Software Defined

StorageSDx New Idea or NOT

Horst L TruestedtTrueFocus, Inc

horst@truestedt.org

25 August 2016

Agenda

History

S/38 Architecture

Single-level Store

Summary

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History

Early 1970, IBM decided to develop a new

system from the ground up.

– System was called FS (Future Systems).

– Made all existing computer installations

obsolete.

– Four systems defined:

Rochester system (System/38): – Was the entry-level.

– Replaced System/3; System/32; and System/34.

– Designed with n-way processors and 128-bit addressing.

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History

Telex and Anti-Trust Lawsuits

FS scrapped - became System/370

Only System/38 completed and shipped

System/38 legacy (same architecture)

– AS/400 (supported System/36 applications)

– iSeries replaced AS/400

– System i replaced iSeries

– IBM Power Systems replaced System i

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IBM Rochester, MN

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Started in 1956 with 576K sqft; today there are 3.1M sqft

Employment peaked at 8,000+; today about 2,500.

System/38

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System/38 Features

Announced 1978; shipped in 1980.

Designed for 128-bit addressing - System/38 used only

48 bits (applications only need to recompile).

Built-in security; each object or library has user-by-user

control.

Languages supported included: RPG III, COBOL,

BASIC, and PL/I.

Layered machine structure.

Used 64-bit object pointers.

Single-Level Storage.

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System/38 Levels

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User Applications

Languages,

Data base,

Utilities

Control

Program

Facility (CPF)

High-level Architecture Interface

Vertical Microcode (VMC)

Horizontal Microcode (HMC)

Hardware Machine

Protected

level

Allowed

Changes

System/38 Addressing

Architecture supports a flat, single-level

64-bit virtual address space (this was

increased to 65-bits in the Power

System Series).

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Microcode

Extension

Segment

Identification

Group

ID

Page

Number

Byte

Offset

16 24 8 7 9

Although the hardware only supports 48-bit physical

address, when an object is created, the full 64-bit address

is stored in a special header for each object.

System/38 Pointers

There are four types of pointers:

– System pointers - address objects;

– Space pointers - address specific byte locations

within the space portion of an object;

– Data pointers - address a specific byte within a

space and also contain attribute information

describing the type of element (e.g., character or

decimal); and,

– Instruction pointers - control execution flow.

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Single-Level Storage

From users point-of-view All Data is

considered to be in memory.

Only the Hardware knows where the

data is physically located:

– It could be in memory;

– It could be on disk or another I/O device;

– It could be in the network.

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Relational Database

Management System

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System/38 has the distinction of being the first commercially available IBM

Midrange computer to have a RDBMS integrated into the operating system.

Data on Disk

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Storage Manager

System/38

• Data striped for high

throughput.

• Required read/write data

to multiple disks

• Used 520 byte sectors

• RAID-0 not coined yet

Disk

Storage

Interface

. . .

Data in Network

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System/38

SAN/WAN

Data Center Data Center Data Center Data Center

• Architected view (not

implemented until later)

• Distributed data not well

supported in network

infrastructure

Data Virtualization

The architecture allowed Data objects to

be scattered; i.e., portions of the Data

could be anywhere.

Consider part of the Data was in :

– Minneapolis (short delay)

– Rome (~10 sec delay)

Todays networks allow for this kind of

distribution, but not pre-1990s.

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Data Virtualization

System/38 distributed file services– In 1986, System/38 announced support for

Distributed Data Management Architecture (DDM).

– Enabled System/38 programs to create, manage,

and access record-oriented files on remote

System/36, System/38, and IBM mainframe

systems running CICS.

– Also allowed programs on remote System/36 and

System/38 computers to create, manage, and

access files of a System/38.

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Summary

System/38 was the FS architecture.

Data transparency was key for the

Storage Manager.

The Machine Interface architecture

isolated the Application Software and

most of the operating system from

hardware dependencies.

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Summary

The System/38's advanced Operating System

lived on with the AS/400.

Virtualization allowed programs originally

written for the System/34 and System/36 be

easily moved to the AS/400.

Same programs continue to work on the

iSeries, System i, the IBM Power Systems.

All due to Software Defined x!

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