Increasing Functional Specificity over Increasingly Commoditized Hardware - Guide to Cloud Computing for Business and Technology Managers - page 13

that assisted them in everything from navigation to systems monitoring, and
it had a 2.048 MHz CPU built by MIT. Today's standards can be measured
in the 4 GHz in many home PCs (megahertz [MHz] is 1 million comput-
ing cycles per second and gigahertz [GHz] is 1 billion computing cycles per
second). Further, the Apollo 11 computer weighed 70 pounds versus today's
powerful laptops weighing as little as 1 pound—we have come a long way.
Rapid hardware and software developments and changing end user needs
continue to drive the emergence of new models of computers, from the
smallest handheld personal digital assistant/cell phone combinations to the
largest multiple-CPU mainframes for enterprises. Categories such as micro-
computer, midrange, mainframe , and supercomputer systems are still used to
help us express the relative processing power and number of end users that
can be supported by different types of computers. These are not precise clas-
sifications, and they do overlap each other.
Microcomputers
Microcomputers are the most important category of computer systems for
both business and household consumers. Although usually called a personal
computer , or PC, a microcomputer is much more than a small computer for
use by an individual as a communication device. The computing power of
microcomputers now exceeds that of the mainframes of previous computer
generations, at a fraction of their cost. Thus, they have become powerful net-
worked professional workstations for business professionals.
Midrange Computers
Midrange computers are primarily high-end network servers and other
types of servers that can handle the large-scale processing of many busi-
ness applications. Although not as powerful as mainframe computers, they
are less costly to buy, operate, and maintain than mainframe systems and
thus meet the computing needs of many organizations. Midrange systems
first became popular as minicomputers in scientific research, instrumenta-
tion systems, engineering analysis, and industrial process monitoring and
control. Minicomputers were able to easily handle such functions because
these applications are narrow in scope and do not demand the processing
versatility of mainframe systems. Today, midrange systems include servers
used in industrial process-control and manufacturing plants and play major
roles in computer-aided manufacturing (CAM). They can also take the form
of powerful technical workstations for computer-aided design (CAD) and
other computation and graphics-intensive applications. Midrange systems
are also used as front-end servers to assist mainframe computers in telecom-
munications processing and network management.
Midrange systems have become popular as powerful network servers (com-
puters used to coordinate communications and manage resource sharing in
network settings) to help manage large Internet websites, corporate intranets