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Technology

Mainframe Operators Needed 640

Posted by timothy from the reliable-transportation-and-3-references dept.
blueforce writes "Computer World is reporting that there's a shortage of skilled mainframe workers on the horizon. Quote: "Getting IT professionals, especially young ones, interested in learning mainframe work isn't easy." No kidding. While I've never worked on a mainframe, I have worked on AS/400's. 3 words - Mind Numb ing. Perhaps it's time for a more long-term solution to the problem. Interesting nonetheless. Who'da thunk it - a shortage in IT. What's next, COBOL?"
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Mainframe Operators Needed More

Mainframe Operators Needed

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  • mainframes.. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by scovetta ( 632629 ) on Wednesday March 26, 2003 @06:23PM (#5600690) Homepage
    The problem is lack of specialized talent. In neither undergraduate nor graduate school (graduated last year) was a single mainframe course offered. The "old timers" who work on mainframes here are their own special group-- very few people are brought in, and certainly it would be a good idea to change this, since mainframes are years ahead of PCs in terms of hardcore OS technology. If colleges didn't focus so strongly on learning VB and Office, maybe CS degrees would mean as much as they used to...

    • Only part of the issue (Score:5, Interesting)

      by msobkow ( 48369 ) on Wednesday March 26, 2003 @06:41PM (#5600869) Homepage Journal

      That's only part of the issue. I didn't learn squat about sysadmin tasks in University, because the focus is on teaching you how to think about software development, not how to use a particular tool or platform -- that's what tech schools are for.

      A far bigger issue, as was already pointed out, is the mind-numbing tedium of being a mainframe operator. Alas, the same applies to being an operator on any system, as your main job is to swap media for backups, stock the print servers, and act as remote fingers when support staff call in on a page.

      Regardless of platform, the only operators I knew who were happy with the job were middle-aged people who were more concerned about job stability than job challenge/fullfillment. Many of them were highly skilled, knew more about the systems than the developers, and would have made good developers. They just didn't want the pressure and insecurity that comes outside the data center.

      As to "learning VB and Office", it sounds more like a tech school than a university. I've never heard of VB or Office being considered part of the programming course on a university campus. I have seen it offered as a half-credit course to help out students who have no prior experience with basic office automation tools, but who need the basics in order to be able to prepare and submit their coursework.

      Another issue with getting people to consider a career as an operator is that the job stability is a smokescreen. Who wants to take a job for lower pay, that has little or no challenge to it, requires dealing with pissed-off user managers, and is subject to termination whenever someone gets a brain-fart about "saving" by outsourcing?

      • Playing BOFH is fun!

      • Re:Only part of the issue (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Slime-dogg ( 120473 ) on Thursday March 27, 2003 @12:07AM (#5603380) Journal

        I know plenty of older guys (my dad included) that need jobs. My dad can do mainframe stuff, but he used to do primarily embedded work. The shortage will last only as long as companies insist on hiring young people instead of older ones. Sure, I'm young, but I've noticed that the young ones tend to be very arrogant, ignorant, and sometimes downright stupid. When you see the median age at Microsoft, you shouldn't have to wonder why they have so many problems with buffer overruns, and bounds checking.

        My dad's been coding for years and years and years. He had trouble trimming his resume down to 2 pages, having been a consultant. People still won't hire him, mostly because he's pushing 60. Sure, he'll cause higher insurance premiums, he may not last 40 years with the company (as if many young ones would), but he can still contribute skills that have had 30 years of refining...

        God Damn H-R departments.

    • I've been programming for half my life (since I was 8 y/o) in one language or another, and I'm planning on graduating highschool a full year early. I have experience administrating a multi-user server with users ranging from clueless website admins to fellow developers. I also have experience in automotive mechanics and electronics.

      1. How much will a graduate/undergraduate degree affect my eventual wages as a programmer?

      2. If I got an electrical engineering degree instead of a computer science degre
      • FYI - I graduated with a BS in Computer Science 2 years ago, and am now working a job doing system administration on Unix/MS systems. I find this more enjoyable and social than a straight programming job, which makes it more rewarding for me than banging out code.

        Figuring out if you want to be a sysadmin or a programmer is probably a good way to start out.

        As for your questions:

        1. People with MIS degrees make less than CS degrees, and people without a degree make less than MIS degrees. I'd go with CS, a
      • Direct Rectal Extraction (well, okay, not quite -- but I Am Not In College Admissions, I am merely a programmer who's been working at it professionally for 10 years):
        1. Some. Depends on what you wind up doing. A PhD will get you higher wages, but don't do it for the money. One of my professors began his first lecture with the question, "Why are you all here? Why are you CS majors?" One guy obligingly responded, "For the money!" The prof. said, "No! If you were just here for the money, you'd be taking pre-l
    • "maybe CS degrees would mean as much as they used to..."

      Maybe if 4yr colleges allowed students to touch computers PERIOD they would get more experience that they needed.

      -Nick

  • Not quite (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Fujisawa Sensei ( 207127 ) on Wednesday March 26, 2003 @06:23PM (#5600700) Journal

    Bull. I know plenty of out of work Mainframers, these guys have 20-30 years of experience. Guess what, nobody wants them because of H1B, or they are offering something like 50K.

    • Operators are not highly paid, nor have they ever been. 50K USD for an operator would be a fantasy in many shops, regardless of platform.

