- Community Home
- >
- Servers and Operating Systems
- >
- Operating Systems
- >
- Operating System - OpenVMS
- >
- Difference between a mainframe and an OpenVMS ser...
Operating System - OpenVMS
1820475
Members
3236
Online
109624
Solutions
Forums
Categories
Company
Local Language
юдл
back
Forums
Discussions
Forums
- Data Protection and Retention
- Entry Storage Systems
- Legacy
- Midrange and Enterprise Storage
- Storage Networking
- HPE Nimble Storage
Discussions
Discussions
Discussions
Discussions
Forums
Forums
Discussions
юдл
back
Discussion Boards
Discussion Boards
Discussion Boards
Discussion Boards
- BladeSystem Infrastructure and Application Solutions
- Appliance Servers
- Alpha Servers
- BackOffice Products
- Internet Products
- HPE 9000 and HPE e3000 Servers
- Networking
- Netservers
- Secure OS Software for Linux
- Server Management (Insight Manager 7)
- Windows Server 2003
- Operating System - Tru64 Unix
- ProLiant Deployment and Provisioning
- Linux-Based Community / Regional
- Microsoft System Center Integration
Discussion Boards
Discussion Boards
Discussion Boards
Discussion Boards
Discussion Boards
Discussion Boards
Discussion Boards
Discussion Boards
Discussion Boards
Discussion Boards
Discussion Boards
Discussion Boards
Discussion Boards
Discussion Boards
Discussion Boards
Discussion Boards
Discussion Boards
Discussion Boards
Discussion Boards
Discussion Boards
Discussion Boards
Discussion Boards
Blogs
Information
Community
Resources
Community Language
Language
Forums
Blogs
Topic Options
- Subscribe to RSS Feed
- Mark Topic as New
- Mark Topic as Read
- Float this Topic for Current User
- Bookmark
- Subscribe
- Printer Friendly Page
- Mark as New
- Bookmark
- Subscribe
- Mute
- Subscribe to RSS Feed
- Permalink
- Report Inappropriate Content
тАО02-14-2006 01:05 AM
тАО02-14-2006 01:05 AM
Difference between a mainframe and an OpenVMS server
No problem to solve, just asking opinions (staffed by statistics if possible).
What is nowadays the difference between a mainframe and an OpenVMS server a la GS1280 or a Sun 15K ?
Are they more relieable ? More IO thruput ?
Wim
What is nowadays the difference between a mainframe and an OpenVMS server a la GS1280 or a Sun 15K ?
Are they more relieable ? More IO thruput ?
Wim
Wim
2 REPLIES 2
- Mark as New
- Bookmark
- Subscribe
- Mute
- Subscribe to RSS Feed
- Permalink
- Report Inappropriate Content
тАО02-14-2006 03:28 AM
тАО02-14-2006 03:28 AM
Re: Difference between a mainframe and an OpenVMS server
Wim,
IMHO, for a long time, the terms mainframe, supermini, mini, and micro have lost all reasonable meaning and become sales/marketing buzzwords.
Realistically, if your organization bets its business on a system, you had better run it using the rules for a "mainframe". If you are a nuclear physicist running simulations, even a CRAY or other supercomputer is really a personal computer.
Since it is not uncommon for the processors in different scale systems today to be virtually identical, the discriminator is normally IO bandwidth. Thus a GS-class box might as well be a mainframe for most intents and purposes.
- Bob Gezelter, http://www.rlgsc.com
IMHO, for a long time, the terms mainframe, supermini, mini, and micro have lost all reasonable meaning and become sales/marketing buzzwords.
Realistically, if your organization bets its business on a system, you had better run it using the rules for a "mainframe". If you are a nuclear physicist running simulations, even a CRAY or other supercomputer is really a personal computer.
Since it is not uncommon for the processors in different scale systems today to be virtually identical, the discriminator is normally IO bandwidth. Thus a GS-class box might as well be a mainframe for most intents and purposes.
- Bob Gezelter, http://www.rlgsc.com
- Mark as New
- Bookmark
- Subscribe
- Mute
- Subscribe to RSS Feed
- Permalink
- Report Inappropriate Content
тАО02-14-2006 08:41 AM
тАО02-14-2006 08:41 AM
Re: Difference between a mainframe and an OpenVMS server
Wim,
I looked into this question recently and I think the systems are pretty close now. The number of processors is similar. I assume the Alpha processors have fallen off the curve of "Moore's Law" now, and will be too slow pretty soon, but other processors continue to progress. The GS1280 has a mainframe-class number of processors and supports partitioning, multiple operating systems, and (quoted) mainframe-class I/O throughput. I don't know whether it measures MTBF in decades or supports thousands of instances of Linux running on one server, though.
I agree with Bob that a supercomputer is a different animal. It focuses on tasks that need lots of complex computation and run mostly in physical memory, while the mainframe's tasks tend to do simple computation on massive amounts of data, so I/O speed is more important than CPU speed.
--Travis Craig
I looked into this question recently and I think the systems are pretty close now. The number of processors is similar. I assume the Alpha processors have fallen off the curve of "Moore's Law" now, and will be too slow pretty soon, but other processors continue to progress. The GS1280 has a mainframe-class number of processors and supports partitioning, multiple operating systems, and (quoted) mainframe-class I/O throughput. I don't know whether it measures MTBF in decades or supports thousands of instances of Linux running on one server, though.
I agree with Bob that a supercomputer is a different animal. It focuses on tasks that need lots of complex computation and run mostly in physical memory, while the mainframe's tasks tend to do simple computation on massive amounts of data, so I/O speed is more important than CPU speed.
--Travis Craig
My head is cold.
The opinions expressed above are the personal opinions of the authors, not of Hewlett Packard Enterprise. By using this site, you accept the Terms of Use and Rules of Participation.
Company
Learn About
News and Events
Support
© Copyright 2025 Hewlett Packard Enterprise Development LP