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MVS is the older name for the IBM mainframe OS. I think once it went to a 64bit architecture they started calling it z/OS... And at some point along the line it was also called OS/390. wikipedia says that the older systems are nearing the end of the supported life cycle, but I'm sure these systems are still in use just about everywhere. Cobol and JCL are actually making a comeback. A good friend of mine is a cobol programmer and I've always made fun of him for programming in such an old language.. But he is getting the laugh now because the demand for his skills is growing and so is his paycheck..
Some of the guys I work with have been supporting those systems since they came out in the 70's, so we just call any of our IBM mainframes at work MVS. There is somebody on here that supports z/OS.. Or atleast they are much more familiar with RACF and the security behind the systems than I am..
Unfortunately they no longer have a datacenter located in Orlando so i don't get to see any of the hardware anymore. But some of the systems they were using before the local datacenter closed were huge.. They literally had doors on the front of them that you could open up and walk into them.. Kind of like huge tape silo's. We also had tape silo's that look like the stuff they showed on old movies like Wargames. It always suprised me how old some of the equipment was, and that it was still up and running. We have to much of a disposable mindset now.
I'm by no means an expert on IBM mainframes but some of the larger systems would have air handlers, or have places where you could hook an air handler up to them.. I don't think they are building the really big systems anymore.. Instead they are building the midrange z servers that look more like your regular intel style server racks. IBM has a ton of information on the history of this OS and the systems-
http://www-03.ibm.com/ibm/history/ex...ame_album.html
VMS is the older DEC operating system sometimes called VAX. I think HP supports it now as openVMS. I don't have any experience with that.
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Ahhhh OK. That's why I couldn't remember it. I knew what OS/390 was but didn't know it was something else... Man, I've never even seen a main frame in person let alone touched one.
The biggest boxes I've seen in person were some big Suns but that's about it, and not even close to these things you're talking about. Heh, you get paid for this lol.
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wow, thanks for all the info. Very informative!
