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What do these acronyms mean? SNA LPAR VTAM

• softblush 9y ago
  Some IBM mainframe acronyms SNA -> Systems Network Architecture LPAR -> Logical partitions IPL -> Initial program load VTAM -> Virtual Telecommunications Access Method I might be wrong of course
  • raarts 9y ago
    LGTM
  • krylon 9y ago
    Nah, that is how I remember it. ;-) I haven't worked with mainframes since, but I found the fact they have their own words for things fascinating. Parallel evolution, so to speak. Like, what mainstream operating systems call a kernel is called a "nucleus" on z/OS, which IMHO is a much cooler name.
• tyingq 9y ago
  LPAR is the ancient, and still somewhat superior[1] version of what we call a VM or docker container today. "Logical partition". It's funny how much of what seems new isn't, really. Mainframes had VM's figured out decades ago, in a pretty elegant fashion. IPL is basically "initial boot", SNA was a network transport. VTAM is to SNA the same as Ethernet is to IP (roughly, I'm skipping over LU6.2/APPC/etc). You didn't ask about CICS, but it's basically cron+middleware but better. In fact, if you look at, say AWS, and the set of standardized services, it isn't much different from what a mainframe offered so long ago. Standard, if somewhat limited, interfaces for scheduling, load balancing, VMs, databases, "nosql", events, logging/alerting, etc. Even nods to "microservices" and other things that feel new, but aren't really. Self service is a bit new, but the rest is well established. [1] better I/O isolation, fewer "noisy neighbor" issues for example