IBM introduces new powerful mainframe computer

Hi Friends,

As u know mainframe god is IBM, who have invented mainframe computer, continuous there invention in the same field & now they have introduced new powerful mainframe computer. 
              IBM said its zEnterprise EC12 mainframe server is designed to help clients securely and quickly sift through massive amounts of data, meeting the demands of retail and other clients in the age of "Big Data." Running at 5.5 GHz, IBM said the microprocessor that powers the mainframe is the fastest chip in the world. Processing speed is 25 percent faster than the previous model.
Mainframes are used by corporate clients ranging from banks to chain stores. IBM says the new model could be used by retailers to manage online transactions and analyze clients' buying habits and then use the information to create a "more customized shopping experience," such as a custom coupon issued during a transaction.
          "Whether its retail or whether its transportation, making reservations, whatever it is, the system has been built really to help clients do those new types of new-age transactions," said Doug Brown, an IBM vice president of marketing.
         IBM says more than $1 billion was spent on research and development for the system at 18 sites worldwide, with most of it in Poughkeepsie, about 40 miles north of its headquarters in Armonk in Westchester County.
         The new mainframe is being promoted as one of the most secure systems ever with a tamper-resistant cryptographic co-processor to provide privacy for sensitive transactions.
           IBM has been focusing on its software and services divisions, which are more profitable than selling the mainframe computers that made the company famous decades ago. But the sales of those mainframes help feed demand for IBM services.

mainframe for today & tomorrow

Hi friends - -

In this post i will discuss some of the important facts about mainframe, because of that only it is most popular in today's world, & hope for feature also..

                         Today, mainframe computers play a central role in the daily operations of most of the world's largest corporations, including many Fortune 1000 companies. While other forms of computing are used extensively in business in various capacities, the mainframe occupies a coveted place in today's e-business environment. In banking, finance, health care, insurance, utilities, government, and a multitude of other public and private enterprises, the mainframe computer continues to form the foundation of modern business.

                      The long-term success of mainframe computers is without precedent in the information technology (IT) field. Periodic upheavals shake world economies and continuous— often wrenching— change in the Information Age has claimed many once-compelling innovations as victims in the relentless march of progress. As emerging technologies leap into the public eye, many are just as suddenly rendered obsolete by some even newer advancement. Yet today, as in every decade since the 1960s, mainframe computers and the mainframe style of computing dominate the landscape of large-scale business computing.

Why has this one form of computing taken hold so strongly among so many of the world's corporations? In this section, we look at the reasons why mainframe computers continue to be the popular choice for large-scale business computing. The mainframe owes much of its popularity and longevity to its inherent reliability and stability, a result of continuous technological advances since the introduction of the IBM® System/360™ in 1964. No other computer architecture in existence can claim as much continuous, evolutionary improvement, while maintaining compatibility with existing applications.

                        The term mainframe has gradually moved from a physical description of IBM's larger computers to the categorization of a style of computing. One defining characteristic of the mainframe has been a continuing compatibility that spans decades.

• The S/360: A turning point in mainframe history
  When did mainframe computers come into being? Mainframe development occurred in a series of generations starting in the 1950s. In those days, mainframe computers were not just the largest computers; they were the only computers and few businesses could afford them.
• Mainframe architecture: Secure, compatible, and still evolving
  An architecture is a set of defined terms and rules that are used as instructions to build products. Each generation of mainframe computers has included improvements in architecture, while remaining the most stable, secure, and compatible of all computing platforms.
• Mainframes in our midst: You use one every day
  Despite the predominance of mainframes in the business world, these machines are largely invisible to the general public, the academic community, and indeed many experienced IT professionals. Instead, other forms of computing attract more attention, at least in terms of visibility and public awareness. That this is so is perhaps not surprising. After all, who among us needs direct access to a mainframe? And, if we did, where would we find one to access? The truth, however, is that we are all mainframe users, whether we realize it or not.
• What is a mainframe? It's a style of computing
  Although the term mainframe first described the physical characteristics of early systems, today it can best be used to describe a style of operation, applications, and operating system facilities.
• Who uses mainframes and why do they do it?
  So, who uses mainframes? 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.
• Mainframe workloads: Batch and online transaction processing
  Most mainframe workloads fall into one of two categories: Batch processing or online transaction processing, which includes Web-based applications.
• Roles in the mainframe world
  Mainframe systems are designed to be used by large numbers of people. Most of those who interact with mainframes are end users— people who use the applications that are hosted on the system. However, because of the large number of end users, applications running on the system, and the sophistication and complexity of the system software that supports the users and applications, a variety of roles are needed to operate and support the system.
• What are mainframe operating systems?
  In simplest terms, an operating system is a collection of programs that manage a computer system's internal workings— its memory, processors, devices, and file system. Mainframe operating systems are sophisticated products with substantially different characteristics and purposes. 

