IBM mainframe

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IBM mainframes are large computer systems produced by IBM from 1952 to the present. During the 1960s and 1970s, the term mainframe computer was almost synonymous with IBM products due to their marketshare. Current mainframes in IBM's line of business computers are developments of the basic design of the IBM System/360.

IBM mainframe 700/7000 series

Architecture varied System/360 System/370

System/370 System/390 zSeries

S/370-XA ESA/370 ESA/390 (ARCHLVL 1) z/Architecture 1 (ARCHLVL 2) z/Architecture 2 (ARCHLVL 3)

Contents
1 First and second generation 2 Smaller machines 3 IBM System/360 4 Today's systems 4.1 Processor units 4.2 Operating systems 4.3 Middleware 4.4 Emulators 5 See also 6 References 7 Further reading 8 External links

System z9 System z10 zEnterprise 196

First and second generation

SAS 8 on an IBM mainframe, seen here via one of its user interfaces, classic 3270 emulation.

From 1952 into the late 1960s, IBM manufactured and marketed several large computer models, known as the IBM 700/7000 series. The first-generation 700s were based on vacuum tubes, while the later, second-generation 7000s used transistors. These machines established IBM's dominance in electronic data processing. IBM had two model categories: one (701, 704, 709, 7090, 7040) for engineering and scientific use, and one (702, 705, 7080, 7070, 7010) for commercial or data processing use. The two categories, scientific and commercial, generally used common peripherals but had completely different instruction sets, and there were incompatibilities even within each category. IBM initially sold its computers without any software, expecting customers to write their own; programs were manually initiated, one at a time. Later, IBM provided compilers for the newly developed higher-level programming languages Fortran and COBOL. The first operating systems for IBM computers were written by IBM customers who did not wish to have their very expensive machines ($2M USD in the mid-1950s) sitting idle while operators set up jobs manually. These first operating systems were essentially scheduled work queues. It is generally thought that the first operating system used for real work was GM-NAA I/O, produced by General Motors' Research division in 1956.[1] IBM enhanced one of GM-NAA I/O's successors and provided it to customers under the name IBSYS.[2][3] As software became more complex and important, the cost of supporting it on so many different

designs became burdensome, and this was one of the factors which led IBM to develop System/360 and its operating systems.[4] The second generation (transistor-based) products were a mainstay of IBM's business and IBM continued to make them for several years after the introduction of the System/360. (Some IBM 7094s remained in service into the 1980s.)

Smaller machines
Prior to System/360, IBM also sold computers smaller in scale that were not considered mainframes, though they were still bulky and expensive by modern standards. These included: IBM 650 (vacuum tube logic, decimal architecture, business and scientific) IBM RAMAC 305 (vacuum tube logic, first computer with disk storage; see: Early IBM disk storage) IBM 1400 series (business data processing; very successful and many 1400 peripherals were used with the 360s) IBM 1620 (decimal architecture, engineering, scientific, and education) IBM had difficulty getting customers to upgrade from the smaller machines to the mainframes because so much software had to be rewritten. The 7010 was introduced in 1962 as a mainframe-sized 1410. The later Systems 360 and 370 could emulate the 1400 machines. A desk size machine with a different instruction set, the IBM 1130, was released concurrent with the System/360 to address the 1620's niche. It used the same EBCDIC character encoding as the 360 and was mostly programmed in Fortran, which was relatively easy to adapt to larger machines when necessary. Midrange computer is a designation used by IBM for a class of computer systems which fall in between mainframes and microcomputers.

IBM System/360
Main article: IBM System/360 All that changed with the announcement of the System/360 (S/360) in April, 1964.[5] The System/360 was a single series of compatible models for both commercial and scientific use. The number "360" suggested a "360 degree," or "all-around" computer system. System/360 incorporated features which had previously been present on only either the commercial line (such as decimal arithmetic and byte addressing) or the technical line (such as floating point arithmetic). Some of the arithmetic units and addressing features were optional on some models of the System/360. However, models were upward compatible and most were also downward compatible. The System/360 was also the first computer in wide use to include dedicated hardware provisions for the use of operating systems. Among these were supervisor and application mode programs and instructions, as well as built-in memory protection facilities. Hardware memory protection was provided to protect the operating system from the user programs (tasks) and the user tasks from each other. The new machine also had a larger address space than the older mainframes, 24 bits vs. a typical 18 bits. The smaller models in the System/360 line (e.g. the 360/30) were intended to replace the 1400 series while providing an easier upgrade path to the larger 360s. To smooth the transition from second generation to the new line, IBM used the 360's microprogramming capability to emulate the more popular older models. Thus 360/30s

