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Mainframe Operators Needed
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?"
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!
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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.