Mainframe
Mainframes were extremely large, powerful computers that needed to be housed in dedicated, air conditioned rooms. They were used during the late 1950s and 60s as the main way to calculate transactions and statistics for banks and other environments.
Backup
This means copying or replication all of the information on a computer in case there is a technical issue and all of the original information is lost.
Disaster Recovery
This is a process that enables an organisation that has been effected by a disaster to be able to recover information and continue operating. This may entail using the resources of a third party company that will provide facilities such as office space, phone and computers that can then be used by the effected company’s personnel until the company can move back to their own offices.
Migration Plan
This is a process that needs to be followed so that software, applications and data can be transferred from one computer system to another.
RAM
RAM is also known as ‘Random Access Memory’. RAM is volatile memory that only stores information until the computer is switched off. This is unlike a hard disk which will store information indefinitely. The benefit of RAM is that it is much faster to access data that is stored in it, rather than the computer having to access data from the hard disk. As a result, generally the more RAM you have in your computer, the faster it will be.
CPU
The Central Processing Unit processes the information within the computer. This is akin to a car’s engine, so the bigger the engine the faster the car. A computer’s performance will be determined by the CPU within it, the type and how many CPUs it has.
Platform
A platform is the underlying hardware> or software around which a system can be developed and on which applications can run.
Server
A computer program that provides services to other computer programs (and their users), in the same or other computer.