WEBVTT 00:00:00.320 --> 00:00:08.960 What comes to mind when you hear the words big iron? Heavy construction, 00:00:05.839 --> 00:00:12.480 extreme laundry, my nickname in high 00:00:08.960 --> 00:00:14.639 school. Well, it turns out that big iron 00:00:12.480 --> 00:00:21.439 is none of those things and usually refers to mainframe computers, massive 00:00:18.480 --> 00:00:25.840 machines that typically live inside of large cabinets. Okay, then Lionus. So, 00:00:24.240 --> 00:00:31.920 you're talking about a supercomput, right? Actually, no. Mainframes are 00:00:29.599 --> 00:00:37.200 defined a little differently. In our episode on supercomputers, which you can 00:00:33.920 --> 00:00:39.920 check out here, we discussed how they 00:00:37.200 --> 00:00:46.079 are great at number crunching to complete extremely complex tasks like 00:00:43.440 --> 00:00:52.800 weather forecasting, medical research, and crypt analysis. But with mainframes, 00:00:49.760 --> 00:00:54.399 the focus is more on throughput and 00:00:52.800 --> 00:00:58.000 reliability. So what exactly does that mean? Well, 00:00:56.800 --> 00:01:04.799 compared to something like a supercomputer, mainframes have a lot 00:01:01.120 --> 00:01:06.960 more inputs and outputs or IO because 00:01:04.799 --> 00:01:13.119 they're often deployed in situations where they aren't working on one massive 00:01:10.000 --> 00:01:16.880 complex problem, but rather they have to 00:01:13.119 --> 00:01:20.159 process tons of smaller, simpler 00:01:16.880 --> 00:01:21.920 transactions extremely quickly. In fact, 00:01:20.159 --> 00:01:29.280 even though there is a popular misconception that mainframes are relics 00:01:25.119 --> 00:01:32.240 of a bygone computing era, to process 00:01:29.280 --> 00:01:38.799 the up to millions of card swipes and account transfers that occurred daily, 00:01:35.280 --> 00:01:42.159 96 out of the world's top 100 banks and 00:01:38.799 --> 00:01:44.640 23 out of the top 25 US retailers 00:01:42.159 --> 00:01:49.119 currently run mainframes from IBM, who has been the dominant player in the 00:01:46.000 --> 00:01:51.840 industry for a very long time. Building 00:01:49.119 --> 00:01:56.159 one though isn't just a matter of installing a whack ton of Xeons in a 00:01:54.159 --> 00:02:02.799 box, plugging in lots of Ethernet cables, and calling it a day. Mainframes 00:01:59.439 --> 00:02:05.439 use special CPUs, many of which are much 00:02:02.799 --> 00:02:11.599 larger physically than even big desktop chips like 2011 socket CPUs from Intel, 00:02:08.640 --> 00:02:18.879 as well as additional processors called system assistance processors or SAPs 00:02:15.440 --> 00:02:21.440 that do almost nothing but move data 00:02:18.879 --> 00:02:27.040 around as quickly as possible, like glorified traffic controllers rather 00:02:24.319 --> 00:02:33.599 than general purpose number crunchers. And that's not all. On a modern 00:02:29.440 --> 00:02:37.440 mainframe like the topend IBM Z13, each 00:02:33.599 --> 00:02:38.959 individual IO card of which there can be 00:02:37.440 --> 00:02:46.640 160 has its own processing cores up to two 00:02:42.959 --> 00:02:49.599 per channel on the dual channel cards. 00:02:46.640 --> 00:02:58.080 Meaning you could have over 600 processor cores just for IO. And that's 00:02:53.680 --> 00:03:00.160 not even counting the SAPS. Whoa. Part 00:02:58.080 --> 00:03:05.840 of the reason that modern mainframes are designed to support this much IO is to 00:03:03.040 --> 00:03:10.800 ensure that they stay reliable. So many of the subsystems inside a mainframe, 00:03:08.159 --> 00:03:16.879 like a modern airliner, would have redundancies built in. This means they 00:03:13.760 --> 00:03:19.840 can be deployed in situations where zero 00:03:16.879 --> 00:03:25.040 downtime is acceptable, such as the aforementioned credit card companies and 00:03:22.560 --> 00:03:32.159 retailers, as well as airline ticketing systems. In fact, a common mainframe 00:03:27.920 --> 00:03:34.879 operating system, IBM's proprietary ZTPF 00:03:32.159 --> 00:03:39.760 was originally developed as transaction processing software for airlines. If you 00:03:37.840 --> 00:03:43.760 want to see it in action, pay close attention next time you board a flight, 00:03:41.680 --> 00:03:48.080 and you might just get a glimpse of the computer screen they're using to check 00:03:45.440 --> 00:03:52.879 you in. An old school interface with green text indicates that it's probably 00:03:50.400 --> 00:03:58.720 a terminal connected to a mainframe. just don't look uh too closely at it. So 00:03:56.319 --> 00:04:04.000 this high level of redundancy means that it's common for mainframes to be built 00:04:00.959 --> 00:04:06.159 in such a way where an administrator can 00:04:04.000 --> 00:04:11.280 slide out one of the drawers that houses components and simply start swapping 00:04:08.480 --> 00:04:15.599 them out. Whatever that drawer was working on is automatically transferred 00:04:13.760 --> 00:04:20.400 over to the rest of the mainframe, making it easy to make necessary 00:04:17.680 --> 00:04:24.800 hardware changes without any downtime. which is a good thing, too, because 00:04:22.160 --> 00:04:30.560 high-end mainframes can run tons of virtual servers at once, up to 8,000 in 00:04:27.919 --> 00:04:35.840 the case of the Z13. Meaning that taking down the mainframe could result in a lot 00:04:32.400 --> 00:04:38.880 of transaction errors on Black Friday. 00:04:35.840 --> 00:04:40.880 But before you start thinking, gee, I 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 00:04:43.759 --> 00:04:52.080 monitor setup, mainframes and their operating systems aren't just absurdly 00:04:49.600 --> 00:04:57.680 expensive. A single mainframe can cost hundreds of thousands, if not millions 00:04:54.240 --> 00:05:00.800 of dollars. They also aren't designed to 00:04:57.680 --> 00:05:02.400 run games or for high-end floating point 00:05:00.800 --> 00:05:08.000 performance, which is important for rendering graphics. But even so, main 00:05:06.000 --> 00:05:13.680 frames are still in the background powering lots of things you do every 00:05:10.880 --> 00:05:17.280 day, which is pretty cool. That is, unless you've sworn off air travel and 00:05:15.759 --> 00:05:22.160 you don't want Mastercard to know about all the weird stuff you buy on Amazon. 00:05:19.919 --> 00:05:27.520 Speaking of uh having your online activities tracked, Tunnel BearVPN lets 00:05:25.360 --> 00:05:32.400 you anonymize yourself on the internet and browse the internet and use online 00:05:29.680 --> 00:05:37.280 services as though you are some anonymous guy in some other country. 00:05:35.199 --> 00:05:42.800 They have easy to use apps for iOS, Android, PC, and Mac. 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