November 11, 2022

How do we rate the capacity of IBM System Z mainframe hardware? Well, these days, IBM publishes the capacity rating of every mainframe that they sell in MSUs, not MIPS. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. When people discuss mainframe capacity, they often talk in terms of MIPS. But what does MIPS mean? And what is an MSU? A Little Bit of MIPS History Starting at the beginning, the question to ask is, “What