What the hell is a mainframe?

What the hell is a mainframe?

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Basically a server

>huge and loud
>power hungry and heat producing
>expensive
>expensive
>expensive again because there is no competitor
>so proprietary it makes windows look freetarded
>license dongles
>80s software
Anything else you wanna know?

I know but why call it a ((mainframe)) then? What's the difference?

I've heard that they have a shit load of processors.

basically this, but bigger. A rackmounted 1-4U server is nice. A mainframe is that, but with stuff like virtualization built in, redundancies out the ass, all sorts of shit. Hard to explain.

More or less useless information too unless you are unfortunate enough to have to deal with one.

imagine a motherboard and cpu and a case made just for a billion of them

What can a mainframe do that a server can't? Why use them?
Are they still only a thing because some institutions still rely on lots of old COBOL code or some shit?
If so, assuming they have a specific cpu architecture and weird I/O, why not just recompile it to like x86 and use them on normal severs?

The difference between a mainframe and server is what fire suppression system is used in the room. If it's dumping halon it's a mainframe.

>What can a mainframe do that a server can't? Why use them?
The architecture isn't anything like a normal PC or server. It has a bunch of redundant systems that can be hot swapped and the CPU and other support chips are specifically designed for certain workloads.

>Are they still only a thing because some institutions still rely on lots of old COBOL code or some shit?
Yes and no. Some customers genuinely need a mainframe while others are too afraid to retool.

>If so, assuming they have a specific cpu architecture and weird I/O,
Correct.

>why not just recompile it to like x86 and use them on normal severs?
Most of this legacy software is closed source and can't be ported, and some of it is too platform specific for a port at all. Emulation would be slow, hence the need for a mainframe. There's also the issue of support contracts. You pay out the ass to IBM so that they're at fault when something fucks up, then they send out one of their technicians to fix it.

>why not just recompile it to like x86 and use them on normal severs?
IBM mainframes are more powerful than x86 for the task and more resilient

The applications they have running cannot stop for even a second, and any weird bugs that could appear in the port would destroy the business.

A mainframe is entirely built for throughput. They're not necessarily doing "hard work" in the sense of doing complicated calculations, they're handling millions of easy tasks per second, like payment processing from retail stores where people pay with debit or credit card, or receiving raw data of surveys and statistics.

So a mainframe is just a type of enterprise server for large businesses that usually has specialized software and hardware for specialized purposes. It's just a gigachad of servers

To run OS/390 or z/OS

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A really, really expensive cabinet.
But not just any expensive cabinet, it's one the if you open the door, you magically get sued by infringing on intellectual property.

Aka a big iron.

Man I love the mainframe
>t. IBMer

Why would you even suggest something so retarded?

>Mainframe is the city inside a computer. The city is divided into six sectors. Baudway, Kits, Floating Point Park, Beverly Hills, Wall Street, and Giedi Prime, also known as G-Prime. Each of these sectors also contains several subsectors averaging the size of a Game Cube. In the center of the city is the Principal Office, the city's operating and command center.

thanks, I get it now.