Mainframes Strengths vs. Client/sever
strengths
By:
Priscilla Rojas
Mitchell Evans
Peter Caccamo
Mainframes
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Mainframes were one of the first computers used by businesses; they are
capable of processing millions of instructions per second and have access to
trillions of characters of data.
Mainframes are used by large and medium-sized companies such as banks,
insurance companies, and manufacturers, to process large amounts of data
quickly.
Mainframes cost more than $1 million and debuted over 50 years ago. The
majority of mainframes made today are from IBM corp. and continues to be
hugely reliant on them.
Mainframes used to be defined by their size, and they can still fill a room, cost
millions, and support thousands of users. But now a mainframe can also run
on a laptop and support two users. So today's mainframes are best defined by
their operating systems: Unix and Linux, and IBM's z/OS, OS/390, MVS, VM,
and VSE.
Mainframes combine three important features:
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1) Reliable performance, which is essential for reasonable operations against a
database.
2) Maximum I/O connectivity, which means mainframes excel at providing for
huge disk farms.
3) Maximum I/O bandwidth, so connections between drives and processors
have few choke-points.
Mainframes
SpeedServe
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Online bookseller to Amazon.com; expects to
process >1 million transactions per day
Based in La Vergne, Tennessee
Maxed out Windows NT server with 500,000 book
titles; 85,000 videos; and 15,000 games
Chose to invest in IBM S/390 mainframe
SpeedServe has lowered labor and support costs,
eliminated hardware and networking issues, and is
currently only employing 3 of the mainframes 10
computers
Merrill Lynch & Co.
Runs crucial stock market data website on
their 10- engine Amdahl Corp. mainframe
 Employs IBM VM Operating System
 In 1998 was averaging 18 million hits per
year
 Use of a mainframe allows Merrill Lynch to
link constantly updated stock info all of the
companies internal users, clients, and
external web users
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Client/server
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Client-server computing is very popular in companies where many users work
together. It is a very powerful tool in connecting supporting multiple users.
Client/servers take up a lot less room, cost is cheaper, and is more economical.
Client/server describes the relationship between two computer programs in
which one program, the client, makes a service request from another program,
the server, which fulfills the request.
The client/server model has become one of the central ideas of network
computing. Most business applications being written today use the
client/server model.
Typically, multiple client programs share the services of a common server
program. Both client programs and server programs are often part of a larger
program or application.
CLIENT / SERVER
5.32
Bass Beer
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Located Staffordshire, England, they are a multinational corporation, which includes sub-division
such as Bass Brewers, Bass Taverns, Bass Soft
Drinks, Bass Leisure and Holiday Inn Worldwide
In 1988, they decided that the current computer
situation was not working out and made the
decision to switch from mainframes to client
server.
Before the switch they operated on many
mainframe based dumb terminals, and many of
their systems could not communicate with each
other and consequently arise situations within the
company
Solutions
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Bass management created central information
technology committee.
The goals of this committed were:
Taking advantage of bulk purchasing of information
technology
Setting corporate wide hardware and software standards
Creating long-term business partnerships with IT
suppliers
Establishing a system that connected company in a
seamless way
Basically, they wanted to universalize the system
Results
Limited business with IBM, Unisys for
hardware; Novell for networking and
Microsoft corp. for desktop software.
 They now employ more than 200 IBM
AS/400 minicomputers and 4500 PC all
linked by client server environment
 They were able to cut their IT staff from
1300 to 850; over half which were new to
the company.
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Mainframes vs. Client/servers
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Mainframes are replacing client-servers. They provide more
horsepower for high volume transactions, and have more
storage space than a server would have.
Although mainframes are more expenses they are said to
be more reliable.
A disadvantage of a mainframe is that everything is held
on the Mainframe - if the network is out or too many users
logged on, there is nothing you can do.
In Client/Server (normally) all the computing happens at
the users end i.e. on their own PC ('Client').
The 'Server' is used mainly for file & data storage and
other 'common' resources (such as Printer & www access).
So the Server has to check that the users have access
rights & permissions to the data (e.g. emails) and
resources.
Mainframes vs. Client/servers
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An advantage of a server is that
you can work 'off-line' and only
need to 'log-on' when you need
access to common resources.
Also you can have many users
logged on at once, unlike
companies that runs on a
mainframe.
References
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Case study articles:
SpeedServe and Merrill Lynch: Mainframes as electronic commerce web
servers
IBM still bangs profit out of mainframe business
Bass beer servers as Client/Server environment
Yahoo Images
Yahoo Search engine
Mainframes.com (trademark and copyrights owned by IBM)
Online textbook (topic 4)