Planet Mainframe on LinkedIn
Planet Mainframe on LinkedIn
Planet Mainframe
Db2 Workload Performance on Fire

TRIVIA – Mainframes and Their Rivals

Aug 12, 2025

Trivia

Mainframes and Their Rivals

Sonja Soderlund

Sonja Soderlund is an Oregon-based B2B freelance writer. Whether writing about mainframe computers, educational technology, or sustainable retail, she strives to bring clarity to complex issues. Connect with her or LinkedIn.

For decades, mainframes have stood quietly at the heart of global enterprise computing, but they haven’t been without competition. From the rise of minicomputers to the spread of UNIX systems and the open-source movement, each wave of innovation has challenged the mainframe’s role in the data center. 

Some rivals promised flexibility, others speed or cost savings — but few matched the mainframe’s staying power. This quiz explores the shifting landscape of enterprise IT, where architectures clashed, technologies evolved, and unexpected players reshaped the industry. 

How much do you know about the systems that tried to compete…and the reasons mainframes still endure? Take the quiz and find out!

1. According to the Arcati Mainframe Survey, most mainframe shops also use cloud services of some sort (AWS, Google, Azure, etc.). What percentage do not?

 
 
 
 

2. According to the Arcati Mainframe Survey, MIPS usage has grown how much in 2022?

 
 
 
 

3. Based on business performance, best-in-class organizations use nearly twice as much mainframe compute capacity than cloud. The winning mix among these top performers includes, on average, what percentage of mainframe usage?

 
 
 
 

4. Compared to their more average-performing counterparts, top business performers across industries use approximately how much more mainframe in their hybrid environment?

 
 
 
 

5. For the largest organizations, moving transactional workloads to the cloud could cost how much of an increase to total cost of ownership (TCO)?

 
 
 
 

0 Comments

Submit a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Sign up to receive the latest mainframe information

This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

Recently Published

Read More

Mainframe Miscellaneous Trivia!

Mainframe Miscellaneous Trivia!

by Sonja Soderlund

As the year draws to a close (whether your days are growing shorter and darker or longer and brighter), December tends to invite a little reflection. Over the past year, Planet Mainframe Trivia has dished out a veritable smorgasbord of topics, from the early days of...

More Mainframe Lingo Trivia

More Mainframe Lingo Trivia

by Sonja Soderlund

Mainframe environments come with their own vocabulary, much of it precise, legacy-rich, and completely opaque to anyone who hasn’t spent time in the ecosystem. And there really is no end to the alphabet soup. Even seasoned professionals pick up new terms over the...

❓ History of Artificial Intelligence Trivia

❓ History of Artificial Intelligence Trivia

by Sonja Soderlund

November at Planet Mainframe is all about AI, and you don’t need us to tell you that artificial intelligence has now been integrated into many of our daily routines. But long before AI became a household term, IBM was shaping the foundations of this increasingly...

Mainframe Artificial Intelligence Quiz

Mainframe Artificial Intelligence Quiz

by Sonja Soderlund

At Planet Mainframe, we’re spending the month of November focusing on AI and the mainframe. Once viewed as separate worlds, AI and IBM Z now work hand in hand to deliver real-time insights, predictive analytics, and intelligent automation across enterprise-scale...