I work at a large company that does high volume processing daily.  It started out years ago doing everything on an IBM mainframe, then about 10 years ago they started to buy into the concept of distributed processing on servers. Recently I've heard anecdotes of a fair number of corporations deciding to invest in mainframes again.  I don't know if this is true or not, but would like to learn more.  All facts and opinions gladly welcomed.
122947
The main difference between a mainframe and a server is that a mainframe can run for years without a scratch, it's more secure, you can use any kind of software on it and much more. They are usually used inside huge companies because they cost a lot! The fact that some companies started prefering servers is only because they want to make more profit. I mean instead of buying 3 mainsframes they could buy 30 servers that could do the work for some time, and then if everything goes well they either change their mind and want to buy mainframes or servers again and again! I don't see any other reason!
578735
With as cheap as components are, it's easier just to build a new machine.  If you are not sure how, there are many articles on the internet and it is quite easy for anyone.  It would probably be a cheaper to build a new machine to your own specs then to upgrade out of date components.  Typically the performance upgrade you would get would not be worth the money spent.  Check out www.newegg.com for components.  I build high end gaming and server platforms form medium sized enterprises and have used newegg on many occasions.
675158
As stated, all of these technologies would be usable by you for free.  The java core technologies are free to use (as are a number of middle-tier / application servers you may need) and since you wouln't be redistributing any mysql components (or embedding it in anyway) I believe it would be cost-free for you to use as well.  \n\nAs for servers I currently use both 1&1 and Rackspace (though not cheap) with more than adequate results.
114542
It depends on the configuration of the server.  Maybe they have a database that maintains a fixed size by removing older entries.  Still though, just being "a server" won't mean that the computer will or won't remove data, it depends entirely one what it does and how the owners want it to run.
78641
This question can be meaningfully answered if you provide the mainframe make, name and model.
567418
The first benefit is "mindshare".  If nothing else, it\nreminds developers that Sun is out there and worth their\nconsideration as a source of technology.  In a sense, it's\nlike advertising.\n\nAnother benefit is that every piece of software written for\nJava can *potentially* run on the Solaris OS and Sun server\nhardware.  If that software had been written for ".Net",\nthen Sun would have a more limited opportunity to compete\nfor the business (although Sun *does* sell Opteron servers\nwhich are qualified for Windows).  \n\nFurthermore, much of the Java software needs an Application\nServer (which Sun sells) as well as back-end data bases \n(and Sun would like to compete to be the host of those DB's).\n\nGiven Sun's sustained support for Java over the last\n10 years, it appears that Sun is convinced that Java\nhas a *significant* impact on the sale of Solaris\nservers.  As an aside, you might note that Sun has\ngone to a model where not only is Java free, but\ntheir development tools (C/C++/Fortran compilers)\nand even Solaris itself is free.  This suggests that\ngetting mindshare (presumably impacting server sales)\nis one of the most important facets to the business.
422943
athlon is less reliable then turion...turion is best in its class because it is a fast processer
641936
They wanted to focus on where they currently make their money, and the money was no longer central in computers:\n\nhttp://news.com.com/IBM+sells+PC+group+to+Lenovo/2100-1042_3-5482284.html\n\nThe product is still called IBM but only for 5 years because the name brand is still worth money. After 5 years the name may change to Lennovo. And it was not America that insisted it, it was IBM that insisted the pcs keep the name.\n\n\nIBM not only brought the first PC to market, but it created a standard for generations of PC's. \n\nTed Schadler, why is it selling its business? \n\nTED SCHADLER: Well, IBM getting out of the PC business that it launched in 1981, it's because the business is no longer central or core to IBM's strategy. \n\nfrom: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/business/july-dec04/ibm_12-9.html
519421
OS2 isn't used much any more, though there are still devotees of it, also I don't think its currently even supported by IBM which was its manufacturer, Unix is very good, there are many variants of it, Linux itself being one, but as far as Unix goes, Solaris, True64, FreeBSD and OSX are very nice.  Minix was developed by Professor Andrew S. Tanenbaum as a Unix like operating system to teach the design of operating systems to computer science students but has evolved over the years into a formidable operating system in its own right, though not widely used, Linux was originally somewhat derived from Minix though it was written as a stand alone Unix variant by Linus Torvalds, (a great debate has raged between Linus Torvalds and Andrew Tanenbaum through the years over monolithic versus micro kernels, Minix being a monolithic kernel and Linux being a micro kernel operating system, both have there merits) Linux is great operating system, with hundreds of different distributions to choose from, my favorites are Red Hat and Suse, but that's just my 2 cents worth.
