COMP 3000 Essay 1 2010 Question 3

Question

To what extent do modern Windows systems provide mainframe-equivalent functionality? What about Windows coupled with add-on commercial products such as VMWare's virtualization and EMC's storage solutions? Explain.

Answer

Throughout the years, Windows has undergone some rather radical changes by modernizing existing technologies and providing innovation to existing features; this resulted in having functionality equivalent to that of a mainframe computer. However, although these changes have been extensive, Windows has not been particularly dominant when it comes to replacing modern mainframe systems.

Mainframes

Mainframe systems have always had a good reputation for being used by large organizations in order to process thousands of small transactions. Whether these systems are used by the bank or by a police department, they possess several key features which make them exceedingly more powerful when compared to other systems. One of these features is an extensive and prolonged stability. This is a result of having tremendous redundancy and exception handling which prevents the entire system from shutting down, even if some components are inactive due to unforeseen circumstances. Because of this, mainframe computers are incredibly reliable when it comes to data storage and interoperability.

With this in mind, another neat feature that a mainframe possesses is the ability to hot swap components without taking the system offline. Consequently, components that are malfunctioning or require an upgrade can safely be replaced without endangering system stability. As a result mainframes gain a broad life spectrum as components can be upgraded individually without having to replace the entire system. Additionally, software written for these machines is extremely backwards compatible. The reason behind this is the fact that mainframe computers are fully virtualized. This is what allows a mainframe to run software that could have been written decades ago while still being able to run alongside modern software and hardware. In addition, this is part of the reason why mainframe computers are so secure, it is because they can use a combination of newer and older software as well as hardware to take years of innovation and combine it into one secure platform.

Unfortunately, all these features would mean nothing if the mainframe could not keep up with the data being sent and received. As a result, computers of this calibre must be able to have good I/O resource management as well as protect against bottlenecks. They do this by supporting powerful schedulers which ensure the fastest possible throughput for transaction processing [1]. Without this, you could continuously be upgrading components but suffer diminishing returns.

With so many features, how is Windows expected to keep up? The reality is Windows already supports most of these features. And when coupled with addon software such as VMWare and EMC storage solutions, the capabilities are even more astounding.

Additions

Just need to add descriptions and finish up references. --Dkrutsko 07:35, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Addon Software

Virtualization

- VMWare
- Virtual Box

Backup Solutions

- EMC Storage solutions
- Carbonite

References

This version of the wiki doesn't seem to support the <ref> style citation. Unless there is something else we will have to manually enter each citation here... --Dkrutsko 05:13, 14 October 2010 (UTC)