I work as a computer operator for a datacenter which is mandated by Texas law, that all state agencies have to consider using our datacenter to outsource their IT, and provide proof they can do it cheaper.
We have many mainframe agencies which spend millions in hardware and software licensing to IBM. We have one on a Sun E10k, and lots of smaller sun boxes, as well as P680 and P690 IBM 64bit mainframe-class AIX servers. A few Win2k clusters.
Nobody uses linux or other open source operating systems.
I could see the possibility of some of the clients migrating to a Linux solution running on the existing IBM s/390 and z/ mainframes, but this kind of thing would take years, and the beaurocracy is incredibly thick. Changing the -littlest- thing in the operation of these computer systems has to go through so many levels, it is truly ridiculous.
I live outside the city in a small neighborhood with (mostly) retiree-aged people. (I'm 21)
this is a benefit bandwidth-wise because our shiny new 4mbit down/300-ish up cable modems are not really popular with the geriatric crew.
So I can pump several megabits per second, 24x7 with no problem..
my gf who lives in the city, in an apartment complex, and has the same bandwidth plan, has very "laggy" cable. i.e. shitty latency (pings) and dropped packets. And her apartment complex is HEAVY composed of college-aged people.
Apartment complex + 24/7 connection + Kazaa always-on leads to problems for sure
Hey I hear you - but you have to understand the demographics.
The types of places that are running mainframes - have ALWAYS been running mainframes. Thats the whole mentality, dont change anything!! Changing things always means things break, and in the mainframe world, you are looking for 100% uptime.
One of our clients who outsourced their mainframe infrastructure to our datacenter is very bad about this. All of our other mainframe systems are about as automated as they are going to get - the schedules (normally) run on their own with little or no operator intervention.
AF/Operator starts and stops CICS regions and datbases for backups and batch processing, and ties into the job scheduling package. However this one customer we have has nothing automated, and its such a freaking beurocracy, to change one tiny thing in the way we operate their system, it has to go through 3 dozen middle managers who all work for the state government and of course it all gets shot down, 'we dont need no stinkin' automation'
Regardless, you really need to have system operators anyway. Not all mainframe shops can afford massive robotic tape silos, they need someone to mount the gajillion tapes running through the drives all night for batch processing... someone has to call someone when a job abends (no way these places trust their shit to some auto-pager crap) if a job abends on some systems, we have literally minutes to fix it without risking downtime, which costs tens of thousands of dollars every minute a database or CICS is not available to the end user (of which there are tens of thousands spread across the state)
I work for a huge datacenter as a mainframe computer operator. Yeah, the guys doing the systems work are mostly old - 50 years plus, however we have a couple guys on that side who are 30's, 40's - previous operators who got promoted.
but the vast majority of the operations staff is 20-somethings, right out of college or still attending college. We have ONE guy who is 50 something in operations, and he has been operating for many many years, yet still is one of the worst unskilled guys we have. I've been doing this for 3 years and I could run circles around the guy when it comes to troubleshooting and operating MVS or VM. Generally, operators spend a couple of years in operations, then get promoted out, usually these days to the unix side as junior sysadmins. But maybe I will break the mold and be the one 20 something to get promoted and actually stay with the mainframe
this isnt like most places, where you have one system to run, our customers are state government agencies who due to budget cuts had to outsource their mainframe and high end unix IT. We take in their systems and run them, so we have such a variety of systems, it is really a pleasure to work and learn with.
most of our clients are S/390 or z/ running OS/390 2.10, we also have a couple of VM and VM/ESA clients. Some agencies went the Unix route, so we have some Sun enterprise 10k, IBM AIX 64bit massively SMP boxes, etc. But our bread and butter is still the big iron.
I had this same thing.. Cisco has been setting up similar things to give CCNA's to high school students across the country.
The teachers are telling the kids how they can make $40k right out of high school. I got my CCNA thru their school program as a senior
let me tell you, it is total BULLSHIT. 90% of the people who actually passed the cert (which was only ~50% of the class, me included) will never touch a router at least not for another 5 years. and they WONT find a $40k job out of high school working on cisco equipment, especially with the current IT economy
I was lucky and landed a job out of high school in 2000 when the economy was still decent, I work as a mainframe computer and high-end 64-bit unix machine operator in a large computer datacenter (also the webmaster for our datacenter). I was the last person they hired without a degree, now they wont even consider u unless you have a degree AND working IT experience. CCNA's are now worthless thanks to cisco flooding the market with no-knowledge high school punks who think they are the shit because they vaguely know what "config t" is
Agreed.. I am a Master Console Operator at a large enterprise scale datacenter serving over 13 state govt agencies (alcohol commision, criminial justice, mental health, education agency etc)
Some of the clients are IPL'd every sunday, but others only IPL when they HAVE to because of their 24/7 critical database. thus they are ipl'd only a few times a year for critical updates or emergencies. NOTE - an IPL is a reload of a particular LPAR on the mainframe. often there are seperate LPARS or other machines in a sysplex that will pick up the load when the primary is being IPL'd, so 100% uptime for a whole year is very attainable
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I work as a computer operator for a datacenter which is mandated by Texas law, that all state agencies have to consider using our datacenter to outsource their IT, and provide proof they can do it cheaper.
We have many mainframe agencies which spend millions in hardware and software licensing to IBM. We have one on a Sun E10k, and lots of smaller sun boxes, as well as P680 and P690 IBM 64bit mainframe-class AIX servers. A few Win2k clusters.
