Why Your Current Mainframe Is Likely The Answer

Despite the emergence of new computing technologies, many businesses and organizations continue to use mainframe computers.

A mainframe is fast and smart, and it can be used to perform highly complex and critical computing tasks. It is still one of the most reliable computing solutions available to businesses.

Here are four reasons why you should use a mainframe….

Benefits of Mainframe Computers

Low Cost of Ownership

Many IT buyers think that mainframe hardware and software are too expensive, even though it is now possible to acquire a mainframe for about one hundred thousand dollars, which is comparable to the price of some rack systems.

Businesses usually look at the cost of acquiring mainframes instead of the cost of operating and maintaining them.

Actually, a mainframe can be significantly more cost-effective than a distributed computing system over the long run. Implementing a distributed system incurs many different kinds of costs, including manpower, security, consolidation, virtualization, real estate, power/cooling and other costs.

If you add these costs up, it may make more financial sense to use a mainframe.

High-Level Computing

One of the main reasons why mainframes are a popular computing option among businesses is because of their ability to run applications and process data at ultrafast speeds.

They can effectively deliver high-speed input/output, which is more important to businesses than raw computing speed, and balance input/output performance and bandwidth.

Additionally, a mainframe computer offers excellent processing power.

It is supported by a large number of high-power processors, and it can delegate input/output to hundreds of processors. It is able to provide more processing power because its main processor is dedicated to application processing only.

Security

According to an article entitled "4 Reasons to Stick with Your Mainframe", a mainframe is more secure than a distributed computing system because it has only one access point.

You can strengthen the protection of data and operations within your mainframe by using encryption and data masking.

Another benefit of using a mainframe is that it reduces the number of software licenses you need to manage. Since you only have to maintain, update and patch a single mainframe instead of a bank of servers, asset management becomes significantly easier.

Reliability, Availability and Serviceability

The reliability, availability and serviceability characteristics of a computer system are considered some of the most vital factors in data processing. Mainframe computers are reliable because they are able to detect and self-recover from system failures.

Also, they can recover from problems without interrupting the entire working system, which ensures that most applications will be available.

Mainframes make it easy for their users to detect and diagnose problems, allowing them to fix problems quickly and with minimal downtime.

Mainframe computing has its pros and cons, and it can be difficult for businesses to decide whether or not it is the right computing solution for them.

However, if your current mainframe can sufficiently meet all your computing needs, it is advisable that you stick with it.