Mainframe Computer

mainframe
A very large and expensive computer capable of supporting hundreds, or even thousands, of users simultaneously. In the hierarchy that starts with a simple microprocessor (in watches, for example) at the bottom and moves to supercomputers at the top, mainframes are just below supercomputers. In some ways, mainframes are more powerful than supercomputers because they support more simultaneous programs. But supercomputers can execute a single program faster than a mainframe. The distinction between small mainframes and minicomputers is vague, depending really on how the manufacturer wants to market its machines

The long wait is over. On July 22, IBM announced the next generation of mainframe processors. IBM officially calls the new processor the zEnterprise 196, or z196, machine type 2817. The new machine boasts the usual increases in size and performance as well as something new.

ZEnterprise processor details
A zEnterprise 196 cabinet can hold four books, each book containing six quad-core processors and up to 786 GB of memory with four levels of cache. The biggest and baddest zEnterprise sports 96 cores, of which 80 are available to the customer.

As with all the previous generations, the z Enterprise 196 is faster. IBM says the microprocessors run at 5.2 GHz as opposed to the z10's 4.4 GHz. This translates to a 40% capacity boost over a z10 with the same number of engines, while a fully loaded z196 contains 60% more capacity than a fully tricked-out z10. Your mileage, of course, will vary.

It sounds like some of the internal pipelining was also changed, as the data sheet claims there are new instruction execution sequences for better performance. For the application folks, IBM has compilers with optimization options for the new hardware, some of them presumably taking advantage o