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FedEx to close data centers, retire mainframes

datacenterdynamics.com

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Re: FedEx to close data centers, retire mainframes

#381

Post by scottyah »

shuntress wrote: post #350
menzoic wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Renting your information infrastructure is a great way to reduce startup costs, but down the road, that information infrastructure runs your company. Trying to outsource it is like trying to outsource upper management. This isn't a one size fits all thing. For a company like FedEx I don't see the advantage of owning their own data centers. They just don't have the scaling challenges that would require that. Data cen…

> I think its more fair to so that FedEx building their own datacenters is like building their own roads to deliver packages on. Your metaphor is a little bit off. This is more comparable to FedEx renting vs owning their fleet vehicles. Obviously they aren't going to be setting up foundries to to scratch-build engines and network switches. But it probably makes as much sense for them to own the buildings & computers…

Fun Fact: They don't technically own their planes, since it would have made them an nice target for a hostile takeover if someone wanted them

Re: FedEx to close data centers, retire mainframes

#382

Post by jeffbee »

jotterbrain wrote: post #376
jeffbee wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you saying that part of the expected savings from going on-prem is that you will have to disassemble equipment bought from major OEMs and examine it for microscopic metal dust? That doesn't sound like it will save much money, honestly.

They’re saying it’s a surprise to hear that Dropbox doesn’t know what QC and order acceptance means. And it is, I agree. That you spent the time investigating it, implying those servers were in production, is a shibboleth to those of us that know what we’re doing when designing hardware usage that Dropbox doesn’t. It is, however, your self sourced report and we don’t have an idea of scale, so maybe they do and you’re…

Many hardware problems do not surface at burn-in. Even at Google, the infamous "Platform A" from the paper "DRAM Errors in the Wild" was in large-scale production before they realized it was garbage.

Re: FedEx to close data centers, retire mainframes

#383

Post by stainforth »

cupofpython wrote: post #280
bluGill wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

8-10 years is as long as senior executives last, if they don't make a big change then thee is no way to take credit for their vision. Even if the company had a "perfect" org chart (as if such a thing is possible), they need to make changes otherwise someone will say that they old org chart is the cause of success and they as a leader were not worth anything. I don't know if the above fear would actually play out, nob…

I think we are giving these people too much credit. Being the head of the organization is like inheriting someone elses filing system. the only way for them to actually understand wtf is going on at the company is to reorganize some things in a way that makes sense to them. High level management is fundamentally hard to stay on top of over time. It's about as easy as thinking chess is easy because you can theoretical…

Yes but they ultimately live materially better lives because of their position, so you can't hand wave away criticism of the value or lack thereof their actions take, especially when those actions can have a negative effect on those below them and even to the external environment.

Re: FedEx to close data centers, retire mainframes

#384

Post by ValentineC »

CarbonCycles wrote: post #288
TheRealDunkirk wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm 53, and I've worked for 3 Fortune 250's. Can confirm. I've seen this happen over and over again. Senior management makes some broad pronouncements, and the mid-level lieutenants have meetings with consultants, and then implement new, expensive projects that "will surely fix 'it' this time." Five to ten years later, after the dust settles, and we figure out that we've strapped YET ANOTHER LAYER of technical debt o…

Oh man...Dell is terrible about this. Not sure what the policy is anymore (esp since they went private), but to get promoted you had implement a significant cost savings project, which ironically lead to multiple implementations and reversals of policies...they all showed a cost savings but it depended on your perspective.

I don't know anything about Dell's promotion criteria, but their consumer ordering process has to be one of the most hostile ever — I'm guessing anywhere between 50-75% of their orders get auto-cancelled by some overzealous anti-fraud and anti-reseller algorithm.

Re: FedEx to close data centers, retire mainframes

#385

Post by jotterbrain »

jeffbee wrote: post #382
jotterbrain wrote: post #376

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They’re saying it’s a surprise to hear that Dropbox doesn’t know what QC and order acceptance means. And it is, I agree. That you spent the time investigating it, implying those servers were in production, is a shibboleth to those of us that know what we’re doing when designing hardware usage that Dropbox doesn’t. It is, however, your self sourced report and we don’t have an idea of scale, so maybe they do and you’re…

Many hardware problems do not surface at burn-in. Even at Google, the infamous "Platform A" from the paper "DRAM Errors in the Wild" was in large-scale production before they realized it was garbage.

Filings from the chassis stamper, which yours certainly were given the combination of circumstances and vendor, are present when the machine is installed. If you’re buying racks, your integrator inspects them. If you’re buying U, you do. It’s a five minute job to catch your thank-God-my-career-was-short story before the machine is even energized, which I know because I’ve caught the same thing from the same vendor twice. (It’s common; notice several comments point to it.) Why do you think QC benches have magnifiers and loupes? It’s a capital expenditure and an asset, so of course it’s rigorously inspected before the company accepts it, right? That’s not strange, is it?