      The good mainframers I've worked with over the years have rounded out their skills with Java, J2EE, *nix, C/C++, shell scripting, front-end office automation, etc. For that matter, I've never met anyone I respect who focused on only one platform or technology -- it results in too narrow a mindset about how problems might be tackled. It is an absolute joy to have one

  • Why would it be mind-numbing? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Effugas ( 2378 ) on Wednesday March 26, 2003 @06:24PM (#5600709) Homepage
    I don't entirely understand why mainframe work should be much more mind-numbing than point-and-click or shell-hopping. Would somebody with AS/400 experience explain what makes administration of the machines completely non-automatable, and thus requiring massive amounts of repetitive input?

    --Dan

    • Re:Why would it be mind-numbing? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Dr Caleb ( 121505 ) on Wednesday March 26, 2003 @06:35PM (#5600812) Homepage Journal
      Mostly due to their reliability.

      I administer several AS/400's, and if it weren't due to the Win2K domain I also administer, I'd have nothing to do.

      AS/400's just run. I take an hour or so to go through the backup logs - which are mostly automated now. I just search for "Not Saved" and check that the value is zero. Anything else, I investigate. I check the logs for break in attempts and any severe errors.

      They do have some tasks that people just must do. Someone with "QSECOFR" or 'root' authority must check the message logs to make sure no processes are looped, or that pool memory isn't all used etc.

      Every once in a while the lock tab on a backup tape will get flipped (anyone who uses a Magstar 3570 know what I mean - Arrrrg!), and the machine will be in a restricted state come morning. Then all hell breaks loose until you kill the backup processes and restart subsystems so people can work. There are just some things that need a human decision.

      • Simple obvious answer: (Score:5, Funny)

        by burgburgburg ( 574866 ) <splisken06NO@SPAMemail.com> on Wednesday March 26, 2003 @06:46PM (#5600919)
        Add some Windows code:

        Things too reliable? Predictable? Functional? Secure? Just can't find anything to do?

        Windowsize it!
        Just ten lines of Windows code will have you scrambling for hours to try and figure out what in the heck has gone wrong!
        Add twenty lines of Windows code and you've got a month worth of worries on your hands!
        And for the truly daring: A mission-critical Windows application!
        Kiss the wife and kids goodbye! You'll never eat/sleep/bathe in peace again!

        Windowsize it!
        (Not approved for those with heart conditions/risk of stroke/high blood pressure/pregnant)

      • You must work at the same place I do.

        We're in the middle of migrating from an AS/400 office/custom library catalog system to MS Office + MS SQL on W2k.

        I've been here five years, and I don't recall the AS/400 system ever going down. Terminal servers are down, Citrix servers are, Excahnge servers are down... three of four times a week.

        Sure, I don't have to use Officevision any more, but still, I can work pretty fuckin fast with those old apps. I hope to god they keep payroll on them...
        • We're in the middle of migrating from an AS/400 office/custom library catalog system to MS Office + MS SQL on W2k.

          You want to transfer systems to ones that go up and down like a yo-yo? You'll be sorry! I can't blame you for Officevision though...

        • Five 9s is old school. Five reboots a day, that's the cutting edge!

          If the system never goes down, how can upper management ever appreciate your valiant efforts at 3:00 am to restore the essential programs underpinning your whole corporations future? Again?

          Windowsize it! Because you haven't suffered enough!

    • Re:Why would it be mind-numbing? (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      All of this talk is disingenious (and I'm a 25 year UNIX guy). Let's be real for a minute
      • IBM's zSeries has a MTBF of 72 years
      • Mainframes today can run Linux.
      • All languages you can think of run on mainframes. Yes, including Java. (These two ought to help)
      • Most mainframe specific operating systems are extremely secure.
      • Mainframes still provide the highest transactional rates - hands down. Think the airlines could do without them? How about your credit card companies? (For those of you actually old enough t

    • Re:Why would it be mind-numbing? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by bsd_usr ( 140514 ) on Wednesday March 26, 2003 @06:42PM (#5600886) Homepage
      Administration? I never knew there was administration to an AS/400. Ours just runs and runs and runs by magic. It doesn't have problems. It doesn't go down. It just works. Period.

      Okay, seriously. The only work I ever have to do with the AS/400 is maybe kill users off the system when I need to backup. Or, move spool files from queue to queue when a printer gets really busy printing other stuff. AS/400's are built for business number crunching and business data warehousing. That's it, nothing more and nothing less.

      There are no themes to play with on an AS/400. Well, I guess you can change the color of a green screen client access session, but that's about us much themeing as you get. Why? Because it's for working, not playing.

      Most applications on the AS/400 are written in RPG which I bet most people would these days would not like to program in. I don't like it much either so I never bothered to learn it. But you can also use Java to access the data as well.

      But RPG is so powerfull on an AS/400 that you really don't need anything else. You can create screens in RPG, business reports, and more. You can also use RGP to create CGI apps for web based applications. Maybe one day I should learn RPG.

      The hardware support is like no other. Although, working with Twin Axial cabl is a pain in the ass. But, it gets the job done quite well. I have about Twin Ax 40 devices (give or take) on one AS/400. That's terminals and printers. Not counting the numerous RF scanners as well. Not sure how many of those we have. Maybe like 30 or more. I'm also not counting the network printers as well. There's like 5 of those.

      We also have another warehouse which uses our AS/400 through a fractional T-1 private line. They have RF devices there too that use the AS/400.

      It's a workhorse. Nothing more, nothing less. It might not be the fastest of them all. But who cares when you have stability and durability and all the great features of an AS/400.

