![]() ![]() (Graphic courtesy Bob Losey/Source-Data Products.) Single-level storage is an integral part of the IBM midrange server line since the S/38. “When I was back in school a number of years ago, I was studying how the industry, including IBM, had implemented virtual memory, and I came to a fundamental decision in my own mind that they did it wrong,” Soltis said. While the adoption of virtual memory in that old mainframe did enable it to process transactions –which was the main driver for adopting virtual memory in the first place – Soltis did not care for the complexity that accompanied the implementation, and so he was determined to take the System/38 in a different direction. As he explained to the vCEC audience, he never much liked the virtual memory approach that IBM had taken with System/360 Model 67, which was the first IBM system to use virtual memory, and others that came before that. In many ways, single-level storage is the IBM i-gift that keeps on giving – it is, more than anything else, what differentiates IBM i servers from all the other systems out there.Īs a young systems architect, Soltis’s first assignment after joining IBM in 1969 was to come up with the design for the next iteration of the System/3X line. ![]() Soltis is retired now, but he’ll always be known as the father of the AS/400.ĬOMMON Europe invited Soltis to speak during last week’s virtual COMMON Europe Congress (vCEC 2020) event, and Soltis decided to talk about the history of single-level storage, which of course is the system that blends memory and spinning disk into one seamless whole. He was part of the team at the IBM lab in Rochester, Minnesota, that led the development of the single-level storage memory architecture in the S/38 machine that launched in 1978 and which, as we know, morphed into the AS/400 in 1988. But how would it look running in a massive supercomputer or deep learning system? According to Frank Soltis, who spoke last week at COMMON Europe’s virtual event, it’s something that’s being considered.ĭoctor Frank, of course, is a much-revered figure in the history of the IBM midrange line. Single-level storage is one of the most unique and compelling characteristics of the architecture underlying the IBM i server and its predecessor business machines. Frank Soltis Discusses A Possible Future for Single-Level Storage ![]()
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