Mainframe Computer

Mainframe computer is a powerful computer that can manage and support numerous users at the same time. They are big in size, have good storage capacity, processing power and are highly reliable. Large organizations with mission critical applications that have large data processing use the mainframe computers. They can host different variety of operating systems mainly based on Unix and Linux. Mainframes can scale their capacity without disrupting the operations.

Mainframe computers are diminishing in size with the improving technology. What started as big as a room size way back in the 1940’s they are now coming in various configurations in the form of servers and workstations. They are more cost-effective and widely used for web hosting and e-commerce development. They are different from super computers as they are capable of supporting multiple programs simultaneously. A super computer is faster as it supports a single program. They are termed as main frame to differentiate from the earlier ones that came in large metal frames.