In the strictest sense; the term “mainframe computer” is generally regarded as meaning those computers that are compatible with the IBM System/360 series first introduced in 1965. Other very high-end computers that are not compatible with the IBM System/360 series are usually referred to as “servers”.

Now however; the term “mainframe computer” is typically used to refer to that group of high-end self-contained computers which incorporate copious numbers of built in “hot swap” capable redundant systems to provide added robustness as standard fare, as opposed to less well endowed server class computer systems.

The latter group includes collectives of grouped and associated computers known as server farms that may provide additional resilience through duplicated systems but on the whole do not provide the critical total internal system component redundancy of the mainframe computer.

If one feature or aspect of a mainframe computer was selected to be its defining characteristic then it would undoubtedly be reliable uptime. The vast majority of mainframe computers have provided continual service measured in years and in many instances decades of non-stop functionality.

Redundant Engineering

The major engineering feature of the modern mainframe computer that delivers this degree of reliable service is their considerable amount of redundant internal engineering. This is what gives mainframe computers their high reliability, tight security, extensive input/output facilities, strict backwards compatibility for older software, and high utilization rates (very little processing idle time) to support their characteristic massive throughput capabilities.

Hardware Servicing and Upgrades

In order for a mainframe computer to operate non-stop (run) for many years without interruption all repairs and hardware upgrades can and do take place during the normal operation of the mainframe computer. Once again this is another benefit that the inclusion of internal redundant hardware engineering makes possible.

Performance

Supercomputers; such as those at NASA's Columbia Advanced Computing Facility have their performance measured in terms of the number of floating point operations per second (flops) of which it is capable.

The standard yardstick by which the computational performance of a mainframe computer is measured and subsequently compared with itself at other times or against other mainframes is the number of sustained Millions of Instructions Per Second (MIPS) that it is capable of. As with supercomputers and flops performance the SI prefix system (Mega, Giga, and Peta etc) is also used when stating a mainframes MIPS performance to make these numbers more “human friendly”.

The smallest System z9 IBM mainframes today run at about 26 MIPS while the largest IBM System z10 mainframes can perform approximately 30,657 MIPS (or 30.6 Kilomips).

To give some idea of real world experience, a single mainframe may execute the equivalent of 10 to 100 or even more distributed processors' worth of business activity, however this is highly dependent on the workload. Merely counting processors to compare server platforms is extremely inaccurate.

Multiple Concurrent Operating Systems

Another aspect of the mainframe computer platform that I will only briefly touch on here is their ability to run or host not just one operating system at a time, but many. In this way a single mainframe computer can replace tens or even hundreds of smaller servers. In so doing administrative and management costs are greatly reduced yet at the same time still providing for superior scalability and reliability.

Processing Tasks

Mainframe computer processing has always tended to focus on problems which are limited by input/output and reliability ("throughput computing") as well as solving multiple business problems concurrently (mixed workload). In marked contrast to the supercomputer; which uses massive parallel processing to work on a single highly complex task, the mainframe computer generally makes use of its parallel processing capacity to simultaneously run multiple different less complex concurrent tasks.

Times haven't changed much as the types of tasks that mainframe computers usually perform today still revolve around the so called “mission critical” operations that require much repetitive or parallel processing such as correlation of data collected during a census or a survey, statistical processing and analysis, financial transaction processing (banks) and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP).

Mainframe Computer Design and Performance Optimization

One of the major critical factors in mainframe processing performance is due to the very nature of the types of tasks that it performs because these tend to involve considerable use of external data sources (input).

Thus; in order to optimize performance, mainframes are built with designs that incorporate numerous ancillary “service” processors whose job it is to supply the main processing core processors with a regulated, steady and persistent stream of data to process and then to service the subsequent output requirements of the main processing core processors processing.

Some of these service processor tasks include cryptographic support, I/O handling, monitoring, notifications, logging, authentication and memory handling. The result is that the total processor count of a mainframe is much higher than would otherwise be obvious from many purely MIPS-based benchmarking measurements as the MIPS-based measurement generally does not include those instructions executed by the ancillary “service” processors just the overall machines productive throughput/output.

