Saturday 30 April 2011

Mainframe Concepts: Mainframe Strengths Contd....

Mainframe Concepts: Mainframe Strengths Contd....: " 1. Reliability : The system's hardware components have extensive self-checking and self-recovery capabilities. The system's software reli..."

Mainframe Strengths Contd....

 1. Reliability : The system's hardware components have extensive self-checking and self-recovery capabilities. The system's software reliability is a result of extensive testing and ability to make quick updates for detected problems.

2. Availability : The system can recover from a failed component without impacting the rest of the running system. This term applies to hardware recovery and software recovery.

3. Serviceability : The system can determine why a failure occurred. This capability allows for the replacement of   hardware and software elements while impacting as little of the operational system as possible. This term also implies well-defined units of replacement, either hardware or software.
A computer system is available when its applications are available. An available system is one that is reliable; that is, it rarely requires downtime for upgrades or repairs. And if the system is brought down by an error condition, it must be serviceable; that is, easy to fix within a relatively short period of time.

4. Security : One of the firm's most valuable resources is its data. Customer list, accounting data, employee information and so on. This critical data needs to be securely managed, controlled simultaneously made available to those users authorized to see it. The mainframe computer has extensive capabilities to simultaneously share, but still protect the firm's data among multiple users.
In an IT environment, data security is defined as protection against unauthorized access, transfer, modification or destruction, whether accidental or intentional.

5. Scalability : It has been said that the only constant is change. Nowhere is that statement more true than in the IT industry. In business positive results can often trigger a growth in IT infrastructure to cope with increased demand. The degree to which the IT organization can add capacity without disruption to normal business processes or without incurring excessive overhead is largely determined by the scalability of the particular computing platform.
By scalability, we mean the ability of the hardware, software, or a distributed system to continue to function well as it is changed in size or volume; for example, the ability to retain performance levels when adding processors, memory and storage. A scalable system can efficiently adapt to work, with larger or smaller networks performing tasks of varying complexity.
Mainframes exhibit scalability characteristics in both hardware and software, with the ability to run multiple copies of the operating system software as a single entity called system complex, or sysplex.

6. Continuing compatibility : Mainframe customers tend to have a very large financial investment in their applications and data. Some applications have been developed and refined over decades. Some applications were written many years ago, while others may have been written "yesterday". The ability of an application to work in the system or its ability.
The need to support applications of varying ages impose a strict compatibility demand on mainframe hardware and software. Applications must continue to work properly. Thus, much of the design work for new hardware and system software revolves around this compatibility requirement.
Any new design enhancements made to JCL must preserve compatibility with older jobs so that they can continue to run without modification. The desire compatibility with older jobs so that they can continue to run without modification. The desire and need for continuing compatibility is one of the defining characteristics of mainframe computing.

Friday 29 April 2011

Mainframe Concepts: Mumbai Indians lost to Rajasthan Royals

Mainframe Concepts: Mumbai Indians lost to Rajasthan Royals: "Mumbai Indians lost their 2nd game in this years IPL. This is their second loss in 7 games they played. They are sitting pretty well on top ..."

Mumbai Indians lost to Rajasthan Royals

Mumbai Indians lost their 2nd game in this years IPL. This is their second loss in 7 games they played. They are sitting pretty well on top of the table even though they lost to RR today.


Today they never looked in the game and lost wicket at regular intervals after Shane Warne won the toss and put MI to bat first. They lost the Master early and the inform Raydu and Sharma for not many runs on the board.
Then later Symonds and Pollard also couldn't able to do much and went cheaply leaving MI in trouble. At last after 20 overs MI were only able to reach 94 by loosing 8 wickets.


It is never going to be enough to defend unless someone bowls a spell of his life time. But no bowler could able to do that and RR pass through the target with ease by loosing only 3 wickets in 18.1 overs. Botha top scored for RR by scoring 44 and was dismissed for the first time in this series. He also took 3 wickets while bowling, which made him to earn the man of the match for his all round performance.


By this win RR jumped in to the second spot in the points table with 9 points in 8 matches with 4 wins, 3 losses and 1 no result.


In the other match RCB beat PWI by 26 runs. They hurtled to their fifth successive defeat in this tournament.








Thursday 28 April 2011

Mainframe Concepts: Mainframe Strengths

Mainframe Concepts: Mainframe Strengths: "The reliability, availability ave and serviceability (RAS) of a computer system have always been important factors in data processing. When..."

Mainframe Strengths

The reliability, availability ave and serviceability (RAS) of  a computer system have always been important factors in data processing. When we say that a particular computer system exhibits RAS characteristics, we mean that its design places a high priority on the system remaining in service at all times.
Ideally, RAS is a central design feature of all aspects of a computer system, including the applications.

Adding to the above strengths mainframe also has got

1. Security.
2. Scalability.
3. Continuing compatibility.

as their strengths in the kitty.

Wednesday 20 April 2011

Mainframe Concepts: Who uses Mainframe ??

Mainframe Concepts: Who uses Mainframe ??: "Just about everyone has used a mainframe computer at one point or another. If you ever used an automated teller machine(ATM) to interact wit..."

Who uses Mainframe ??

Just about everyone has used a mainframe computer at one point or another. If you ever used an automated teller machine(ATM) to interact with your bank account, you used a mainframe.

Today, mainframe computers play a central role in the daily operation of most of the world's largest corporation. In banking, finance, health care, insurance, utilities, government and a multitude of other public and private enterprises.
The mainframe computer continues to be the foundation of modern business.

The mainframe owes much of its popularity and longevity to its reliability and stability, a result of careful and steady technological advances. No other computer architecture can claim as much continuous, evolutionary improvement, while maintaining compatibility with previous releases.