Nobody uses linux or other open source operating systems.
I could see the possibility of some of the clients migrating to a Linux solution running on the existing IBM s/390 and z/ mainframes, but this kind of thing would take years, and the beaurocracy is incredibly thick. Changing the -littlest- thing in the operation of these computer systems has to go through so many levels, it is truly ridiculous.
I live outside the city in a small neighborhood with (mostly) retiree-aged people. (I'm 21)
/300-ish up cable modems are not really popular with the geriatric crew.
this is a benefit bandwidth-wise because our shiny new 4mbit down
So I can pump several megabits per second, 24x7 with no problem..
my gf who lives in the city, in an apartment complex, and has the same bandwidth plan, has very "laggy" cable. i.e. shitty latency (pings) and dropped packets. And her apartment complex is HEAVY composed of college-aged people.
Apartment complex + 24/7 connection + Kazaa always-on leads to problems for sure
amen
respect your operator, for with a couple of commands I can knock you off, revoke your id, crash your job, purge its output, and nuke your database.
if i was so inclined of course...
we had one user who always had mountains of print and was quite imaptient.
she brought us pies. we still purposely delayed bringing her the freakin print. =P
Hey I hear you - but you have to understand the demographics.
The types of places that are running mainframes - have ALWAYS been running mainframes. Thats the whole mentality, dont change anything!! Changing things always means things break, and in the mainframe world, you are looking for 100% uptime.
One of our clients who outsourced their mainframe infrastructure to our datacenter is very bad about this. All of our other mainframe systems are about as automated as they are going to get - the schedules (normally) run on their own with little or no operator intervention.
AF/Operator starts and stops CICS regions and datbases for backups and batch processing, and ties into the job scheduling package. However this one customer we have has nothing automated, and its such a freaking beurocracy, to change one tiny thing in the way we operate their system, it has to go through 3 dozen middle managers who all work for the state government and of course it all gets shot down, 'we dont need no stinkin' automation'
Regardless, you really need to have system operators anyway. Not all mainframe shops can afford massive robotic tape silos, they need someone to mount the gajillion tapes running through the drives all night for batch processing... someone has to call someone when a job abends (no way these places trust their shit to some auto-pager crap) if a job abends on some systems, we have literally minutes to fix it without risking downtime, which costs tens of thousands of dollars every minute a database or CICS is not available to the end user (of which there are tens of thousands spread across the state)
I work for a huge datacenter as a mainframe computer operator. Yeah, the guys doing the systems work are mostly old - 50 years plus, however we have a couple guys on that side who are 30's, 40's - previous operators who got promoted.
but the vast majority of the operations staff is 20-somethings, right out of college or still attending college. We have ONE guy who is 50 something in operations, and he has been operating for many many years, yet still is one of the worst unskilled guys we have. I've been doing this for 3 years and I could run circles around the guy when it comes to troubleshooting and operating MVS or VM. Generally, operators spend a couple of years in operations, then get promoted out, usually these days to the unix side as junior sysadmins. But maybe I will break the mold and be the one 20 something to get promoted and actually stay with the mainframe
this isnt like most places, where you have one system to run, our customers are state government agencies who due to budget cuts had to outsource their mainframe and high end unix IT. We take in their systems and run them, so we have such a variety of systems, it is really a pleasure to work and learn with.
most of our clients are S/390 or z/ running OS/390 2.10, we also have a couple of VM and VM/ESA clients. Some agencies went the Unix route, so we have some Sun enterprise 10k, IBM AIX 64bit massively SMP boxes, etc. But our bread and butter is still the big iron.
actually... I was watching some vcd's of the television series "24" on Fox.
some counter terrorist agent was sent to investigate some trasactions on a suspect's pc. he told someone he was going to have to 'hack some passwords'
proceeded to whip out his US-goverment issued USB pen, plugged it into the usb port, and bingo - instant 'root' access.
I had this same thing.. Cisco has been setting up similar things to give CCNA's to high school students across the country.
The teachers are telling the kids how they can make $40k right out of high school. I got my CCNA thru their school program as a senior
let me tell you, it is total BULLSHIT. 90% of the people who actually passed the cert (which was only ~50% of the class, me included) will never touch a router at least not for another 5 years. and they WONT find a $40k job out of high school working on cisco equipment, especially with the current IT economy
I was lucky and landed a job out of high school in 2000 when the economy was still decent, I work as a mainframe computer and high-end 64-bit unix machine operator in a large computer datacenter (also the webmaster for our datacenter). I was the last person they hired without a degree, now they wont even consider u unless you have a degree AND working IT experience. CCNA's are now worthless thanks to cisco flooding the market with no-knowledge high school punks who think they are the shit because they vaguely know what "config t" is
you forgot Be(OS) !
Agreed.. I am a Master Console Operator at a large enterprise scale datacenter serving over 13 state govt agencies (alcohol commision, criminial justice, mental health, education agency etc)
Some of the clients are IPL'd every sunday, but others only IPL when they HAVE to because of their 24/7 critical database. thus they are ipl'd only a few times a year for critical updates or emergencies. NOTE - an IPL is a reload of a particular LPAR on the mainframe. often there are seperate LPARS or other machines in a sysplex that will pick up the load when the primary is being IPL'd, so 100% uptime for a whole year is very attainable