      Although, like I said before AS/400's are for business. So don't expect to see them in the scientific fields and stuff. I guess for every problem there's a tool. For business, it's the AS/400.

      I guess it can be mind numbing because it isn't very glamorous or fun. It's user interface can be called ugly, but at least it's functional and fast.

    • Re:Why would it be mind-numbing? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Nate237 ( 10740 ) <nate237@g[ ]l.com ['mai' in gap]> on Wednesday March 26, 2003 @06:43PM (#5600893) Homepage
      I've spent the last two years trying to get up to speed on OS/390, and I'm still very green.

      It is a different world altogether.

      Take a look at Unix, DOS, and Windows. Many of the concepts are similar. You have files, directories, fairly straight forward users and groups, etc. Even MacOS is similar in some ways, like having a directory hiearchy, files, and so on.

      In the mainframe world (btw, an AS/400 is midrange, not a mainframe), its a whole different ballgame. The concept of a filesystem is not the same. You have PDSs (partitioned datasets), libraries (similar), and sequential datasets. PDSs are entities that contain members (like files). PDSs can not have PDSs in them, so there isn't a hierarchy.

      OS/390 and z/OS do have OpenEdition, which is the Unix part of the operating system. It uses HFS (hierarchical file system), which is more like the standard Unix file/directory system.

      Things are put into motion by submitting jobs. These jobs are written in JCL (job control language). The jobs are submitted to JES2 or JES3 (Job Entry System), which is the subsystem responsible for job control.

      On top of all of that, there are several other subsystems. You'll usually see security handled by IBM's RACF, CA's ACF2, or CA's TopSecret. Then there are other subsystems such as CICS, CA-IDMS, or IMS that have their own programs running within them. Then add products like MQSeries, DB2, Websphere, etc.

      You very rarely, if ever, run into someone who handles all of these components. Almost all shops have separate teams. Maybe a security team that handles RACF or ACF2, a CICS team, DB2 team, and so on.

      I've found the most difficult barrier to learning the mainframe to be the lack of comprehendible documentation and tutorials available on the web. I find myself always having to query others who have years of experience already under their belts, or having to dig deep within IBM's documentation sites, usually into several books at once.
      • Hehe... you mean that all the infomation is not contained in a "Yellow Card"?

        I agree Mainframe is a completely different world.

        JCL by itself is a freightening beast. And that's just the lingo for telling programs to run!

        I went to a school that emphasized mainframes (Northern Illinois University). One of the few advantages is that you get really good at looking things up. (I agree the IBM Doc, while complete, is incredibly hard for looking things up.)
      • If it still exists and you can lay your hands on it, there used to be a manual, something like Job File Control Block, which contains the structures that JCL is (MACRO ASSEMBLER)ed into. It helps to make sense out of peculiarities such as SYSOUT being a DISPOSITION. In ASM (not in the "higher-level" languages) there is RDJFCB or some such that will read the JCL. I have used JCL to control programs, but almost everything you will ever find uses JCL to supply whatever information is missing from the program's

      • I've spent the last two years trying to get up to speed on OS/390, and I'm still very green. It is a different world altogether.

        That was exactly my experience. Starting out in OS/390 is like trying to understand a foreign culture, in a different language. All the subtle little cues that you use to help find your way around a new system are different than you expect them to be.

        There are silly little things, like the fact that the "Enter" key is different from the "Return" key--to enter, you need to use

    • FYI, a mainframe is Nothing like an AS/400. TOTALLY different architecture.

    • Re:Why would it be mind-numbing? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Schnapple ( 262314 ) <tomkidd.gmail@com> on Wednesday March 26, 2003 @08:06PM (#5601437) Homepage
      Here's what's mind-numbing about programming them:

      Imagine coding all day at a screen limited to 20 lines, 80 characters wide, all capital letters, red text on a black background. This is regardless of screen resolution. You can customize colors on your Windows client, but it's pretty much the same. I've downloaded programs into text files to study them for sanity's sake before.

      Imagine no debugging. Just hardcoded write statements.

      Imagine jumping through 1,000 loopholes to recreate test data, only to discover too late that the production data still doesn't work - your code is wrong.

      Imagine top down programming. Structured? Sorta. No object-oriented nature at all. Being punished by people thirty years older than you for trying to use a function or some reusable code. Make a change to a program? Good - now change the 10 others sorta like it.

      Now imagine that suddenly your clientele (college students in my case) suddenly want all their data to be accessible via the web. Now do you chuck the old busted system? No, you instead place more systems on top of it to interface it with your web system. Synchronization? Forget about it. Transactional data over the web? Not gonna happen.

      I'm 26. My colleagues are dinosaurs. I'm getting out as soon as I can. I'm not sure what's gonna happen to this situation in the long run but I don't care.

      My colleague across the room from me is thirty years older than me, is nursing a bad back and refuses to learn anything new. He's the guy with a hammer who sees everything as a nail. He has a bizarre theory that the bad economy is good because it means the COBOL programmers of the world shall rise again (I'm pretty sure JFK and Roswell factor into his theory somewhere). Sad thing is he may be right - only they're rising in India.

      • Re:Why would it be mind-numbing? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by MrPCsGhost ( 148392 ) on Wednesday March 26, 2003 @10:03PM (#5602133)
        This is a person complaining about a mainframer refusing to learn anything new? I'm incensed. Talk about the pot calling the kettle black.

        I'm 34, an administrator on a z900 running OS390, and it rocks. Please explain what's tough about creating test data? I think we get to the root of the problem - "your code is wrong".