Because of these design strengths, the mainframe is often used by IT organizations to host the most important, mission-critical applications. These applications typically include customer order processing, financial transactions, production and inventory control. payroll as well as many other types of work.

Business today rely on the mainframe to :

  1. Perform large-scale transaction processing.
  2. Support thousands of users and application programs concurrently accessing numerous resources.
  3. Manage terabytes of information in databases.
  4. Handle large-bandwidth communication.

Tuesday 19 April 2011

Mainframe Concepts: Difference between Mainframe Computer and Supercom...

Mainframe Concepts: Difference between Mainframe Computer and Supercom...: "Mainframes are used for problems which are limited by data movement in input/output devices, reliability and for handling multiple business ..."

Difference between Mainframe Computer and Supercomputer

Mainframes are used for problems which are limited by data movement in input/output devices, reliability and for handling multiple business transactions concurrently. Mainframes are designed to handle very high volume input and output and emphasize throughput computing.

Supercomputers are used for scientific and engineering problems which are limited by processing speed and memory size. Supercomputer have multiple processing units, making its speed unimaginably fast.


Mainframes are measured in millions of instructions per second(MIPS) while assuming typical instructions are integer operations, examples of integer operations include moving data around in memory or checking values.

Supercomputers are measured in floating point operations per second(FLOPS). Floating point operations are mostly addition, subtraction and multiplication with enough digits of precision to model continuous phenomena such as weather prediction and nuclear simulations.

Supercomputer is much concerning with calculating one data in a very high speed.
While Mainframe deals with storing of large amount of data
Therefore we can say that the Supercomputer is concerned much with speed while Mainframe is concerned with computing a large amount of data.

A Mainframe computer is similar only, it is more slower while running larger applications. Usually to huge amounts of data such as a census for every single house hold. Otherwise, there is no difference.

Sunday 17 April 2011

Mainframe Concepts: Mainframe : Is It a Server, Why People call it as ...

Mainframe Concepts: Mainframe : Is It a Server, Why People call it as ...: "Mainframes are Servers, the way we have client-server computing today, but they are not called servers because the 'clients' of a mainframe ..."

Mainframe : Is It a Server, Why People call it as Mainframe Computer not Mainframe Servers

Mainframes are Servers, the way we have client-server computing today, but they are not called servers because the "clients" of a mainframe system are usually terminals. These are dumb terminals, which means all the applications they run on big system. Nothing is being served to the client...all the work is done on the big machine. A Mainframe is usually dedicated for one purpose like a Hospital or IRS.

Now, look at the definition of "client-server computing", and you will understand it is not the same as a Mainframe system.

Client/server describes the relationship between two computer programs in which one program, the client, makes a service request, the server fulfills the request. Although client/server idea can be used by programs within a single computer, it is a more important idea in a network.
Relative to the Internet, your web browser is a client program that requests services from a web server(HTTP server) in another computer somewhere on the Internet.

To make it simpler let's take the example of Television broadcast station and Television sets as our client/server model.

A server is sort of like a television broadcast station, making its information available to anyone who would like to receive it. Clients are like television sets - you tune it in to the station you want to watch. The television broadcast station sends the signal in a standard format which is ready for viewing by any of television set, which may be black and white, color, big screen, what ever.

You can take the example of your bank account also.

To check your bank account from your computer, a client program in your computer forwards your request to a server program at the bank. That program may in turn forward the request to its own client program that sends a request to a database server at another bank computer to retrieve your account balance. The balance is returned back to the bank data client, which in turn serves it back to the client in your personal computer, which displays the information for you.

Generally Mainframe machines are servers. You throw tasks to the Mainframe machine, and the mainframe performs the processing, and stores the result. Many users throw requests to the Mainframe machine concurrently. Thus, as a mainframe operator, generally you would not be present physically near the machine, you operate it remotely. you have a keyboard and monitor connected to your Mainframe server. There would be thousands of terminals connected to a mainframe server and many users can perform their tasks on the mainframe server concurrently. You might sit in the work-office of your company on a terminal and perform data-processing on the Mainframes server located somewhere else.

Friday 15 April 2011

Mainframe Concepts: Advantages and Disadvantages of Mainframe

Mainframe Concepts: Advantages and Disadvantages of Mainframe: "Advantages of Mainframe :Huge Memory. High speed compared to volume of data. High security : No virus attack so far reported in last 50..."

Advantages and Disadvantages of Mainframe

Advantages of Mainframe :
  1. Huge Memory.
  2. High speed compared to volume of data.
  3. High security : No virus attack so far reported in last 50-60 years.
  4. Superb Virtualization.
  5. Huge Data processing.
Disadvantages of Mainframe :
  1. Cost of hardware : Normal persons can't afford to have their own mainframe.
  2. Special Operating Systems/ Software (more cost here too).
  3. Intense Human attention required.
  4. Intense Space Occupied.
  5. More Resource consumption.

Thursday 14 April 2011

Mainframe Concepts: What is Mainframe Computer

Mainframe Concepts: What is Mainframe Computer: "A Mainframe Computer (also known as 'big iron') is a large, powerful, high-performance computer, often serving many connected terminals. It ..."

What is Mainframe Computer

A Mainframe Computer (also known as "big iron") is a large, powerful, high-performance computer, often serving many connected terminals. It is used for large-scale computing purpose that require greater availability and security than a smaller-scale machine can offer.

Typically used in bulk data processing such as census, industry statistics, enterprise resource and financial transaction processing etc.

The original mainframes were housed in room-sized metal frames. In the past, a typical mainframe might have occupied 2,000-10,000 square feet. Newer mainframes are about the same size as a large refrigerator.

Mainframes are designed to handle very high volume input and output (I/O) and emphasize throughout computing.

IBM mainframes dominate the mainframe market at well over 90% market share.