One side-effect of this is that adding processors to a mainframe computer will speed up the entire machine's performance over its entire workload transparently.

Fuzzy Marketing

In recent times there has been some blurring of the term "mainframe," with some PC and server vendors referring to their systems as "mainframes" or "mainframe-like." This is somewhat misleading as it is widely recognized by the larger players in the mainframe computer industry and academia alike that mainframe computers constitute a class of computer genuinely demonstrably different from all other classes of computational platforms.

Mainframe Pricing

Historically mainframes have earned a reputation for being rather expensive but this is no longer the case. It is now possible to buy and configure a complete IBM mainframe system (with software, storage, and support), under standard commercial use terms, for about $50,000 (U.S.). The price of z/OS starts at about $1,500 (U.S.) per year, including 24x7 telephone and Web support while z10 BC systems start at around $100,000 US.

In addition; many vendors including HP Unisys, HP, Groupe Bull, Fujitsu, Hitachi, and NEC now primarily use commodity Intel CPUs rather than custom processors. This has dramatically reduced their development costs and many have also cut back on their commitment to mainframe software developed for similar reasons some time back and the current economic climate will only add further pressure to continue this trend for sometime into the near future.

Combined these factors all point to a competitive if somewhat stagnant development climate for the mainframe computer with the only real impetus being supplied by IBM who has its own large research and development organization designing their own new, homegrown CPUs; including mainframe processors. IBM is currently expanding its software business; including its mainframe software portfolio.

The company takes the view that with a dramatic reduction in effective competition from its rivals it's open season for them with regards to mainframes. From a future perspective I guess IBM believes that things will improve and when they do they will be in such a dominant position they will not have anything to fear from any potential competition no matter what form it takes.

Conclusion

Above all else it is their reliability that defines and identifies the mainframe class of computer platform with uninterrupted service histories measured in many numbers of years. Many of the current IBM mainframe computers have been working non-stop for over a decade now. Not bad value for the dollar.

Computer Specs

Intel core 2 quad Q9400 CPU @ 2.67 GHZ
4GB DDR3 RAM
Asus 4870 wth 512MB DDR5 memory
500GB HDD
windows 7 6956 / Vista Dual boot    32 BIT!!

Have XP on another laptop to compare with
I used my friends mac to test mac OSX speeds

First, looks

When I first got in and activated windows 7 it came up with a more polished and a refined look that far surpassed the look of vista. With the addition of the new super bar and the new revised gadgets it became easier to navigate through and actually looked quite beautiful. From the New boot screen to the new window transitions I found it look a hell of alot better than vista, But how does it perform?

Performance

I remember how vista was originally extremely slow and with the addition of service pack one it's still not up to par in speed and performance as XP or Mac leopard. So how does windows 7 improve on those issues?. As soon as I started to boot up windows 7 I already noticed the huge speed up times. On vista it originally would take me about a minute to boot the computer, now with windows 7 I get approximately 30 seconds. That's half the times of vista! As soon as windows 7 loads the desktop, I could notice that the transitions have been smoothed to perfection. The OS feels so much faster and the load times when opening programs have decreased drastically. Windows 7 just feels alot better than vista does when changing between programs.

Features

One of the new really amazing things in windows 7 is the super bar, which is very similar to the dock on the Mac OSX. It uses a special docking feature that you can pin almost every program to. Another great feature for it is aero peek which utilizes the desktop preview function, when you hover your mouse over the desktop preview of a window it automatically appears and when you move it away it goes back to your previous window. This makes it very easy to multitask. Another amazing way to multitask is to the use the aerosnap feature in which you move windows to each corner of the screen and it will snap to it; making it possible to say, work on two documents at the same time. Or say your writing and essay, you could snap the information to one side, and open your document on the other. Windows 7 now features jump lists which are an easier way to access a program or find a folder. By right clicking on one of your icons in the taskbar up comes the list, with your options for your program that you selected. I't was also great that I found that all my Drivers, Programs and games were all compatible with windows 7! And this was just the beta!