        EVERYTHING you complained about above pertains to your coding and the language (COBOL), NOT the platform. On my box, you can do COBOL, Assembler, Java, C, C++, Perl, you name it. All the "programmers" depend on their IDEs to develop their code - they wouldn't know what's going on in there if you gave them a dump. Ooh! Wait! The dump isn't in Java! I'm confused! It's using numbers! What kind of wacky computer is this?

        I've determined that Moore's law is not driven by technical innovation, but simply by the need to keep up with shitty programming.

        I apologize, but this really cheeses me off.

        • OK, the phrase "code is wrong" is misleading. In particular I run part of a Student Info Management System, and we'll have, say, 50,000 bills printed and all look fine - except for one or two. So we'll look at what's unique about these students and we'll recreate them in the system. Or try to. We don't have any way to dump the data of the student into the test system (and since we're a state institution it may be illegal to do so) so we have to recreate everything about the student through the interfaces in

      • Re:Why would it be mind-numbing? (Score:5, Informative)

        by WiPEOUT ( 20036 ) on Wednesday March 26, 2003 @10:17PM (#5602226)
        Now imagine that suddenly your clientele (college students in my case) suddenly want all their data to be accessible via the web. Now do you chuck the old busted system? No, you instead place more systems on top of it to interface it with your web system. Synchronization? Forget about it. Transactional data over the web? Not gonna happen.

        Seeing as my job these last few years has been designing, building and supporting a system that provides web-based access to mainframe transactions, I recommend you do a little more investigation before quitting. Let me give you a starting point: COM Transaction Integrator on Microsoft SNA Server/Host Integration Server.

  • Mainframe workers (Score:5, Funny)

    by guacamolefoo ( 577448 ) on Wednesday March 26, 2003 @06:25PM (#5600711) Homepage Journal
    "Getting IT professionals, especially young ones, interested in learning mainframe work isn't easy."

    No kidding. They need to:

    1. Get old.
    2. Get fat.
    3. Wear rainbow suspenders.
    4. Grow untrimmed beards.
    5. Forswear sex.

    Try selling that to a freshly-minted 22 year old comp sci major.

    GF.
  • Could anyone who's actually done/doing this mind numbing work actually give some more details as to exactly what this work is? It's hard to get any appreciation for just how technical one has to be and just how, uh, appreciative of repitition one has to be.
    • see if this [nova.edu] puts you to sleep. If you somehow managed to stay away reading through that crap, then try this [uofs.edu]
    • The article said they were trying to replace operators. Those are the people who mount tapes and printer paper.

      A study last year by Meta Group Inc. in Stamford, Conn., found that 55% of IT workers with mainframe experience are over 50 years old. Conference attendees, such as Gerald Tucker, the data center operations manager at Foster Farms Inc., one of the largest poultry operations in the U.S., readily agreed with that finding. But he isn't sure what to do to fix the problem.

      Tucker has two mainframe o

      • Mainframe operators do a lot more than just load tapes. They are in charge of maintaining the system and correcting all of the problems before they bring the system to its knees. This is a task similar to Ob/Gen in medicine. Easy, until something goes wrong, then everything goes to hell. On top of good technical skils, they would have to be very knowledgeable about the systems they are administering.
  • 1) Hire vets. People getting out of the service are a good source for these skills. That was where I got my training.

    2) Pay more. Companies have to adjust.

    This just happens to be interesting because it is unusual in this job market. It's nice to know I have some skills that might be in demand if my current job goes away.

  • Still using COBOL, and lots of it (Score:4, Insightful)

    by SonicBurst ( 546373 ) on Wednesday March 26, 2003 @06:28PM (#5600745) Homepage
    We still run a couple of HP3000s...a 928 and a 918. Before that we had another model, I forget which one. In any case, there is 20+ years of custom in-house COBOL programming invested in those systems. Most of that code is still serving its purpose very well. We have started updating the apps and have done some web development with it, but if it works, why change it? The only reason we have even considered migration is because HP has finally pulled the plug on the 3000 line, not because it couldn't serve its purpose. And hey, who doesn't like a half-obscure OS (MPE/ix) running on a 48MHz machine supporting 200+ users?
    • I think they are going to be around awhile longer, but compaines are already starting to migrate to newer languagues. This is one reason why I haven't even considered learning COBOL. I believe its a lot like steel workers. Its a good job, but if you are just starting its better to find another line of work.
    • We have an HP3000 system here where I work (anyone else have exposure to Datatrak?). It is indeed a pretty reliable OS & HW combination, HP DDS drives not included.

      It does feel like a step back in time, though. I'm not the operator of this system, but when I've had to babysit it seems as if there's a lot that could be automated with a better scripting language and some other UNIX-style tools (grep, textuitls, perl).

    • I was kind of shocked to see an Eclipse project intended to support COBOL. Check it out here [eclipse.org]. I wonder if this would be the first ever COBOL IDE.

    • On the note of HP3000 is there a free software version of Business basic? I know a school that is either going to have to buy a complete IS system since the HP3000 is going away.

      They have been using the same code base for 30 years only to have HP abandon them.

      So, repeating the question:

      Is there a free version of business basic out there?
      (i've had no luck googling)
    • The hackers don't like a half-obscure OS (MPE/ix) running on a 48Mhz machine!

