Economics: A Brief Note On Mainframe Computer System

3. Mainframe computer system

It is a large, fast, and one of the powerful computer systems. For example, mainframe can process thousands of million instructions per second (MIPS) easily. Mainframes can also have large primary storage capacities and store enormous data. Mainframe computer system’s main memory capacity can range from hundreds of gigabytes to many terabytes of primary storage. Mainframes have slimmed down drastically in the last few years, dramatically reducing their air-conditioning cooling needs, electrical power (KWhr) consumption, and floor space requirements and thus their acquisition and operating costs. Most of these improvements are the result of a move from cumbersome and problematic water-cooled mainframes to a newer air-cooled technology for mainframe systems.

Thus, in this way mainframe system continues to handle the information processing needs of major corporations/firms and government security and bureaucrat’s agencies with high transaction processing volumes or complex computational problems. For example, major international banks, airlines, oil, chemical companies, and other large corporations process millions of sales transactions and customer inquiries each day with the help of large mainframes systems. Computer usually housed in a controlled and stable environment,

It’s maintained in a special room or environment because of the heat generation from the panel and it is 50,000 times faster than a microcomputer. It is the most powerful computers in terms of performance, data compilation and data processing. These are specialized and task specific computers generally used by large organizations and corporates. These computers are also used for research, analysis and exploration purposes, like European administrative space and NASA uses supercomputers for launching space rockets/ shuttles, controlling them and for space exploration