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Concept
Mainframe computer
Summary
A mainframe computer, informally called a mainframe or big iron, is a computer used primarily by large organizations for critical applications like bulk data processing for tasks such as censuses, industry and consumer statistics, enterprise resource planning, and large-scale transaction processing. A mainframe computer is large but not as large as a supercomputer and has more processing power than some other classes of computers, such as minicomputers, servers, workstations, and personal computers. Most large-scale computer-system architectures were established in the 1960s, but they continue to evolve. Mainframe computers are often used as servers.
The term mainframe was derived from the large cabinet, called a main frame, that housed the central processing unit and main memory of early computers. Later, the term mainframe was used to distinguish high-end commercial computers from less powerful machines.
Modern mainframe design is characterized less by raw computational speed and more by:
Redundant internal engineering resulting in high reliability and security
Extensive input-output ("I/O") facilities with the ability to offload to separate engines
Strict backward compatibility with older software
High hardware and computational utilization rates through virtualization to support massive throughput.
Hot swapping of hardware, such as processors and memory.
The high stability and reliability of mainframes enable these machines to run uninterrupted for very long periods of time, with mean time between failures (MTBF) measured in decades.
Mainframes have high availability, one of the primary reasons for their longevity, since they are typically used in applications where downtime would be costly or catastrophic. The term reliability, availability and serviceability (RAS) is a defining characteristic of mainframe computers. Proper planning and implementation are required to realize these features.
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