IBM’s System/360 Mainframe will celebrate its 50th anniversary in 2014. The 360 is IBM’s first ever mainframe system with a compatible and upgradeable architecture.
The System/360 Mainframe has played an important role in early core banking systems, the first airline reservation systems and even the Apollo missions to the moon1. By far the most common terminal used on the system was the IBM 3270, a terminal supported across our range of terminal emulation software. IBM has continued to develop and improve the System/360, and it’s descendants are now used for everything from big data and cloud applications to mobile and social computing requirements.
IBM announced a new version of its mainframe system in August 2012. The zEnterprise EC12 mainframe server is the most technologically advanced and powerful version to date, according to IBM.
More than $1 billion was invested to develop the zEnterprise EC12. It offers increased security and support for operational analytics.
One of the challenges that IBM is addressing is the evolution of its mainframe system due to ever-increasing data volumes. The growth in demand for cloud services is another trend that IBM’s mainframe system is designed to address.
[1] https://www.eweek.com/servers/slideshows/ibm-system360-mainframe-countdown-to-50th-anniversary/?kc=EWKNLEDP06172013A&dni=64374249&rni=23002466