526828
With the current hardware technology about to reach its outer limits of physics will the next revolution be in streamlining software? \n\nI have worked in technology since the ‘60’s. In the 60’s it was not uncommon for a major company to run its payroll programs on machines with as little as 16 kilobytes of main memory. I know that the missions to the moon were calculated on computers with one megabyte of main memory or less. Today we are looking at machines with 4-8 gigabytes of memory and it takes 5-minutes just to boot up a PC. It looks like there is plenty of room to improve operating systems and applications.\n\nGranted today’s computers have slicker user interfaces and are easier to use by the general public, but they have become very inefficient users of software. The object code era has allowed really poor coding to become imbedded in most of today’s applications. \n\nOnce the hardware reaches the point where adding processors adds zero throughput won’t it be time to take a look at the sloppy code written over the past twenty-five to thirty years? Isn’t there room for a revolution in software redevelopment?
524558
eeee, hummm, well...\nthey didn't actually... merge, unless you are trying to make a political discourse.\nAMD bought ATI even though they seem firmly decided to keep the video card part of the business going strong; but they also looking at a next generation of processors which will have graphical processes build into the CPU.
309860
That is difficult to trace, but I would not be suprised if it was a company called Centra Software (which has since been bought by Saba).  They were a realtime collaboration software company that has sadly been pretty much driven into the ground by miserable management.  At one time they were an e-learning pioneer that rivaled WebEx and Interwise for online collaboration marketshare.
211869
I came to this Q&A late, so you probably have already\ndone the upgrade, but I'll make a couple of comments\nanyway.\n\nFirst, if you have multiple machines supporting an app\nserver, I presume that they're all running both the same\nrelease of the OS as well as the same patches (in order\nto get consistent results regardless of which machine\nprovides the service).  Given that assumption (ie. system\nshared objects are the same), I can't see any point to\nthe suggestion that you must use statically compiled\nbinaries.\n\nI think the other advice is really to the point, because\nit is those little details (like updating environments,\ndocumentation, the "pkgadd" database, or other small\npieces of state information) that could cause you\nheadaches later on. If the upgrade really is strictly\nlimited to modifying one directory, then sure, you can do\nit as you suggest.\n\nI'm curious, though, about your comment about\n"downtime".  If your machines supporting the app server\nare replicated, then it doesn't seem like there would be\n*any* downtime if you took them offline (one at a time)\nfor upgrades.  Isn't that part of the designed-in beauty of\nusing multiple machines?
96873
You might be able to find some of your answers here:\n\nhttp://www.expresscomputeronline.com/20021111/opinion2.shtml
320473
Pretty much all MS software that's intended to run on servers is now part of the .NET framework: Visual Basic, ASP, SQL Server, etc. So it's not a single product, and the pre-existing component products have not undergone any mind blowing changes to become integrated into this .NET philosophy. In short, it's Microsoft marketing hype.
55677
Hopefully the Y2K "concern" forced us to look more to the future in regards to programming and data storage. I think all developments now are just building and improving on previous designs and processes, so there should be greater adaptability.
230325
I answered this one as part of a similar question earlier\n\nI am pasting the same here\nThis is an interesting question with interesting answers.\n\n- You see some people really dont work for money. They are trying to solve a problem that bugs them and they appreciate people who would help them solve it. This can be one motivation for writing open source stuff.\n\n- Another approach to this to take a hard problem (like say an OS), realise that multiple people have done things that together can be collected into a reasonable solution the same, package the same (obviously add some of your own stuff to that) and then give away the solution for free. Per se, this problem is so complicated that irrespective of what you do, the customers will pay you to help maintain and upgrade the solution. This is getting paid for maintaining the service and not the original solution. This motivates companies like Redhat etc.\n\n- Another approach is that sometime an opensource solution helps a huge corporation and they pay you to make the solution. That way they can access the source code, tune their services to your code and together build a formidable software. IBM used this approach to support Linux and make it work with their DB2 etc.