      There's no r007k1t for it d00d!
      • Indeed. Just for fun, we have a test machine that sits outside our firewalls. It is HIGHLY amusing to look at the logs. Of course you can filter out the automated attacks, script kiddies, etc....but occasionally you get the cracker types attempting to figure out what the hell they've stumbled on. We run very weak passwords on it (this box is mostly just for fun, and we could care less if it did get rooted), and still most people can't figure out how to get a remote prompt since we use only VT-MGR proto
  • What's next, COBOL?

    ... haven't we been meaning to get rid of those Visual Basic people? Here's a way.

  • What's next, COBOL?

    I wouldn't knock it. Which job do you think you stand a better chance of getting: a C++/Java/C# job that you're qualified for with 500 other qualified applicants competing for the same position, or a Cobol job that you're qualified for with 10 other competing qualified applicants. Which do you think will demand a better salary?

    Jerk.

    • The C++/Java/C# programmer, easy.

      The reason why there are only 10 other competing applicants is because (pick one):

      • Mainframe programming positions get paid an average of 30% less than those for PC/Unix programmers.
      • Everything on a mainframe is harder to do than with a UNIX or PC based system. Programmers get sick of wading through hundreds of modules with names like IEXC056H - as opposed to ParseUserInput.java.
      • Nobody likes COBOL.

      Having experience in the Mainframe world, I can tell you that I

  • Everyone knows robots are cool, so you'll have no shortage of young computer people clamoring to work on the "Cool" AS/400 robo-admin. Even if all they are working on are the routines that tell the fingers what to type on the console...

  • Mainframe Operators (Score:4, Interesting)

    by raydobbs ( 99133 ) on Wednesday March 26, 2003 @06:34PM (#5600800) Homepage Journal
    The problem is that no one teaches mainframe operations in schools, you basically need to learn by being dropped into it - and not screwing up everything. Fewer and fewer businesses are willing to invest in promising new talent to learn these legacy systems, but their own mainframe gurus are retiring or dying off - so eventually this corporations will 'bleed out' skill-wise.

    And no, the mainframe cannot be replaced by a client-server solution. I listened to this moron chant throughout school - mainframes are not dead. REALITY CHECK - there are just some applications where a mainframe makes more sense. Mainframes can handle enormous amounts of data without having to break it up for a cluster, or without being bogged down with I/O like most client-server type solutions. Mainframes are great when you need to handle databases with tons of information in it - and you need to consistantly dig through it. Most machines cannot handle it, and will buckle. Mainframes almost never buckle, unless you are testing new stuff on them (naughty newbie - that's what a test LPAR is for) or you do funky things to them.

  • Of course there aren't going to be too many people interested in working on mainframes - the average person hasn't even seen one. Compare that with the near unbiquitous PC, and you can see why a lot more people go for the "traditional" computer jobs - people can get comfortable and experienced with them without spending a lot of money.

  • The mainframe skills shortage is emerging as subtly as gray hair. It's bumping up training costs and raising concerns among data center managers who wonder how they will replace retiring green-screen wizards with workers weaned on Microsoft and open systems.

    Kinda funny that the article seems to start off by blaming "user friendly" software for the shortage. Is it true that no one tinkers anymore?

    Or perhaps the problem is that recent CS degrees are getting as devorced from the actual running of computers

    • Kinda funny that the article seems to start off by blaming "user friendly" software for the shortage. Is it true that no one tinkers anymore?
      Sure, man, I tinker with my mainframe all the time. It's out in the garage. My electric bill runs about $10,000/month.
      There's zero similarity between your Debian box and a mainframe. One doesn't prepare you for the other.
  • Perhaps it's time for a more long-term solution to the problem.

    I thought the reason this was an issue was because mainframes were a long-term solution to a problem. They're dinosaurs, sure, but remember that dinosaurs ruled the Earth for millions of years before anything smaller or smarter could come take over. Mainframes are solid, reliable, and house very large amounts of very important data that would have been moved to other systems by now, if it were at all easy to do.

    Sure it's easier to get help f
    • If you could get AS/400 training as easily as Oracle/Java training. Then everyone else would too. And the pay scale would adjust accordingly.

  • Quick and Easy Karma? (Score:3, Funny)

    by NickisGod.com ( 453769 ) on Wednesday March 26, 2003 @06:38PM (#5600837)
    Real MCSE's know that real main frames run Windows2000 Server!

    Unix is just DOS with funny application names (ga-new what?)
  • 15 years ago, in college, our uni bought a (then new) IBM SP2 machine (only the 32 processor (2x16) if I recall correctly).

    I had to do my thesis about multiprocessor interval-based polynomial factoring on it. I wasted a solid 3 months finding someone who could get the PVM installed. They had NO skilled personel back then. I can't imagine they will find them now.


    Mainframe experts are a bit like those iraqi weapons of mass destruction. The dudes in charge claim that tey exist, but no-one has ever seen o

  • The problem with mainframes... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Sloppy ( 14984 ) on Wednesday March 26, 2003 @06:40PM (#5600857) Homepage Journal
    ...is that you can't easily learn as a hobbyist. You probably can't play with one at school, either.

    Anyone remember that Woody Allen movie, "Take the Money and Run"?

    Interviewer: Do you have experience operating electronic high speed digital computers?

    Woody: Yes
    Interviewer: Where did you get that experience?
    Woody: My aunt has one.
    This was funny in 1967 and is senseless today, because in 1967, nobody's aunt had a computer. And today, nobody's aunt has a AS/400 sitting around. So the only way to learn is on-the-job, which means there's that chick-an-egg problem of: you can have the job if you have experience, you can get experience if you have the job.

