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More Mainframe Lingo Trivia

Dec 15, 2025

Trivia

More Mainframe Lingo

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.

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 course of their careers, as z/OS, CICS, DB2, and related tools continue to evolve.

This quiz offers you a  chance to check how far down the mainframe rabbit hole you’ve gone—and how familiar you are with the terminology that comes up in real-world mainframe work, from operations and monitoring to database management and workload handling. Go ahead and see how well you do!

1. In a z/OS environment, what does an LPAR primarily provide?

 
 
 
 

2. What is the primary role of WLM?

 
 
 
 

3. In mainframe terminology, what is an SMF record used for?

 
 
 
 

4. What does the term “IPL” refer to?

 
 
 
 

5. What is the function of JES2?

 
 
 
 

6. In CICS, what is a transaction ID (TranID)?

 
 
 
 

7. What does VSAM primarily manage?

 
 
 
 

8. In DB2 for z/OS, what is a buffer pool?

 
 
 
 

9. What is zIIP used for?

 
 
 
 

10. In mainframe networking, what is TN3270?

 
 
 
 

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