RE: Is VMS losing the Financial Sector, also?

-----Original Message-----
From: John Smith [mailto:a@xxxxxxxxxxxx]
Sent: May 23, 2007 10:01 AM
To: Info-VAX@xxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: Is VMS losing the Financial Sector, also?

Main, Kerry wrote:
-----Original Message-----
From: JF Mezei [mailto:jfmezei.spamnot@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]
Sent: May 20, 2007 12:58 PM
To: Info-VAX@xxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: Is VMS losing the Financial Sector, also?

re: mainframes



[snip...]


Being *very* active in the financial services indusrty, I can assure
you
that Oracle, notwithstanding its mult-patches per month, and Linux
with its
patch du jour approach are in fact supplanting most things.

There are very few customers still using VMS, and of those, some are
fully
committed to VMS whilst most are looking to migrate to unix...usually
to
Solaris or AIX. I can't recall the last time I saw a shop have any
significant PHUX in-house.



Yeah, have seen a number of cases where the OS religion over-rides sound
business judgement. The techies go down a certain road and their
managers do not have the will or the smarts to reign them in.... kind of
like sailing down the rapids in a canoe with no paddle.

Perhaps this is not politically correct, but where have all the IT
managers with sound business sense disappeared to these days?

I guess the banks will have to experience a major hack and major audit
before someone asks the question "Excuse me - are you saying you put our
mission critical XYZ application on an OS platform that you *knew* had
5-20 security patches released each and every month?"

Yep, auditors will love this when someone finally does get around to
asking those tough questions.

Reminds me of movie called Swordfish where the hacker spends a great
deal of time using a super computer to hack into a secure bank. With
Linux on that platform, how long do you think that would hold up?

And please do not say banks do not need to worry because they have good
firewalls - 50-60% of significant security events are internal issues.

Gotta love the IT hype these days.

Regards


Kerry Main
Senior Consultant
HP Services Canada
Voice: 613-592-4660
Fax: 613-591-4477
kerryDOTmainAThpDOTcom
(remove the DOT's and AT)

OpenVMS - the secure, multi-site OS that just works.



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