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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?"
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...
Wer mit Ungeheuern kämpft, mag zusehn, dass er nicht dabei zum Ungeheuer wird. --Nietzsche
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?
Geek used to be a four letter word. Now it's a six-figure one.
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.
"History doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme." Mark Twain
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?
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.
Schnapple
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.
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.
You need to restart your computer. Hold down the Power button for several seconds or press the Restart button.