Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
A mainframe computer, informally called a mainframe or big iron, [1] 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.
One generation's "supercomputer" is the next generation's "mainframe", and a "PDA" does not have the same set of functions as a "laptop", but the list still has value, as it provides a ranked categorization of devices. It also ranks some more obscure computer sizes.
A coupling facility is a mainframe processor (runs in an own LPAR, with dedicated physical CP, defined through Hardware Management Console (HMC)), with memory and special channels (CF Links), and a specialized operating system called Coupling Facility Control Code (CFCC). It has no I/O devices, other than the CF links.
However, models were upward compatible and most were also downward compatible. The System/360 was also the first computer in wide use to include dedicated hardware provisions for the use of operating systems. Among these were supervisor and application mode programs and instructions, as well as built-in memory protection facilities.
A Sysplex Timer is a physically separate piece of hardware from the mainframe, [12] whereas STP is an integral facility within the mainframe's microcode. [13] With STP and ICFs it is possible to construct a complete Parallel Sysplex installation with two connected mainframes.
The typical ordering process of modern IBM Z mainframe looks like a buying of service [50] or looks like a leasing; [51] the mainframe is a program/hardware complex with rent for a system workload, and (in the most cases) additional system capabilities can be unlocked after additional payment.
The history of IBM mainframe operating systems is significant within the history of mainframe operating systems, because of IBM's long-standing position as the world's largest hardware supplier of mainframe computers. IBM mainframes run operating systems supplied by IBM and by third parties.
VME (Virtual Machine Environment) is a mainframe operating system developed by the UK company International Computers Limited (ICL, now part of the Fujitsu group). Originally developed in the 1970s (as VME/B, later VME 2900) to drive ICL's then new 2900 Series mainframes, the operating system is now known as OpenVME incorporating a Unix subsystem, and runs on ICL Series 39 and Trimetra [1 ...