You can point at Google and speak in abstracts but it doesn’t address the point being made, nor that your rationale for your extreme position on cloud isn’t as firm as you thought it was. Is Dropbox the only time you’ve worked with hardware? I’m genuinely asking because manufacturing defects can top 5% of incoming kit depending on who you’re dealing with. Google knew that when they built Platform A. The lie of cloud is that dismissing those problems is worth the margin (it ain’t; you send it back, make them refire the omelette, and eat the toast you baked into your capacity plan while you wait).

Re: FedEx to close data centers, retire mainframes

#386

Post by projektfu »

jes wrote: post #157
cs702 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Without a doubt, a future generation of executives will revisit and reverse the decision to rent all information infrastructure, but that will likely be many, many years down the road. In the meantime, the current generation of executives who made this decision will look very smart for saving the company lots of money for a good number of years. And they stand to benefit personally from it. They're doing the rational…

You are right about this. One of the visible signs of an unrecognized (and therefore, unresolved) dilemma is oscillation between two poles. I got this from the late Eli Goldratt and the problem-solving tools he created. One of those tools is the "Evaporating Cloud," which is a way to visualize a dilemma of some kind. I'd suggest that there is an unresolved dilemma here: Should we rent or own data centers? Over a peri…

You're right, I mean, this was the vision for Multics. They would rent computing as a utility to all the businesses, big and small, backed by their computers. At the time it didn't pan out but it was definitely a desire.

Re: FedEx to close data centers, retire mainframes

#387

Post by hindsightbias »

ryanmercer wrote: post #162
baud147258 wrote: post #12

Are they really going to save 400 m$, or was it the figure "promised" by the shop that will handle the migration?

>Are they really going to save 400 m$ I'm sure they'll save many millions. Earlier this year I left FedEx after 15 1/2 years of service. Every single day I used an IBM AS/400 terminal to interact with several systems to do my job, the bulk of my job was done via that terminal. Yeah, that's how old most of FedEx's tech is. A few months before I left they had just migrated one of our in-house systems over to Oracle lik…

Save money by replacing 14 year old machines? More Oracle in the cloud? IBMi is available in the cloud now.

Now they'll need how many engineers to move the code stack (that probably no one knows) to some groovy stack with 12 layers.

Re: FedEx to close data centers, retire mainframes

#389

Post by freemint »

SoftTalker wrote: post #265
RandomWorker wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

right now, they can't retain the people or afford the people to do this work. When you can go work elsewhere for more money you move. And, running a main frame isn't just having it, it's keeping the people running it, plus paying for the electricity and space. Depending where, the real-estate and energy prices are nuts in most places. And, the engineers are expensive right now, and the services are cheaper. It's not…

> These managers see the larger trends, rising energy costs, maintenance costs rising, hiring difficult, and retention of existing engineers impossible. But how will the cloud providers avoid these trends? They won't. They will have to do the same thing as anyone else: pay more. And therefore charge more. There are economies of scale, but those savings are logarithmic and a company like FedEx is already pretty far ou…

> But how will the cloud providers avoid these trends?

Innovations are more likely to happen if it is someones priority to fix a certain thing. I think they hope that savings from innovation and better methods at what ever company they hire out to are passed onto them. It is naive if they are unable to change clouds though that they will see these savings and as long as one relies on vendor specific features on is in that position.

Re: FedEx to close data centers, retire mainframes

#390

Post by jfjrkkskdik »

cupofpython wrote: post #280
bluGill wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

8-10 years is as long as senior executives last, if they don't make a big change then thee is no way to take credit for their vision. Even if the company had a "perfect" org chart (as if such a thing is possible), they need to make changes otherwise someone will say that they old org chart is the cause of success and they as a leader were not worth anything. I don't know if the above fear would actually play out, nob…

I think we are giving these people too much credit. Being the head of the organization is like inheriting someone elses filing system. the only way for them to actually understand wtf is going on at the company is to reorganize some things in a way that makes sense to them. High level management is fundamentally hard to stay on top of over time. It's about as easy as thinking chess is easy because you can theoretical…

That’s not the only way but “come in and change things to establish dominance” is a commonly taught business school chant.

Management are contemporary clergy, spewing high minded ephemera, only to go home unable to point at anything net new left behind by their effort.

I grew up in farm land; we had no middle managers. Somehow food still got grown, harvested, and sold; somehow a Linux kernel and other wildly popular open source exists without them.

Post-WW industrialism needs to wind down. Militant minded people came home and forced their PTSD on workers. We spend a lot of resources equipping people to output nothing in deference to traditional economic memes. America of recent decades necessarily built itself into a production powerhouse to resupply a destroyed world. Such memes are outdated given automation and unsustainable given real material costs.

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