What is a mainframe?

[stilly]

LMAO! I was reading a little about what they were tonight and I am kind of impressed with how they are built and how they work.

I also applied for a job working with them so I thought I should know it a bit. Sounds like a two-stroke dirt bike of a computer. Built to be fast and efficient, but not gamer fast, just able to accurately process a large amount of data and I guess that is more towards SQL and databases. My only question is this, if the IBM Z servers are meant to be Zero downtime, and have a calculated 40+ year runtime before they fail, DAMN, what kind of hard drives are you running in there then? That is impressive. Imagine having a computer that ran for 40 years before it died on you... IBM looks all different now.



But the video is still funny.

[the86d]

3.75MB 1965 IBM HDD @2200+LBS:

[Redneck Geek]

The part where she dumbs down the job description so the MBA 'genius' can grasp the concept is 100% accurate.

[SonofWWIIDI]

[ocabj]

Not to be mean, but if you applied for a job as an IBM Mainframe administrator, you're not going to get it. Mainframe environments require a specific skillset and this is one area of IT where I would definitely expect certifications and experience to come into play. Odds are that anyone running in IBM Mainframe has COBOL code running on it, so you better know COBOL, and know it well.

If you apply for a job as an IBM mainframe admin, it better be at a financial institution. Anywhere else is a risk because odds are, those institutions are ditching their mainframe. I don't want to reveal details about our mainframe infrastructure, but my campus has essentially retired our IBM Mainframe and is replacing it with more modern infrastructure. It's too expensive to maintain in terms of hardware and personnel support. Finding qualified mainframe administrators is expensive for academic institutions.

That said, there's good money to be made as an IBM Mainframe admin since most financial institutions still use them can can afford to pay for the personnel.

[stilly]

Not to be mean, but if you applied for a job as an IBM Mainframe administrator, you're not going to get it. Mainframe environments require a specific skillset and this is one area of IT where I would definitely expect certifications and experience to come into play. Odds are that anyone running in IBM Mainframe has COBOL code running on it, so you better know COBOL, and know it well.

If you apply for a job as an IBM mainframe admin, it better be at a financial institution. Anywhere else is a risk because odds are, those institutions are ditching their mainframe. I don't want to reveal details about our mainframe infrastructure, but my campus has essentially retired our IBM Mainframe and is replacing it with more modern infrastructure. It's too expensive to maintain in terms of hardware and personnel support. Finding qualified mainframe administrators is expensive for academic institutions.

That said, there's good money to be made as an IBM Mainframe admin since most financial institutions still use them can can afford to pay for the personnel.

Then it is settled, I shall pick COBOL to learn next...

I did not know much about them until I started reading about what they were but how can you say they are not modern? Or do you just mean they are ditching them to maybe move to smaller servers like the Blade centers and all?

I admit that I am a noob in hardware still. I know a LOT of SOHO stuff and I know that I do not want a Mainframe in my house (because they are not super computers, just more like cargo vessels) but I thought that they were mostly virtualized so I would expect that they will have an IP address that you can assign to them and you can access them just like any of the other servers on the network. No?

From what I read last night everyone LOVES mainframes... (yes, that is a general statement, although not sarcasm.) Well, that was the idea I got from reading here anyways: Oh damn, nevermind, I closed the window already.

[Cowboy T]

Mainframes have also been repurposed for today's market. Remember, this is where virtualization got started, decades before companies like VMware started applying it to the x86 world. Due to their architecture, you won't find a better "VM" host than a mainframe. They are known to easily be able to run *thousands* of Linux VM's without even breaking a sweat. Of course they can; they were built for this sort of thing from the get-go. They're also about the most reliable computers ever built.

So, it's not just financial institutions. I'd be very surprised if Amazon or some similar company didn't have some mainframes running their army of Linux VM's. If I were a Web-hosting company running a bunch of Linux servers, I might well consider it just for the space-savings.

[Marauder2003]

In my operating days I can honestly say I never had to restart the S/360 I was running because it 'locked' up. Can't say that about any version of Windows.

In the late 80s IBM mainframes got to a point where they would contact support themselves if a problem was identified. More than once a Customer Engineer would show up when no human had called or even knew there was a problem.

For pics of a machine room check the F.W. Means button at www.myimagecollection.com

For other stuff check www.ibmjunkman.com

[Brutmor]

Mainframes are when you need 99.9999% uptime for financial institutions. They're also needed when you need a unfathomable memory pool for certain algorithms. The national laboratories use them for simulations.

http://www.cray.com

[alllonon]

So, it's not just financial institutions. I'd be very surprised if Amazon or some similar company didn't have some mainframes running their army of Linux VM's. If I were a Web-hosting company running a bunch of Linux servers, I might well consider it just for the space-savings.

Nope. You would be surprised how some of the companies handle computing. Although I personally haven't amazon's elastic cloud design, a mainframe is too constrained. Heck, I know a lot of companies that don't even run blade servers as that is not cost effective in their current life cycle deployment. (Compute upgrades every 12-18 months)

[BonnieB]

If you don't know precisely what a mainframe is, and the difference between one and any other configuration that involves servers, you won't get a job in mainframe programming or administration of any kind.

Younger people who grew up on networked PC's and networked servers usually don't get it, they think that mainframes are kinda super-servers. But they're not. Mainframes can be totally stand alone, with just data storage and a console, and not any users at all. And then you run a 20,000 person payroll overnight with no glitches.

If you don't recognize the term "Cray", you're job shopping in the wrong field.