframe can use system supplied functionality (VSAM) as their storage engine. As opposed to unix, where higher level databases like MySql, CockroachDB, etc either roll their own (InnoDB) or use some 3rd party offering like RocksDB, LevelDB, etc. VSAM isn't…

So I guess it's fair to say the difference is that the mainframes have a standardized format for record creation and consumption in the OS, sort of like DB2 being included in the kernel? That is nice, and it does explain why it might be confusing, even if I think it doesn't necessarily get you much over using a third party library (unless there are other benefits I'm not considering).

Re: Banks scramble to fix old systems as IT 'cowboys' ride into sunset

#247

Post by binarymax »

dpark wrote: post #244
binarymax wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wasnt suggesting writing an emulator from scratch. I was suggesting emulating the mainframe. Here is what we, specifically, were looking at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hercules_%28emulator%29

Don't you then need to pay IBM for the OS anyway? Will they license the OS for this use? Or did your system actually include the OS source?

For 360, it is now in the public domain: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OS/360_and_successors

Re: Banks scramble to fix old systems as IT 'cowboys' ride into sunset

#248

Post by wolfgke »

beat wrote: post #231

I worked for years on the modernization of a critical banking infrastructure system. The problems are manifold. The biggest problem is overall architectural impedance mismatch - switching from a batch system (most of those old COBOL mainframe apps are batch systems) to a service-oriented architecture. This makes incremental replacement extremely difficult. But a cutover? On a system that moves more money in a day tha…

> When I see people in the startup world rolling their eyes at the "incompetence" of the enterprise world, I take it to mean they've never actually worked on a truly hard problem in their lives.

I worked in a related field in the past. I don't claim that the problems are easy - where I tend to roll eyes rather is:

- Bureaucracy: A lot is required by law, I know. But there is a difference between "just following the required bureaucracy in a minimal necessary way if it stands in the path" (the startup way) vs. "taking it seriously in a way that makes the work harder than strictly necessary".

- Hierarchies: Just three words: I hate them.

- Unwillingness (?) to tackle these hard problems: The problems are hard, as you already outlined. But this implies to me that everybody in the company will move heaven and earth so that the people who work on this hard problems are able to (e.g. give all necessary information (requirement specification etc.) they know of etc.). If there is just one thing (or even office politics) which will prevent that, I don't just roll my eyes, but get furious. Because of the hardness this is not to consider an obstacle, but targeted sabotage - and should be considered as such.

Re: Banks scramble to fix old systems as IT 'cowboys' ride into sunset

#249

Post by kbenson »

jfoutz wrote: post #69
nsxwolf wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You got that right. I had to deal with an interesting banking file format and I asked a question on Stack Overflow and got this gem of an answer. I politely accepted it as the right answer but boy oh boy does it feel like it's from an alien civilization. http://stackoverflow.com/questions/28640159/what-is-the-diff...

Unix has a few tricks up its sleeve from when it wasn't the top dog. I hesitate to ever recommend perl, but pack [1] and unpack are pretty sweet for this kind of stuff. I only learned about them when a state sent me files in EBCDIC [2]. As with all things perl, you can convert from that to ASCII as a one liner. Or, rather, i helped someone much smarter than me do that, 20 years ago. [1] http://perldoc.perl.org/functi…

> I hesitate to ever recommend perl ... Or, rather, i helped someone much smarter than me do that, 20 years ago.

No need to hesitate. It's not half bad for a dynamic language if you keep a little discipline. 20 years ago the average Perl programmer was probably akin to the average PHP programmer from 10 years ago. That is, not very experienced, and with code that made that fairly obvious, even if it got the job done. With some of the more modern modules, you get something pretty swizzy[1]. :)

1: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11633961

Re: Banks scramble to fix old systems as IT 'cowboys' ride into sunset

#250

Post by logfromblammo »

liveoneggs wrote: post #204
ZanyProgrammer wrote: post #191

And as long as you fit the "correct" demographics for living in the south.

> As of the 2010 census, the ethnic makeup and population of San Francisco included: 390,387 Whites (48.1%), 267,915 Asians (33.3%), 48,870 African Americans (6.1%), 4,024 Native Americans (0.5%), 3,359 Pacific Islanders (0.4%), 53,021 from other races (6.6%), and 37,659 from two or more races (4.7%). > Atlanta 2010 census: 211,365 Whites (38.4%), 28,071 Asians (5.1%), 286,126 African Americans (54.0%), ... So you me…

If you're LGBT, or atheist, or a noncitizen, you have to stay really close to the larger cities. And you'd best not let too many people know about your nonconformity.

And the cops are still racist. Not quite so blatantly and obviously racist against blacks any more, but it still comes out in the statistics.

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