What Is a Mainframe? Features, Importance, and Examples | – Spiceworks News and Insights

A mainframe is defined as a large, powerful computer typically used for complex calculations and data processing tasks. It can connect to multiple end clients simultaneously so that several users can access different applications and processes running on the mainframe concurrently without impacting performance or security. This article explains how mainframes work and discusses their importance, even in the age of cloud computing.

What Is a Mainframe?

• Mainframes may boost or modify system capacity on the go without interrupting system operations. Its precision and granularity offer expertise and sophistication uncommon amongst server solutions.
• Modern mainframes, such as the IBM zSeries, provide two virtualization levels: logical partitions and virtual machines. Many mainframe users maintain two machines: one at their primary data center and the other in their backup data center, which may be fully active, partly active, or in standby mode in the event of a disaster affecting the primary data center.
• Testing, developing, training and production workloads for applications and databases may work on a single system unless the demand is exceedingly high and the machine’s capacity is exhausted. This configuration of two mainframes may enable continuous business service, preventing both planned and unscheduled interruptions.
• Mainframes are intended to manage very large input and output (I/O) volumes and prioritize throughput. Ever since the 1950s, mainframe architectures have included auxiliary hardware to control I/O devices, freeing the CPU to focus solely on high-speed memory.
• It is typical for mainframes to administer enormous databases and files. Records of gigabyte to terabyte-size capacity are quite common. Mainframes often contain enormous volumes of online data repositories compared to a regular PC and can also be accessed rapidly.

Evolution of mainframe computers

From the 1950s to the early twenty-first century, many manufacturers and their successors built mainframe computers, with the number steadily decreasing as the cloud matured. The 700/7000 series and subsequent production of the 360 series mainframes led to IBM’s unquestionable ascendancy. Their present zSeries mainframe computers have continued to advance from the later design.

Germany’s Siemens and Telefunken, U.K.’s ICL, and Japan’s Fujitsu and Hitachi were notable foreign manufacturers. During the Cold War, the Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact nations produced indistinguishable clones of IBM mainframes.

In the 1980s, minicomputer-led systems became increasingly advanced and were able to replace the lower portions of the mainframes. And over the next few decades, businesses discovered that servers built on microcomputer designs could be implemented for a fraction of the purchase cost and offer local users far more autonomy over their own systems, given the then-current IT policies and practices. 

Personal computers progressively replaced the terminals used for communicating with mainframe systems. As a result, demand decreased, and future mainframe installations were mainly limited to the financial sector and the government.

IBM unveiled their most recent mainframe system, the IBM z16, in April 2022, which had an on-chip artificial intelligence (AI) accelerator and a new CPU, giving mainframes a fresh lease on life.

What do mainframes do?

Mainframes carry out three essential tasks. Let’s understand each one in detail. 

• Act as a data warehouse orchestration system: Every computer has a hard drive for long-term data storage, but mainframe systems store the entire data as an application inside themselves. When remote users with linked terminals attempt to log in, the mainframe grants all remote terminals access to their files and applications.
• Help enforce authentication and access permissions: Storing data and software files on a single mainframe system may increase efficiency, but it may also jeopardize data security. In mainframe systems, administrators have control over programs and data. They can also determine the individuals who have access. Therefore, mainframes may serve as firewalls against intruder attacks.
• Allocate processor time and resources: Mainframe systems can divide a finite amount of processing power among all concurrently logged-in users. Consequently, the mainframe determines which types of priority correlate to which types of users. The mainframe administrator has the authority to determine these priorities and allot processor resources.

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Features of a Mainframe Computer

Multiple operating systems may be hosted on a particular mainframe. For instance, it is typical to utilize z/OS alongside Linux on a single mainframe. z/VM, z/VSE, Linux for System z, and z/TPF are the four dominant operating systems for mainframes, along with z/OS.

7. Throughput-driven fault-tolerant computing

A substantial quantity of output and input data is sent to the system. This means that mainframes must be able to manage all of this data, applications, and processes with ease. The quantity of data transported to or from a system does not affect mainframes. In addition, the mainframe ensures no errors occur while moving massive volumes of data inside its database. This feature is known as fault-tolerant computing.

8. Clustering technology

Mainframe systems support clustering technologies with close coupling (called Parallel Sysplex in an IBM environment). This capability enables the operation of up to 32 machines as a unified system configuration. Even if a system crashes, work will be completed seamlessly on the subsequent live system with no performance loss.

9. Centralization of computing processes

The mainframe system centralizes the administration of computing tasks. This implies that all activities occur in the mainframe’s processing section, and the results are shown on a client’s desktop monitor. The user may interact with an application or utility operating on the desktop while the mainframe operates in the background.

10. A move towards flexibility

Today, however, the difference between centralized and distributed computing is rapidly diminishing. Consequently, mainframes are routinely combined with clusters of simpler servers in a range of topologies. Modern mainframe hardware and software assets (like processors, storage, and device interfaces) may be reconfigured dynamically while programs continue to operate. This highlights the adaptable and evolving nature of modern mainframes.

11. Performance advantages over servers

The properties of mainframes must be comprehended in relation to servers and their intrinsic differences. Although the words are often used interchangeably, mainframes and servers are unique in the following ways:

• Size: Physically, a standard commodity server is smaller in size than any mainframe. This is not due to the scale of mainframe computers. These days, mainframe computers are roughly the equivalent of a refrigerator. However, a server tray of the same size might accommodate around 12 low-cost servers. Mainframes will most certainly be bulkier than conventional servers due to the computing hardware resources it contains.
• Throughput: If a standard server can process 300 transactions per second, this translates to around 26 million transactions each day. This is a substantial figure, but it pales compared to the trillions a mainframe can manage. IBM claims that Z13 mainframes can process 2.5 billion daily transactions.
• Versatility: It is not possible to migrate mainframe workloads to commodity servers. However, you may shift tasks to a mainframe that would ordinarily be executed on a commodity server. What this means is that mainframes offer the best of both worlds. Users can access mission-critical applications that cannot operate elsewhere and manage server workloads on commodity hardware.

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Top 6 Benefits of Mainframes

Mainframes support industry standards, compliance regulations, and best practices with the help of data encryption, role segregation, privileged user monitoring, secure communication systems, audit reporting, and other mechanisms. It provides enterprise-wide visibility and a high degree of security transparency, enabling improved control. In addition, private clouds built on mainframes may reduce the inherent security risks of public cloud services with open networks.

3. Simplify the migration and consolidation of workloads

Transferring dispersed tasks to the mainframe setup is simple. This decreases the number of distributed systems that must be controlled. When your virtual environment has been optimized, it is simple to consolidate various tasks on the mainframe while maintaining the necessary separation between systems. This also minimizes the license expenses that dispersed systems would incur.

4. Reduce the total cost of ownership

The biggest benefit of mainframe computers is their unparalleled longevity. These computers have an average lifetime of over ten years. Until that point, mainframe computers are often problem-free. Once the average lifetime has been achieved, consumers can choose between replacing or upgrading the unit.

In addition, there is a threshold at which increasing server numbers becomes more expensive than operating the workload on a mainframe. Research on security managementOpens a new window determined that the total cost of ownership (TCO) over three years for a private cloud built on IBM zEnterprise systems was 76% lower than for a public cloud offered by a third-party service provider.