Final Words

Words can't explain how amazing this new OS really is. Just give it a try, I guarantee you will be amazed.

9/10

Spyware, Adware and Viruses

These are one of the main reasons for slow computers.

To get rid of them, you will require a number of scanners for your computer.

A few free scanners you can download are; AVG Free, Spybot Search and Destroy and Ad-Aware.

Temporary Files

Temporary files on your computer clog up space and slow down your computers efficiency.

If you are running a version of Windows, you should have installed "Disk Cleanup".

This will do the job of clearing the temp files of your computer.

Running Programs

A key thing you must check whilst using your computer is what programs are running in the background. Many people never check this, but should as it slows down your computer speed.

To check your running programs, look in the bottom right hand corner of your computer. (Windows users)

Hard Disk Occupants

One of the main reasons that a computer runs slow is the programs installed on the hard disk are spaced out all over the disk, or fragmented.

This means the computer must search through the whole drive to find what it is looking for.

To cure this, a Disk Defragmenter will push all the files up to one section of the drive, allowing much quicker access of your programs.

You should have a Disk Defragmenter already on your Windows computer, but if you do not, you can find one here.

A Disk Defrag could take around a day to do, but it is worth it for a faster PC.

Windows Updates

Be sure to update your Windows computer every so often.

You can find new updates and downloads from Microsoft Windows here.

Good luck with speeding up the performance of your PC.

I hope you find these tips interesting and useful! I would appreciate any feedback you may have.

To do this, we first go to our start menu. There should be something called "control panel", click on it, and then navigate to Programs, once you are on that window, you go to turn windows features on or off. Take off some things that you will never ever use, such as: Windows fax and scan, or windows meeting space, just browse things that you won't need in vista. After that, just hit ok, and give it 10-30 minutes to update. My laptopgoes from the welcome screen at start up to my desktop, in under 10 seconds.

If you want your computer to shutdown fast, go to your start menu-all programs-accessories-run. Once run pops up, type in regedit (stands for registry edit) then once your there, only do what i say unless you want to risk serious side affects.

Go to- HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE then select SYSTEM after that, double click CurrentControlSet, then finally single click "Control" To the side of that look to the bottom of the part that says Name and you want to find "waitToKillServiceTimeOut" The data should be at 20,000, then set it to 5000 by hitting modify and typing it in. Anything below 5000 WILL RISK DATA LOSS, OR CORRUPTION.

Now to generally speed up performance, every once a week, use disk cleanup (start/all programs/acessories/system tools/Disk cleanup, and also you can use disk defragmenter after that by going to start/all programs/acessories/system tools/DiskDefragmentor.

By doing all of this, you will have a healthy, fast, reliable system.

In a nutshell, the issue of computer speed can be summarized in two words - system resources. What the system boasts as hardware in terms of memory capacity (Random Access Memory) and CPU clock-rate (processor speed), and what demands you are making of these resources in terms of usage.

First, examining matters relating to usage as I feel this is best to be looked at before hardware. If your computer is running slow, chances are you making big demands of it. Your hard-drive and system tray might be overly full. Check your hard-drive capacity to see how much free space you have. Ideally, you should have at least 25%. If you don't, then remove unused applications to make the space available. This is important as when memory demands are great, the RAM often falls back on the hard-drive for additional memory space.

Next, you might wish to check how many programs you are loading on start-up. To do this, I recommend you look at the bottom right of your screen in the system tray area (for MS operating system). If there are lots of icons on display, go through them and close those that you don't need or wish to run. To stop them loading in the first place, consider downloading the quick-start utility that will enable you to stop them loading at start-up. Or, you can usually just manually configure the programs not to.

Don't forget to clean and defrag the registry once in a while. Again, you can find good free downloads for cleaning the registry. And to defrag, simply use the available tool within the Microsoft operating systems (systems tool, defrag).

Also contemplate your computer's configurations. What graphics mode are you using? If running in a very high resolution and color scheme, you are placing high demands on the system resources. Remember the formula: better graphics equals slower speeds. Consider lowering your graphical configurations and your computer will become faster.