    With PCs today, you just spend an affordable amount of money, and you can start learning.

  • This is something I would be interested in: Working Mainframes. I'm in their target range (20 years old), and would love to at least get some experience in the mainframe arena. Trouble is, I can't just pick one up and play around with it like I do with all of the other technologies I know.

    I am currently a college student, and there is no course on how to run a mainframe. They will teach you the latest and greatest advances in object oriented programming, but when it comes down to how to work mainframes

  • Mindnumbing? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by osxuser-02 ( 604717 ) <davisrc@gm a i l .com> on Wednesday March 26, 2003 @06:45PM (#5600910)
    Why do you consider it mindnumbing? I'm 27, and I've been working with AS/400s for about 4 years. They aren't anymore mindnumbing than running an *nix CLI, or point and clicking all day. On a side note, the AS/400 is quite the machine. I could sit and name all the great things it can do that are better and faster than any Intel system, but it'll still be labeled "mindnumbing" because it doesn't play solitaire.

  • Quite a few years back... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by symbolic ( 11752 ) on Wednesday March 26, 2003 @06:47PM (#5600925)

    When the Mac first came out, I spent about six months reading technical manuals for IBM's OS370. I wanted to actually work with mainframes, but the people that ran the shops acted like it was some holy grail or something, as though you had no chance of setting FOOT in a data center unless you knew a super-secret magic chant or something. I still think the big iron is fascinating, but I've never been quite motivated to resume my interest (the salaries don't really help, either).

    As for C++ programmers - someone made a comment regarding competition among "qualified" c++ programmers. I'd argue that the ability to toss some code into a class so that it compiles with a C++ compiler does NOT a C++ programmer make. If you count only those who know both the language, and how to use it effectively, I'd guess that your competition goes way down.
  • I've worked at banks my entire professional career. They all call their main systems "mainframes." But, considering they're usually just ass-kicking unix or windows 2000 adv. server boxen, what's the difference between the homemade kind?

    Could it be the cash? It certainly appears so, when's the last time you spent $50-100k on a box?

    Does lots of SCSI, RAID and redudant power supplies make a mainframe? Or lots of noise? Lord knows you'll find no louder boxen than those beasts.

    I've worked on all kinds of uni
  • Can't you just have to sprinkle some Magic Server Pixie Dust on it? I thought when used regularly, servers would solve their own problems.
  • They must have good technical skills and be comfortable dealing with repetitive and mundane tasks, said Tucker. "They are usually one or the other," he said.

    The computer world has come a long way in terms of automating mundane tasks while they have stood at one point in time. That is the problem, not the lack of people smart enough to type commands and follow instruction, but dumb enough to be content doing the mudane tasks over and over for their whole life. Automate the monkey tasks. It's not rocket

  • Its Called an ENTERPRISE SERVER (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Kefaa ( 76147 ) on Wednesday March 26, 2003 @06:50PM (#5600961)
    When you compare MVS to UNIX to Linux, and do the math, MVS wins big. Billions of lines of mainframe investment are not going anywhere soon. Billions were spent on making legacy systems Y2k compliant, now that the investment has been made, companies are finding it difficult to call for a re-write.

    IBM saw this coming a while back. The 390 mainframes were renamed Enterprise Server (and we all snickered). However, the enterprise server is now running Linux, Websphere, integration services, websites, ASPs, and the legacy systems with incredible stability.

    It is difficult to find operators because in many mainframe shops the job consists of running print jobs and contacting support staff when alerts occur. It is no longer a career. It would improve if companies started treating it like a first step. Hire some college students or entry level employees and provide a career path to greater opportunity. Isn't that what we all want?

    • Red Hat is trying to catch up to XP in terms of usability and performance, but they just keep falling behind. Now they are trying to trick users into "Red Hat Network" so they can just get updates for Red Hat's own mistakes. Anything to try and make a profit I guess. Sure the ABMers will fall for it, but the rest of us know better.

      Besides MS server 2003 is coming out and will give us so much more functionally than anything Red Hat can hack together. Oh well....you get what you pay for.
  • MIS/CIS probably have very little opportunites compared to CS/EE type ppl. I suspect that many ppl will be more than happy to apply and more importantly, happy to take the jobs. In fact, that may offer them some unique opportunity for these MISers to move into linux away from MS.
  • I'm a second-generation programmer. I'm in my mid-30s, and I've done little more than play Startrek [mobygames.com] on a mainframe terminal... I started out with TRS-80's and followed that track.

    The first generation of programmers would be represented by my mother. She started working with computers before there was even such a thing as a "Computer Science" degree -- she has a Master's in mathematics. She was big iron, all the way... when I was a kid, she showed me the washing-machine hard drives and taught me to play
  • Actually, a local sporting goods chain has been advertising for programmers that are "experts" in Cobol, SQL Server, VB, and IIS to move a legacy system from mainframe to Windows. I taped a 10 foot pole to another 10 foot pole, but still wouldn't touch it.

  • Its not a lack of interest (Score:3, Insightful)

    by jasonditz ( 597385 ) on Wednesday March 26, 2003 @06:59PM (#5601028) Homepage
    Its a lack of opportunities. I for one have some IT experience, and have been passed up over and over for entry level mainframe IT jobs because they want someone who already has experience in it.

