A server is a computer system that responds to requests such as proving information across a computer network to help or provide a network service set across the organization’s computers. Servers are run on a dedicated computer that has the capability of hosting many networked computers; are connected using Local Area Network (LAN) or Wide Area Network (WAN). Mainframe computers are computers used primarily by corporate and governmental organizations for critical applications and bulk data processing. Mainframes are the large cabinets that house the central processing unit and main memory.

Mainframe computer system’s architectures provide high hardware capacity and computational utilization rates to support massive load. Mainframe computers allow the possibility of handling large amount of data quickly and accurately. Mainframes are stored in large climate-controlled room and require a technical staff to maintain, run and program them according to the requirements.

Servers are used to provide different types of services to a number of connected computers through internet. There are different types of servers to provide different types of services such as Web servers, Mail servers, Print server, File servers, and Network servers. A Web server is a computer that uses HTTP protocol to send web pages to a computer on request. Mail servers manage mails, by sending, receiving and storing facilities. Print servers manage one or more printers, and print files sent to the server by the computers. File servers store and retrieve files that are requested by the users handling different computers individually and Network computers manage network traffic. 

2 . Servers and Mainframes Market Current Trends

As the thousands of network computers are supported by large organizations, mainframes handle the complicated high scalable processing. With several dozen central processors in function, a mainframe can address a large amount of data at high speed. IBM is the oldest and dominant mainframe vendor and known for enormous throughput with exceptional offloading of its input/output processing.

For high volume processing, mainframes are used but since recent times companies are buying into investing more in multiple number of servers instead of one mainframe. For servers, it is the cost effectiveness a key factor along with less space acquirement and less energy consumption whereas mainframes require large rooms and consume more energy while costing higher. Due to the fact that servers use modern languages such as php, mysql whereas mainframe’s programming requires the use of large format languages such as Cobol and Fortran. As servers allow operations at the fraction of the maintenance and support costs of mainframes, most companies prefer to switch entirely to server operations.

According to International Data Corporation (IDC), worldwide server market increased to $14.6 billion year over year at 3.1% in the fourth quarter of 2012. Worldwide server shipments decreased 3.9%. For the full year 2012, worldwide server revenue decreased 1.9% to $51.3 billion when compared to 2011, while worldwide unit shipments decreased 1.5% year over year to 8.1 million units.

Global high performance computing server market to grow at a CAGR of 6.28 percent over the period 2012-2016 according to a research report. And one of the key factors contributing to this market growth is the increase in big data.

Gartner estimates that annual global sales of mainframes has been falling since 2012 year and each year through 2016, declining a total of 14% over the five years to nearly $4.7 billion. According to Gartner analyst Jeffery Hewitt said that current mainframe customers are likely to stick with the technology. Members of this group include government agencies, financial services companies and other businesses that require tremendous computing power, extreme speed and very high reliability for certain tasks such as processing credit card transactions and the grids through which electricity and telecommunications flow are largely handled by mainframes. Demand would grow for the less expensive servers running on x86 chips from companies like Intel Corp and Advanced Micro Devices Inc. Software markers have even developed technology in the recent years that enables companies to combine those servers into clusters capable of managing some tasks once handled only by mainframes. 

3 . Major Servers and Mainframes Players

Major companies that manufacture and produce servers and mainframes include IBM, HP, Cisco, Dell, Oracle and Fuzitsu.