Mainframe computers are used in the daily operations of large organizations to perform critical and complex applications. Since they play a crucial role in the business operations, you need to ensure that you get best mainframe computer for your business needs.

But how do you determine the capacity of mainframe computers, which is directly proportional to the software licensing costs and is essential in disaster recovery planning or business continuity planning? Here are some popular methods used to determine the capacity of mainframe computers.

MIPS method
The Millions of Instructions Per Second (MIPS) is an approximation used to measure the computing performance of large servers such as mainframe computers.

However, MIPS calculation does not consider speed of I/O devices, speed of information transfer between memory and CPU, processor architecture, and the like, which influence the mainframe performance. Thus, MIPS is not considered as an exact measure of mainframes’ performance. Further, MIPS may vary considerably as the CPU performance varies from one processor to the other.

Mainframe manufacturers will not mention MIPS rating in the Large Systems Performance Reference (LSPR); they mention Processor Capacity Index (PCI), which is almost similar to MIPS.

MIPS is still used by many manufacturers and vendors as rough guide to determine the computing cost. The value of the mainframe is calculated in MIPS per dollar. Thus, for a typical mainframe, the more the MIPS delivered, the better the value for the money.

MSU method
The conventional way to determine the performance of a mainframe computer is to record the number of CPU seconds consumed by each unit of work. However, as the work done in one CPU second is not same for each processor, this method of calculation is considered less accurate.

To address this issue, Service Units (SU), which are calculated by multiplying CPU seconds of a mainframe by a constant value, were developed. This value is called as SRM (Systems Resource Manager) constant. Mainframe manufacturers publish SRM constant for each processor in LSPR.

With the help of SUs and the rate of CPU usage, MSUs (Millions of Service Units per hour) are calculated which help in determining the capacity of the processor. MSU is a reasonable approximation of system capacity. MSU rating is mostly used by vendors to determine software licensing fee.

ITR method
Internal Transaction Rate (ITR) is a popular method used to determine the capability of mainframe computers with respect to CPU speed. ITR can be simply defined as number of transactions made by the machine per CPU second (number of seconds CPU is in use).

Mainframe manufacturers publish ITR in the product’s LSPR. We can compare this number to the ITR value of the base processor, which has a pre-defined value, to determine the capacity of the mainframe. ITR is one of the reliable methods to measure the capacity and performance of mainframe computers.

Though all the three values are found in the mainframe manufacturer’s LSPR, the assessment will be made in unconstrained environments for specific workloads and thus the measurement varies for each processor. However, for a rough approximation, you can use these methods based on your requirement like – MIPS for easy calculation, MSU to determine software licensing costs and ITR for capacity planning. For accurate calculations, use tools provided by the mainframe manufacturers.

Every business requires a high-end computing solution to streamline processes, improve efficiency, enhance customer service and ultimately maximize the profits. From decades, many large organizations have relied on mainframes to achieve these. But the evolution of latest computing solutions like cloud computing has led to confusion among people (mostly, who never experienced the power of mainframe computers) as whether to go for mainframe computing or cloud computing.

To a typical mainframe professional, cloud computing is just an imitation of mainframe architecture in a distributed environment. Virtualization, the main concept in cloud computing, has been a part of mainframe computing since four decades. Except for the cost advantage, there is no significant benefit of cloud computing compared to mainframe computing. Further, its dependence on Internet and data storage on third-party servers makes it less reliable and less secure. In this context, let us see how mainframe computing is more advantageous compared to cloud computing.

High-end performance – From decades, mainframes have been the high performance machines for many companies. Some of the compelling advantages like mainframe’s ability to host multiple operating systems, ability to virtualize hundreds of software applications and their capability to handle billions of transactions, enable users to establish a high performance IT environment.

Highly secure – For large corporations and government organizations securing data is very important. They certainly need a secured computing platform to run their businesses successfully. One compelling advantage offered by mainframe computers is that companies can have full control over their data.

When it comes to cloud computing, the data is stored on third party servers, so the data will be at higher risk.

Reliability – After security it is the reliability factor that makes the mainframes stand-out. Besides securing critical data, large organizations should also consider having 99% uptime –there should be no room for server downtime. Mainframes, manufactured by popular brands like IBM are quite popular for their 99% uptime and thus are highly reliable.

Cloud computing, on the other hand is considered less reliable compared to mainframe computing as it relies on the Internet. If the connection goes down or if the host server goes down, there will be server downtime, which disables the clients from accessing the data.

Customization – In mainframe computing, as the computer hardware is under complete control of the user, it enables easy customization and specialization. Whereas in cloud, it is not that easy as hardware will be controlled by a third party service provider.

Mainframe computing is beneficial for large companies, where high performing, secure and reliable computing systems are compulsory for everyday operations. Start-ups and small businesses, who cannot afford high IT infrastructure, can choose cloud as it costs less than mainframes and allows them to save on maintenance costs.

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Here are tips that help you create a stunning website which is search engine friendly:

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The above are some of the tips if you apply in creating website then you will get lots of traffic to your site.

Cloud computing possesses the following important characteristics:

• Reliability:it can be improved by providing number of sites to the same service so that if one site is disaster other site would be available for business continuity.
• Maintenance of cloud computing applications is quite easy because there is no need to deploy on each users system and can be accessed from various places.
• Performance is monitored, accordant, and loosely connected architectures are constructed using web services as the system interface.
• Agility or quickness betters with users’ ability to re-provision technological infrastructure resources.
• Application programming interface (API) is same as the user interface by which humans access or interacts with the computers. But here instead of humans, interaction will be between cloud software and the computers. REST based API are used by the cloud computing systems.
• Cost is reduced when public cloud delivery model is used where the capital expenditure is converted to operational expenditure. This is provided by a third-party to the lower barriers and does not need to be purchased for one-time or infrequent intensive computing tasks.
• Users can access their systems using a web browser from any location via internet as cloud infrastructure is off-site and is provided by a third-party providers.
• Virtualization allows increase of sharing resources like servers and storage devices by the end users. Applications can easily be moved from one physical server to another.
• Multitenancy allows large number of users to share resources in an efficient way. Here the resources are shared in such a way that each one gets the amount it needs.
• Cloud service providers providing services such as email, applications, network or server service on demand self services with out human interactions with the number of service providers.

Broad network access, scalability and elasticity, security, resource pooling, consumption based billing are also some of the features of cloud computing systems.

An important aspect in the success of a business is proper assessment of risk. Risk may occur in any business irrespective of its size and industry and that risk may not be totally eliminated but that can be reduced. Suppose a business is in loss, then compromising it will not be a good idea for daily business operations because if this situation continues daily, then it will be a loss to the business. So it is important for businesses to manage damage in an effective way in order to prevent their business from financial loss.

To implement this type of solution in your business, you need to look for a solution that offers reliability, stable platform that fits into your business environment. As every business will have different goals and different environment (operating system) in which they used to work. As the time passes, your requirements may too change. So therefore, you have to find a solution that best fits into your environment.

Managing potential damages involves continuous monitoring of all your business operations as well as to find the improvement solutions in required areas. If you constantly monitor business operations, you will get a glance idea on areas where changes took placed. If you correctly assess those areas, you may know whether the threats imposed on that area may be a severe. Based on your assessment, you can also create preventive measures to treat potential damages. With these measures, you can handle or rectify these damages before your business lose money. All you can do this by implementing business risk assessment software in your business.

Thus, business risk assessment software continuously monitors your business operations and tackles all those risks that prevent your business from making profits.