I hope  i have covered most of the import thing about mainframe

Programming languages used in mainframe

Hello friends

    In this post i will discuss the various programming languages that are used for programing mainframe

                        A computer language is the way that a human communicates with a computer. It is needed because a computer works only with its machine language (bits and bytes). This is slow and cumbersome for humans to use. Therefore, we write programs in a computer language, which then gets converted into machine language for the computer to process.
             Mainframes started off with a single language but the number you can now find on big iron has exploded, and the division that used to exist between mainframe languages and those found on other platforms has almost vanished. So which languages are mainly used on a mainframe today, and why might you choose one over the other?

The various used languages are - -

• Assembler
• COBOL
• PL/I
• C/C++
• Java
• CLIST
• REXX™

                     The most fundamental language is assembler, and you can still find assembler programs written over 50 years ago running on modern mainframes. It allows the programmer to address the hardware directly and so is hardware-dependent. This makes it fast, but hard to use and to debug, although IBM's high-level assembler HLASM does remove some of the development pain as it allows you to code using features more commonly found in high-level languages.
 Fortran is the granddaddy. Mainly used for scientific applications, it was developed by IBM in the 1950s, has been in continual use and development ever since, and remains a primary language for intensive supercomputing tasks. It is relatively easy to write an entirely portable program in Fortran, although outside of the scientific community it can be hard to find people with significant levels of Fortran programming experience. The latest version is Fortran 2008.
            Released shortly after Fortran, COBOL is more oriented towards business programming; the name is a contraction of COmmon Business-Oriented Language. Its strength is in data processing and its readability. This makes it hard to hide malicious COBOL code, and errors easier to spot. COBOL runs on every mainframe platform as well many smaller systems, and research firm Gartner reported in 1997 that 80 percent of the world's business ran on COBOL, with over 200 billion lines of code in existence and that an estimated five billion lines of new code are being added annually. As a result, COBOL skills are widespread and still quite easily found. Updated in 2002 to include support for object-orientation, critics say the language is over-verbose, but supporters argue that this intentional design makes the code easy to both write and maintain. This is especially important as a great deal of extant COBOL code is now quite old, and the original developers are likely to have moved on. And the future seems assured, as COBOL vendors continue to add features, such as Microsoft .NET functionality which provides a means to integrate COBOL with Windows' .NET framework.
              After the emergence of Fortran and COBOL, IBM developed PL/I (Programming Language One) in the 1960s with the aim of uniting the architectures and programming paradigms of business and scientific computing. Widely used in business data processing, PL/I supported and supports a range of ground-breaking endeavours, including the US Apollo space programme and Sabre, the airline reservation system. With the growth of PC, however, most of PL/I's advantages were overtaken by existing mainframe languages and by the emerging small systems languages such as C. IBM's competitors and customers saw little advantage in supporting or using either, and critics claimed that it was slow and complex to master. Although still in use, the mainstream has long since passed it by.
         No discussion of mainframe programming languages would be complete without a mention of Java. Increasing numbers of applications are being developed in Java because of its portability. It runs inside a Java Virtual Machine, which provides its portability, and applications written in this object-oriented, open-source language can run compiled and so quickly. Skill sets are widespread. Although more of a CPU and memory hog than C++, to whose syntax it bears strong similarities, if you can program in C++, Java is easy. So popular has Java become on the mainframe that IBM's justification for the introduction of the System z Application Assist Processor (zAAP) was to run Java applications cheaper and more efficient.
C++ is also widespread and available on a multitude of platforms but unlike Java, exposes low-level facilities. This means of course that it is not as portable as applications are likely to be reliant on OS-specific API calls. With care though, source code can be written to be platform-independent. Perhaps the most compact distinction between C++ and Java is that C++ is powerful and designed for a wide range of programming tasks, while Java was designed to be simple and easy to learn with a powerful cross-platform library. Its flexibility means that programming can be procedural or object-oriented.
             This is not and cannot be an exhaustive list of all available programming languages but I have included most languages in use by most developers today. Think I’ve missed your favourite mainframe programming language? Leave me a comment and let me know.