System utility applications will tweak the system for you. Consider purchasing one, or maybe obtaining a free down-loadable application. The one I use, Advanced Windows Care, will go through a system performance checklist at the click of a button. Likewise it comes with a memory cleaner, which can free-up hundreds of megabytes of memory when used.

If still unhappy with the performance after doing these things, then I would recommend hardware changes. Check your memory specifications, more RAM is usually the answer. Buy an appropriate memory stick of say 32MB, and slot it in to an available port (assuming you have one). This will boost your available memory and allow for greater system demands. Likewise you might want to consider purchasing a new hard-drive if you need to store more files, and don't have enough space on your current one.

Follow these recommendations (be it with MS operating systems or other) and your computer will start running faster. You will see a noticeable improvement in system performance, and will be able to work and play more productively.

Skype

It's an amazing Internet telephone resource. Although you have to pay credits to use it as a telephone, the fees are much cheaper than regular telephone, especially if the person you want to talk to have Skype. For me… I have to make long distance calls all the time, and become very handy to pay so much less for them. The Skype software also allows you to have a contact list and send instant messages. In addition, Skype has public moderated chats.

AVG Free edition

Do you want to surf the web not fearing to get infected in every click? Anti-virus is the solution. Do you want to pay for it? Certainly no. For those of your who are cheap bastards like me, there is AVG Free Edition. I have it in my computer for three years now, and I never got infected. There is also a paid version of AVG, that Grisoft (the software developer) guarantees to be better than the free one. Honestly, I don't know how it can get any better. It protects my computer and me, make scheduled scans, update automatically almost everyday, and above all, it's free.

Winrar

It compacts and decompresses files in many formats. It is much better than WinZip. Many downloadable files in the Internet, nowadays, are in rar. format. In theory, WINRAR is a trial version, but it never stops working. It keeps asking you to buy it every time you use it, but will keep compacting and decompressing your files for free.

DVD Shrink

If you want to backup your DVDs but your computer doesn't copy original DVDs, DVD Shrink is the solution. It cracks the original DVD and copies the file to your computer. It also has a few other benefits, as shrinking the DVD to a regular DVD size. I mean… commercial original DVDs may have 6 or 7 Gb size, while a regular virgin DVD only has 4,7. DVD Shrink will reduce its size, remove undesirable features (which also enlarge the DVD) as Javanese subtitles, and make it fit in 4,7 Gb. DVD Shrink also burns the DVD backup. It's a complete software.

Free RIP

Free Rip is a friendly interfaced program that allows you to rip music from CDs to the computer in many formats and in the quality you want. It makes the same thing as Winamp and Windows Media Player, but is easier to use.

Google Picasa

I don't know about you, but me… After the invention of the Digital Camera, I take so many pictures that sometimes I don't even know where I took them from. Google Picasa is a software designed to help disorganized people like me. It searches for pictures in the computer and places them in hierarchic files organized by date and topic. Picasa also supervises the incoming of new pictures and organize them either. Through Picasa, you can make basic edition to the pictures and send them to a blog.

Well… I hope these software helps you like they helped me. Good luck.

You can defragment your computer using an absolutely free program JkDefrag. You can download the following program here. Make sure you read some crucial information on that page. A defragmentation improves the speed of your computer by freeing space on your Hard Drive so it will take less memory… I recommend using JkDefrag because it has a feature, the screensaver feature, this feature automatically starts defragmenting when you make JkDefrag as your screensaver. To know how to install it as a screensaver, go on the website, and it will teach you how to do so.

Notes on JkDefrag:

You can close the defragmentation safely at anytime. If you see giant lines,



don't worry its normal.

Thanks for reading this and I hope you liked this tutorial.

Now, the cache memory can be defined as a piece of very fast memory(static memory), which is placed between the processor and the RAM. The cache memory helps in optimum utilization of the processor speed by providing it data at a higher speed than the RAM.

When data needed by the processor is found in the cache memory, it is called a CACHE HIT, else it is called a CACHE MISS.

The cache memory, thus helps in increasing the performance of the computer.