Lately I've been reading about mainframes as I have to write this wonderful essay about whether or not they have a future. Joy. Here are some odd terms I've come across.

Kneecapping

Let's try not to make our sysadmins sound like homicidal maniacs.

"Some mainframes have models or versions that are configured to operate slower than the potential speed of their central processors. This is widely known as kneecapping, although IBM prefers the term capacity setting, or something similar."
From the Red Book

Parallel Sysplex

We have to make this sound insanely cool.

I guess the suggestion to call it a Mainframe Cluster didn't go down too well in the board meeting. However Parallel Sysplex has all the key features of an awesome tech name: it's made of a several other tech words merged together to give something which sounds cool and expensive but is completely meaningless. I mean, what is a Sysplex? Hmm, if Googlers work in a Googleplex, does that mean we keep our sysadmins in a Sysplex? I know I'd sure like to work somewhere with a name as cool as that.