Mainframe feature for students

Hello friends….

      Worried @ your career?  I can suggest one good option, not good according to me it’s a best, ….that is MAINFRAME .

                    After the event like 9/11, it is very important for all organizations so keep their data safe, specially its challenge in front of bank & trade centers.  Most of the organizations, not most I can say almost all,  are maintaining their data in mainframe.  If we are talking about all world data then “More than 70 percent of the world’s data still resides on mainframes. The market is growing in terms of revamping the older mainframes and adding new features and software to the oldies. Also, the new mainframes are smaller, cheaper, more powerful and e-business ready, so the market is growing steadily.”

            Now for maintaining this data, it is very important to find mainframe skilled workers in feature.  As I mentioned in one of my last post that about 70 to 80% mainframe workers are going to retire in next 5 years. So its again very big challenge for IT firms like IBM, HP etc to find the new skilled individuals. By keeping this thing in mind, IBM has  already taken few steps for this.

     IBM is now working with over 250 universities around the world to provide mainframe courses. The help comes in:

• The creation of course material covering all the basics including ISPF, JCL, VSAM and Assembler, that all go back to the original 360 days, as well as the slightly newer z/VM, CICS and DB2 and finally the newer boy on the block, Linux.
• The provision of mainframe resources either on the campus or as a shared worldwide resource so that student can try it for real and begin to understand the power and complexity of the environment.
• Internships of six months or a year in IBM as part of a university course.

                          In India also, IBM have Mainframe labs in some of the top engineering institutes & universities. The only thing is that, it will be little costly, because mainframe ID cost very huge per hour.

        

         So frnds….start thinking about your career, take the right steps from today………good luck.

Why people don't like to buy Mainframe

Hello friends,

After lot of observations & reading I understood why people don't like to buy Mainframe, The Three Stupidest Reasons Why Not to Buy a Mainframe are

1. Mainframes cost too much.

2. We don’t have the skills needed to operate a mainframe environment.

3. Mainframes are old technology.
   After learning how some of these people are actually running their IT environments, I’ve come to believe that these are three truly stupid reasons not to adopt mainframe technologies.

1. Mainframes Cost Too Much?

Even though a mainframe can now be purchased for about $100,000 (the cost of some rack systems), IT buyers still believe that mainframe hardware is too expensive.

Really it is very costly, But we need to look at the advantages provided by mainframes over other IT infrastructure that is being normally used. Think about following advantages of mainframe

a. Management:

           Defiantly for operating the mainframe system we need skilled workers, but need less number of administrators because thousands of people work on the same server, Lets have look on following Example

A company serve 162 different customers-and over 3 million users-with six mainframe administrators." If you’re running a distributed computing environment, imagine how many IT systems, storage managers and administrators you’ll need to serve 3 million users! That number may well exceed 100 people. Now figure the cost for employee salary and benefits for all of those people, and suddenly mainframe pricing looks comparatively inexpensive.

b. Security:

             As I explained in the last post that the mainframe server is not hacked yet. It is highly impossible to hack the mainframe because the tight security provided by RACF, a security client.

c.  Consolidation/virtualization, reduced power consumption and real estate savings:

       By using the mainframes server it is highly possible to save manpower, power consumption & floor space. This is because virtualization is made possible by using mainframe. If we use mainframes then we may achieve 50 percent reduction in monthly Web hosting costs; an 80 percent reduction in data center floor space needs; significant power consumption savings; and huge savings in middle ware costs. Further, this executive saw a 50 percent reduction in hardware and OS support effort. 

2. Skill Issue with mainframes: 

                  The people using UNIX/Linux and Windows IT shops honestly believe that they don’t have the internal skills to operate a mainframe environment, and that is acceptable

          From last few years IBM has already taken an initiative for mainframes education. That is I am talking about IBM’s mainframe education initiative at this time was called the “zSeries Scholars Program” But, over the past two years, IBM has greatly expanded this program as part of its “Academic Initiative Program”, a program that now serves over 200 schools and universities around the world. And the company has set a goal, as part of its mainframe charter, to help the industry add 20,000 new mainframe skilled individuals by 2011.

3. Mainframes Are "Old Technology"

                   Though mainframes is the older technology, but it is not possible for any computer & server to provide service like Mainframes, So though it is old, that is like Gold. Anyway we can interface mainframes to the latest web technologies & able to program mainframes using very modern languages like JAVA, J2EE instead of using COBOL. But the is easiest language & all banks who have mainframes use it. Now it is highly impossible to replace those codes with newer one, Because those programs contain lakhs of lines of code.

