Why mainframes

[andrewducker]

I'm working with mainframes in my new jo, and people keep saying "Mainframes - those still exist???"

Here's why:

Each CPU die contains two complete execution pipelines that execute each instruction simultaneously. If the results of the two pipelines are not identical, the CPU state is regressed, and the instruction retried. If the retry again fails, the original CPU state is saved, and a spare CPU is activated and loaded with the saved state data. This CPU now resumes the work that was being performed by the failed chip.

article here.

Comments

[derumi.livejournal.com]

Workstations working together might have more horsepower, but mainframes process massive amounts of information faster. When I was working with TRICOMS, we had nerdy ga-ga officers push the idea that since a certain amount of workstations had more MIPS than the IBM 9000 ES, that they'd do more and better work. When it came to processing and backing up data, 5 hours of mainframe work took two days on the workstations in certain tests. It's all about I/O. This is why the XBox is more "powerful" than the PS2 and GameCube despite having a CPU only slightly faster than the DreamCast.

Hmm. Okay, I think what all I said wasn't classified. >_>;;