    I know plenty of out of work IT people who'd be eager to learn mainframe IT if it meant a job, they just aren't willing to teach it.
  • they have gotten so used to being in a panic because there system isn't stable, they consider a system who requires amost no admenstration to be a problem.

    quite frankly, I would love to have my systems so reliable that they become mind numbing and boring. and predictable.
  • And I will tell you why. Floor space. Data Center Floor space is very expensive. Mainframes are much smaller then they used to be. You can even get a mainframe on a card and run it on a server that fits under your desk. In any case, even with blades, the need for more servers usually gorws faster then floor space and runs ahead of miniturization. With a mainframe, you can run VM (and not the pretend stuff that VMware sells) and MANY Linux sessions ontop of that. Interserver If you don't like the idea

  • Well, _I_ didn't like Mainframes... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by SuperG ( 83071 ) <garth_eNO@SPAMhotmail.com> on Wednesday March 26, 2003 @07:09PM (#5601100)
    In my first job out of University, I was a programmer (not an operator) for the R&D division of a multinational that dealt with mainframes. At 22, not only was I a mainframe systems programmer, but most of the work I was doing wasn't on MVS (the IBM flagship mainfram OS), but VSE, the evil, hunchbacked midget brother of MVS.

    Trust me: ugly. Nasty, nasty, nasty. As other people have pointed out, I didn't do any mainframe courses at University. What I did at this job was read a _lot_ of IBM manuals, and attend a bunch of IBM courses.

    For those that know the territory, I even went on a JCL (Job Control Language) course.

    Basically, for those people used to working and developing in the modern GUI and development tool environment - run in fear. The other people I worked with though pointed out that if you knew this stuff, you would always have a job. Something which this article seems to be higlighting.

    I must point out that in hindsight it was very good experience. Being taught to read mainframe dumps, and having to deal with things every day on the bit and byte level was a great foundation for my continued career.

    I also bailed from the company after being there for just over one year, wanting to get out of the mainfram environment. And trust me - being an operator is WAAAAAY less interesting than being a systems programmer.
    • For what it's worth, OS/400 is a world different from Mainframes. No JCL, a relatively (to mainframes, not to UNIX) friendly UI, and you can run most jobs either interactively or as batch.

      I still prefer UNIX, but after a year of struggling with the AS/400 I can deal with it.

  • Shouldn't that be NMBUSRMNDing?
  • I've now been unemployed for the past 3 months. I'm no longer young (31) but believe me, Id LOVE the opportunity to work with mainframes even if I was coming in at near entry level and doing "mundane, boring, repetitive tasks". However the truth of it is that the entry level jobs are just not being created for people like me. Almost every advertised position requires X years of experience in X number of very specific areas. There are THOUSANDS of *experienced* IT professionals like-me out there RIGHT NOW,

  • I would love to work on mainframes. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by DaveV1.0 ( 203135 ) on Wednesday March 26, 2003 @07:39PM (#5601279) Journal
    But, I can't get a job doing this. I can't find anywhere to provide training. I can't get a job, because everyone wants 3 years experience in everything under the sun.

    Can someone tell me where I can get training and experience when no one is teaching mainframes and no one is hiring unless one has 2-3 years experience?
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Wanna make an AS400 (iSeries) more interesting ... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by marko_ramius ( 24720 ) on Wednesday March 26, 2003 @07:46PM (#5601322)
    Pick 1 or more of the following ...
    • Run some java apps on it ... there is a full blown Java2 1.4 VM available (what better platform to run a Java VM on but one that implements the concept of VM at it's core)
    • Run Linux apps -- Suse, Redhat, & TurboLinux (I think) distros available to run in a logical partition
    • Run Apache2 web servers
    • Run AIX apps on it
    This ain't your father's AS400 ... it's one of the most stable & reliable 64bit computing platforms available.

    btw: Did you know that when IBM changed the CPU on the AS400 from a 48bit CISC system to a 64bit RISC system (PPC based) there was almost zero application programming changes required ... the programs were able to adapt to the new capabilities of the hardware automagically.

    mm

  • Reliability of big iron comes at a whopping cost more than "boxes one must administrate". IBM's licensing and support fees are a significant portion of it.

    I've worked on systems that were 20 years old and I've seen the hacks done to keep the code in tune with business practices. Simply amazing and scary. Today, programming is often about abstraction and reuse. A lot of work goes into this endeavor. Not back then. I'm of course speaking from the specific, but thats my experience.

    I advocating moving t

  • I was a mainframe (S/390) systems programmer (Score:3, Informative)

    by net_bh ( 647968 ) on Wednesday March 26, 2003 @08:00PM (#5601400)

    As someone previously said, It's a different world out there. OS/390 is an amazing OS, we had 5 instances of it running at once on the mainframe (2 production and 3 development regions) and then I installed Linux too :-D

    Initially I was given a measly 5% CPU for my Linux region....but that's more than enough for Linux to make a mark!

    Coming back to the point, the reason for the different world can be summarized in two words - Batch Jobs . So the task of the operators will be to keep staring at the console to look out for requests to load up cartridges (yes, thats the primary backup medium) that a job needs to read stuff off or start some massive printing and computational jobs from time to time. I worked for a large conglomerate, employing more than 30,000 people, so every month the pay-check printing job on huge line printers took about 4 days to complete. Other task included checking DASD usage (mainframe harddrives) to check upcoming shortages , etc.

    Even programming for it was fun, I was primarily in charge of the opensystems portion of it, including Domino Go Webserver, O-MVS (unix) and Linux. But I can understand why there is a shortage of manpower. The cool technology does not hit the mainframe world, so you won't get to work on wireless communications, kernel hacking, etc. I am now a Linux systems programmer and I dont wanna go back too, but it was an experience worth getting.