with this added cost feature could run 1401 programs and the larger 360/65s could run 7094 programs. To run old programs, the 360 had to be halted and restarted in emulation mode. Many customers kept using their old software and one of the features of the later System/370 was the ability to switch to emulation mode and back under operating system control. Operating systems for the System/360 family included OS/360 (with PCP, MFT, and MVT), BOS/360, TOS/360, and DOS/360. The System/360 later evolved into the System/370, the System/390, and the 64-bit zSeries and System z machines. System/370 introduced virtual memory capabilities in all models other than the very first System/370 models; the OS/VS1 variant of OS/360 MFT, the OS/VS2 (SVS) variant of OS/360 MVT, and the DOS/VS variant of DOS/360 were introduced to use the virtual memory capabilities, followed by MVS, which, unlike the earlier virtual-memory operating systems, ran separate programs in separate address spaces, rather than running all programs in a single virtual address space. The virtual memory capabilities also allowed the system to support virtual machines; the VM/370 hypervisor would run one or more virtual machines running either standard System/360 or System/370 operating systems or the single-user Conversational Monitor System (CMS). A timesharing VM system could run multiple virtual machines, one per user, with each virtual machine running an instance of CMS. The original OS/360 and early MVS and VM/CMS versions did not include a copyright literal in the object code and therefore are not protected by U.S. Copyright Laws and are available for free use.

Today's systems
Main article: IBM System z

Processor units
The different processors on a current IBM mainframes are: CP, Central Processor: general-purpose processor IFL, Integrated Facility for Linux: dedicated to Linux OSes (optionally under z/VM) ICF, Integrated Coupling Facility: designed to support Parallel Sysplex operations SAP, System Assist Processor: designed to handle various system accounting, management, and I/O channel operations zAAP, System z Application Assist Processor: currently limited to run only Java and XML processing zIIP, System z Integrated Information Processor: dedicated to run specific workloads including DB2, XML, and IPSec There are other supporting processors typically installed inside mainframes such as cryptographic accelerators (CryptoExpress), the OSA-Express networking processor, and FICON Express disk I/O processors.

Operating systems
The primary operating systems in use on current IBM mainframes include z/OS (which followed MVS and OS/390), z/VM (previously VM/CMS), z/VSE (which is in the DOS/360 lineage), z/TPF, and Linux on System z such as SUSE Linux Enterprise Server and others. A few systems run MUSIC/SP and UTS (Mainframe UNIX). In October, 2008, Sine Nomine Associates introduced OpenSolaris on System z.

In October, 2008, Sine Nomine Associates introduced OpenSolaris on System z.

Middleware
Current IBM mainframes run all the major enterprise transaction processing environments and databases, including CICS, IMS, WebSphere Application Server, DB2, and Oracle. In many cases these software subsystems can run on more than one mainframe operating system.

Emulators
There are software-based emulators for the System/370, System/390, and System z hardware, including FLEX-ES and the freely available Hercules emulator which runs under Linux, FreeBSD, Solaris, Mac OS X and Microsoft Windows.

See also
List of IBM products Amdahl Corporation IBM midrange computer

References
1. ^ A Brief History of Linux (http://www.bozemanlug.org/talks/linux_history.html) 2. ^ IBM 7090/94 IBSYS Operating System (http://www.frobenius.com/ibsys.htm) 3. ^ Gray, G. (1999). "EXEC II" (http://www.cc.gatech.edu/~randy/folklore/v1n3.html) . Unisys History Newsletter 1 (3). http://www.cc.gatech.edu/~randy/folklore/v1n3.html. 4. ^ Chuck Boyer, The 360 Revolution (http://www-306.ibm.com/software/os/zseries/pdf/360Revolution_0406.pdf) 5. ^ IBM Archives: System/360 Announcement (http://www03.ibm.com/ibm/history/exhibits/mainframe/mainframe_PR360.html)

Further reading
Bashe, Charles J.; et al. (1986). IBM's Early Computers. MIT. ISBN 0-262-02225-7. Prasad, Nallur and Savit, Jeffrey (1994). IBM Mainframes: Architecture and Design, 2nd ed. McGraw-Hill Osborne Media. ISBN 0-07-050691-4. Pugh, Emerson W.; et al. (1991). IBM's 360 and Early 370 Systems. MIT. ISBN 0-262-16123-0.

External links
Official IBM mainframe page (zSeries/z9) (http://ibm.com/zseries) The Raised Floor - IBM Mainframe Computer Ops in the 1980s (http://www.youtube.com/watch? v=Cwj6pfhWBps) video IBM Mainframe album (http://www-03.ibm.com/ibm/history/exhibits/mainframe/mainframe_album.html) Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_mainframe" Categories: IBM mainframe computers This page was last modified on 28 May 2011 at 19:21.

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