1 00:00:00,320 --> 00:00:08,960 What comes to mind when you hear the words big iron? Heavy construction, 2 00:00:05,839 --> 00:00:12,480 extreme laundry, my nickname in high 3 00:00:08,960 --> 00:00:14,639 school. Well, it turns out that big iron 4 00:00:12,480 --> 00:00:21,439 is none of those things and usually refers to mainframe computers, massive 5 00:00:18,480 --> 00:00:25,840 machines that typically live inside of large cabinets. Okay, then Lionus. So, 6 00:00:24,240 --> 00:00:31,920 you're talking about a supercomput, right? Actually, no. Mainframes are 7 00:00:29,599 --> 00:00:37,200 defined a little differently. In our episode on supercomputers, which you can 8 00:00:33,920 --> 00:00:39,920 check out here, we discussed how they 9 00:00:37,200 --> 00:00:46,079 are great at number crunching to complete extremely complex tasks like 10 00:00:43,440 --> 00:00:52,800 weather forecasting, medical research, and crypt analysis. But with mainframes, 11 00:00:49,760 --> 00:00:54,399 the focus is more on throughput and 12 00:00:52,800 --> 00:00:58,000 reliability. So what exactly does that mean? Well, 13 00:00:56,800 --> 00:01:04,799 compared to something like a supercomputer, mainframes have a lot 14 00:01:01,120 --> 00:01:06,960 more inputs and outputs or IO because 15 00:01:04,799 --> 00:01:13,119 they're often deployed in situations where they aren't working on one massive 16 00:01:10,000 --> 00:01:16,880 complex problem, but rather they have to 17 00:01:13,119 --> 00:01:20,159 process tons of smaller, simpler 18 00:01:16,880 --> 00:01:21,920 transactions extremely quickly. In fact, 19 00:01:20,159 --> 00:01:29,280 even though there is a popular misconception that mainframes are relics 20 00:01:25,119 --> 00:01:32,240 of a bygone computing era, to process 21 00:01:29,280 --> 00:01:38,799 the up to millions of card swipes and account transfers that occurred daily, 22 00:01:35,280 --> 00:01:42,159 96 out of the world's top 100 banks and 23 00:01:38,799 --> 00:01:44,640 23 out of the top 25 US retailers 24 00:01:42,159 --> 00:01:49,119 currently run mainframes from IBM, who has been the dominant player in the 25 00:01:46,000 --> 00:01:51,840 industry for a very long time. Building 26 00:01:49,119 --> 00:01:56,159 one though isn't just a matter of installing a whack ton of Xeons in a 27 00:01:54,159 --> 00:02:02,799 box, plugging in lots of Ethernet cables, and calling it a day. Mainframes 28 00:01:59,439 --> 00:02:05,439 use special CPUs, many of which are much 29 00:02:02,799 --> 00:02:11,599 larger physically than even big desktop chips like 2011 socket CPUs from Intel, 30 00:02:08,640 --> 00:02:18,879 as well as additional processors called system assistance processors or SAPs 31 00:02:15,440 --> 00:02:21,440 that do almost nothing but move data 32 00:02:18,879 --> 00:02:27,040 around as quickly as possible, like glorified traffic controllers rather 33 00:02:24,319 --> 00:02:33,599 than general purpose number crunchers. And that's not all. On a modern 34 00:02:29,440 --> 00:02:37,440 mainframe like the topend IBM Z13, each 35 00:02:33,599 --> 00:02:38,959 individual IO card of which there can be 36 00:02:37,440 --> 00:02:46,640 160 has its own processing cores up to two 37 00:02:42,959 --> 00:02:49,599 per channel on the dual channel cards. 38 00:02:46,640 --> 00:02:58,080 Meaning you could have over 600 processor cores just for IO. And that's 39 00:02:53,680 --> 00:03:00,160 not even counting the SAPS. Whoa. Part 40 00:02:58,080 --> 00:03:05,840 of the reason that modern mainframes are designed to support this much IO is to 41 00:03:03,040 --> 00:03:10,800 ensure that they stay reliable. So many of the subsystems inside a mainframe, 42 00:03:08,159 --> 00:03:16,879 like a modern airliner, would have redundancies built in. This means they 43 00:03:13,760 --> 00:03:19,840 can be deployed in situations where zero 44 00:03:16,879 --> 00:03:25,040 downtime is acceptable, such as the aforementioned credit card companies and 45 00:03:22,560 --> 00:03:32,159 retailers, as well as airline ticketing systems. In fact, a common mainframe 46 00:03:27,920 --> 00:03:34,879 operating system, IBM's proprietary ZTPF 47 00:03:32,159 --> 00:03:39,760 was originally developed as transaction processing software for airlines. If you 48 00:03:37,840 --> 00:03:43,760 want to see it in action, pay close attention next time you board a flight, 49 00:03:41,680 --> 00:03:48,080 and you might just get a glimpse of the computer screen they're using to check 50 00:03:45,440 --> 00:03:52,879 you in. An old school interface with green text indicates that it's probably 51 00:03:50,400 --> 00:03:58,720 a terminal connected to a mainframe. just don't look uh too closely at it. So 52 00:03:56,319 --> 00:04:04,000 this high level of redundancy means that it's common for mainframes to be built 53 00:04:00,959 --> 00:04:06,159 in such a way where an administrator can 54 00:04:04,000 --> 00:04:11,280 slide out one of the drawers that houses components and simply start swapping 55 00:04:08,480 --> 00:04:15,599 them out. Whatever that drawer was working on is automatically transferred 56 00:04:13,760 --> 00:04:20,400 over to the rest of the mainframe, making it easy to make necessary 57 00:04:17,680 --> 00:04:24,800 hardware changes without any downtime. which is a good thing, too, because 58 00:04:22,160 --> 00:04:30,560 high-end mainframes can run tons of virtual servers at once, up to 8,000 in 59 00:04:27,919 --> 00:04:35,840 the case of the Z13. Meaning that taking down the mainframe could result in a lot 60 00:04:32,400 --> 00:04:38,880 of transaction errors on Black Friday. 61 00:04:35,840 --> 00:04:40,880 But before you start thinking, gee, I 62 00:04:38,880 --> 00:04:46,479 should get myself a mainframe cuz I want to run Overwatch on like some kind of 50 63 00:04:43,759 --> 00:04:52,080 monitor setup, mainframes and their operating systems aren't just absurdly 64 00:04:49,600 --> 00:04:57,680 expensive. A single mainframe can cost hundreds of thousands, if not millions 65 00:04:54,240 --> 00:05:00,800 of dollars. They also aren't designed to 66 00:04:57,680 --> 00:05:02,400 run games or for high-end floating point 67 00:05:00,800 --> 00:05:08,000 performance, which is important for rendering graphics. But even so, main 68 00:05:06,000 --> 00:05:13,680 frames are still in the background powering lots of things you do every 69 00:05:10,880 --> 00:05:17,280 day, which is pretty cool. 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That's why I said it at the end.