Summary Observations

                   IT buyers who look at mainframe TCO should find that mainframes are less expensive to operate than distributed systems environments, in part because of reduced staffing needs. Taken with the fact that mainframes are clearly not old technology, these three arguments hold no ground against exploring the possibility of mainframe implementation.

Which Operating system is not Hacked Yet? ......That is mainframe

Hello friends,

The only operating System & server which is not hacked yet, & not possible  in feature also is MAINFRAME. That is why almost all the banks, Insurance companies, & those who are dealing with money, use to prefer mainframe only. That is the most secured server in the world. 

        As it is most secured. on the other hand it is very very much costly. In the survey it is found that banks spend nearly 70% of their expenditure on IT infrastructure.

                 Windows is an operating system started off as being meant for one user only, and they could run only one program at a time, and it was written to manage real devices in the PC, that is, it was limited to what the PC had.

                       When it was realised that this approach meant that programs which required more hardware capacity (like memory) could not be written, special routines that virtualised hardware had to be written. However, the underlying operating system files etc were all open to anyone who wanted to install software, that is, any programmer could overwrite system software causing malicious or unintended damage.The operating system grew organically and tries to mimic multi- user environment, virtualisation and allowing multiple programs at the same time etc, but this has been developed as additions and not designed from ground up. Hence the stability issues and issues of hacking because the entire system software etc was open for anybody to overwrite with their own code.

                                Mainframe OZ (zOS) on the other hand was written ground up to be virtual,multi user system, multi program system. The hardware was always virtualised and programmers do not deal with physical limitations of the system.

 Next, Operating system files and production code always was protected by the creation of a strict discipline and the creation of special libraries from which they could be run. This is controlled by system programmers.

          Application programs never replace operating system files unlike in Windows or UNIX (to a lesser extent).

         This created this environment never to be hacked to date.

                   If you want proof of this claim, consider what you can find by searching news archives and trade journals, looking for references to mainframes and data loss, hacking, security breaches, and similar topics. Recent research included checking the archives of ComputerWorld, InformationWeek, and The Wall Street Journal for reports of unauthorized access of any traditional mainframe environment via userid/ password exploitation, corruption of a mainframe-based networking resource, or contamination of a mainframe sys- tem software component.

 

True Facts about Mainframe

Hello Dear Friends, 
     I am herewith some of the true & important facts @ Mainframe, Its Very Interesting & much more demanding. So some of the facts are as  
 
Mainframe facts.....!!!!!

1. All 25 of the world’s top banks still use mainframes, while 71 per cent of global Fortune 500 companies are mainframe clients as well. Additionally, nine out of the top 10 global health insurance providers process all of their high-volume transactions on a mainframe. This shows that, despite incursions being made by software as a service (SaaS) providers, an overwhelming majority of the world’s big business still value the reliability and security of mainframes, particularly for mission-critical functions.

2. Around 63 per cent of mainframe sites in the Asia-Pacific region believe the lack of skills in the current generation of mainframers is a major concern. In Europe, 66 per cent of mainframe sites believe mainframes are already suffering from a serious skills shortage.

3. About 72% of mainframe sites have mainframe staff eligible for retirement. (CA 2011)

4. The mainframes hold approximately " 70 % " of the entire data stored in this planet
5. The latest ones can support over 25,000 users
6. They can support devices spread over 26 miles using fibre optics
7. The size of the "basic" OS is about 14 GB
8. This OS comes in about 57 magnetic tapes, But latest with 4 tapes
9. It takes ATLEAST a month to install and customize a basic mainframe OS configuration
10. It takes around 3 full days for a mainframe to get up and running
11. Basic configuration for development environment costs 8 crores (hardware + Software)
12. A full team of qualified system operators are always required to be on stand by to ensure successful operation
13. Earlier mainframes were provided with cooling pipes through which cold water was passed to cool the system - TCS have one in Chennai facility
14. Recent mainframes have variable speed fans in the cabinet to keep it cool
15. Have u ever heard of a mainframe system being hacked??? Mainframes are one of the most secure data installations ever
16. You cannot buy the mainframe OS, but u'll have to pay a license to use it. The cost?? cool ......1.5 crores a year.
17. Finally, mainframes today r the most preferred data servers for even the most hi-fi of the organizations!
18. So far no virus has attacked Mainframes
      
    So this is how mainframe is...!!!!