    Arrgggh..i have been barfing too long...back to work!

  • The cult of the AS/400 (Score:3, Informative)

    by cyranoVR ( 518628 ) <cyranoVR&gmail,com> on Wednesday March 26, 2003 @09:52PM (#5602052) Homepage Journal
    If companies are whining that there is a shortage of AS/400 (or other mainframe) operators out there, then they should blame the mainframe manufacturers for making their products inaccessible, not the young IT people for being uninterested. Believe me, I TRIED to learn about the AS/400, but just finding scraps of information is a chore in itself (aside from superficial marketing crap).

    I have worked at a bank for two years now. Before I arrived, I had never even heard of the AS/400. On my first day my manager took me into the computer room and proudly pointed out what looked like a black dishwasher sitting in the middle of the room. "And this," he smirked, "is our AS/400!"

    I could bore you with stories about how nobody taught me anything, how I had to figure everything out about the vaunted AS/400 just so I could do my fucking job (and subsequently got scolded for "going where I wasn't allowed") and so on, but I won't.

    Instead I'll just say this: whenever I tried to ask my manager or co-workers for an overview of the AS/400, he could only say "oh, it's NOTHING like a PC, it's COMPLETELY different." Me: "okay, but how is it different?" Them: "Oh, it's just different, you wouldn't understand."

    I have come to is that my manager doesn't know jack shit about his beloved AS/400. He knows how to "make it work," and even though he claims to have some sort of certification, IBM obviously just gave him scraps. If you can't explain a technology in 3 sentences, then you probably don't understand it at all.

    But why does he know jack shit, despite working with an AS/400 for 10 years? It is because IBM has purposely kept him uneducated. Everything is hidden in subscription professional sites and bank-account busting certifications from IBM.

    I have searched the web over and over again for information on AS/400 crap. All I can find are IBM's boring information libraries for the "iSeries," mysterious subscription sites for AS/400 "professionals" and this page [storereport.com]. Try finding a book on AS/400 online or at your bookstore. They suck. If you want to wade through the IBM manuals online, be my guest. My suggestion is you do it just before bedtime.

    Ok, MAYBE you could teach yourself to be an AS/400 expert by wading through said manuals...but everyone here who learned about PC administration by wading through a Microsoft manual - or, for that matter, an Intel manual - raise your hand (and we're talking actually black-and-white MANUALS here, folks, not online tutorials or knowledge base articles)...well...still waiting...Thought so.

    My manager has told me that if you want to learn ANYTHING about AS/400, then you should forget about a career in anything else, because you will have to become an AS/400 expert. Who do you think told HIM that? Why, the current AS/400 experts who want to keep their salaries up and the their jobs secure! (natch)

    So here's to the Cult of the AS/400. May you all fade away into well deserved obscurity.

  • Mainframe Operator Management And Opportunities (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Mittermeyer ( 195358 ) on Wednesday March 26, 2003 @10:52PM (#5602473) Homepage
    First, read this [slashdot.org] so you know my background.

    I moved into computer operations management primarily to maintain control of my environment and earn a measly $1.00 more an hour to start. I had been under supervisors who made bad technical decisions in my judgement, and did not like the experience.

    The job was hell on earth, and largely due to the nature of people who choose to do that job. This poster [slashdot.org] got it right, it's basically a haven for people who have the intelligence to do the job and the desire to hide out from a 'normal' job. We are not talking your team players here.

    The 24x7 shifts mean job security, yeah, but also the constant wear and tear on nights and weekends meant anti-social behavior is reinforced amongst people who are self-selecting for it anyway.

    The fact that I was one of them did not help as I wanted to be as lazy and non-team oriented as the rest of them but could not due to my position. I did not start out as a good leader type to begin with, and had to painfully learn the craft of training and stick and carrot with many ugly lessons learned the hard way.

    One of the biggest problems we had was that we could not seriously threaten termination for anything but the most grevious of errors due to the lack of suitable replacements. The systems we run HAVE to run successfully 24x7, no exceptions period. So you cannot just plug in any dweeb with six months of VB/networking at the local community college. So training means standing over them to make sure the processes get done without failure, and takes overtime and care to make sure the mission critical stuff isn't destroyed.

    Getting rational reasonable operators who were good and not insane was a difficult thing to accomplish. I literally had situations where bowling alley managers interviewed for me, and later I had to ask myself if I wouldn't have been better off hiring them instead of the jerk we got.

    I am even now having to deal with the operator conundrum as a sysprog as some new guy screwed up our monthly database reorg apparently because he thinks he is a genius and understood his instructions without asking or calling.

    The solution for our company re: replacement has been to outsource for new operators, try them out to see if they actually know what they are doing, and hire them if they work out.

    There IS an operator advancement process at our company- select operators have made it into my systems area and others become Operations Analysts, doing similar work but more on an operationalized basis rather then systems. The Ops analysts are sharp sharp people and just as good as many of the sysprogs. So those posters who are concerned about ops being dead end should make sure there is a similar path before hiring on.

    The whole experience was probably good for me as a human being as I am more likely to be sympathetic and understanding of both sides of the management and employee experience. But I am very very soured on ever BEING in ops management ever again and I would have to be very very hungry to ever consider it.

    Most ex-ops people I work with feel the same way- it's kind of like helpdesking, it's a job and someone has to do it, but we aren't planning on doing it. And that is your opportunity to grab a job.

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