Did anyone else notice that while all the articles provided the time that the impact would happen, none provided a time zone reference so that those who want to plan to watch it know what time they need to be outside with their telescope? Just my 2 cents on the reporting.....
Having worked on both sides of the IT vs Business user / programmer fence, I think any measure of the success of IT needs to include some form of customer satisfaction. This is important because IT's customers tend to be internal and most customer satisfaction queries are focused on external customers.
I've seen battle lines drawn between IT and everyone else, and nobody wins because energies are focused on battling with the other side instead of finding ways to help the company make money. While I understand that IT's responsibility is to the infrastructure, it should be done in a way that makes it easy for their customers (the rest of the company) to do their jobs quickly and efficiently.
1 - install new version of favorite distro (currently Ubuntu) 2 - use package manager to install any additional apps 3 - Use and enjoy!
This process takes me about 2 - 4 hours, including time to download and burn the iso, and does not require a backup of my home mount point because it sits on a seperate physical drive (actually SATA RAID array) in my box which I simply reference and mount during the install.
From my limited experience I have found that in larger companies the process of producing new code is much more important to the company than the code itself regardless of what language it is written in, whereas in smaller comanies the reverse is true. So my advice boils down to this, if you appriciate a strong software development process and enjoy having your work process being defined, go for the.net job. If you would rather have a more unstructured work process and environment (in more than one way per your original post), go for the Perl job.
First, I am not your typical Mainframe admin / programmer, as I am 27 and a relitave expert on mainframe constructs like JES, JCL, SMF, SMS, and RACF. From my 5 years of experience working in the mainframe operations group I've noticed the following differences and similarities from Linux (I'm a home user) and Windows (my work laptop):
- The mainframe is highly structured in it's change management procedures. This is an artifact of how long mainframes have been around. The procedures support the mainframe's goal of 24x7x365 uptime.
- Due to the high level of structure, there are usually at least 3 groups (often times many more depending on the size of the orginization) that are responsible for the mainframe: System programmers, Operators, and Application programmers. Each fills a very specific role in the operation of a mainframe system.
System programmers are typically responsible for the health of the operating system, and installing new system wide applications from vendors. The nearest match for system programmers is a Unix admin or windows admin.
Operators provide the 24x7x365 support aspect, making sure that the hardware is healthy, jobs are running, and important business applications remain available or come up on schedule. Operators may also be responsible for the scheduling package, and security. Again in the Unix world, this is equivalent to the system administrator. The operator position originated because mainframes at one time required people to run around and physically mount tapes and disk drives, and to spite automation that takes care of these tasks, the position remains.
The final group, application programmers, are what are most frequently though of when talking about a mainframe. They tend to work in languages like COBOL, CICS, DB2 stored procedures, and on occasion Asembly. Their role is to produce the online and batch applications that process the transactions that make the company money. App deveopers on the MF tend to be very carefull about testing code to ensure the proper result because first it could hurt the bottom line, but mroe importantly the operations group won't let it run in production with out assurances that it will run smoothly.
- Mainframes have been built from the begining for reliability, availability. scaleability, and performance. IBM accomplished this by virtualizing everything. This virtualization allowed IBM to have duplicate pieces of hardware internally double checking each other. For example, every instruction is run thru two physical CPU's at the same time, and if the result is different, the diagnostic code kicks in, disable the CPU that's incorrect, and calls IBM to replace it. This method of RASP is very different from what you see in the windows and unix world where multiple machines are load balanced with geographic redundancy, and if 1 box fails, the others pick it up.
- Operationally, in a windows or Unix/Linux world if you need to run sumething you just run it. In the mainframe context you submit it in a job to JES. JES (Job Execution Stream) is a resource manager that manages all the mainframe resources for executing jobs and tasks. The biggest difference is that on a mainframe yor job or task may not start running immediately if resources are not available, unlike Unix or Windows where it will start taking time away from already running tasks.
- Development on the mainframe is usually given very low priority for resources, in order to ensure that the production onlines and batch get everything that they need. Where Linux and Unix have 40 levels of priority (20 to -20) The mainframe has virtually unlimited priorities, because the system programmer jugles CPU, DASD (disk to the uninitiated), tape, and resource wait information to determine the real time priority of a particular task using relitavely sophisticated algorithms to do so. Because of this the system can be tuned very specifically to give the most resources to the tasks which earn the company the most money.
The company you work for has a serious problem, and as many others have said before, go see a lawyer about this. The company I work for found a way to keep it's employees safe while maintaining productivity by providing VPN capibilities to us, and having non essentials telecommute when the weather gets bad. (It also makes life easier when I get that 2a support call)
Additionally it may not be a bad idea to search for a new job where your safety is a concern for the company...
Re:Warning: Vaporware Company Detected
on
The Universal Card
·
· Score: 1
You may not have enough cards to justify the device, but the average business traveler does. Even if they only use it for all of their hotel, car rental, resturant, and airline discount / membership cards ignoring the credit card(s) (most business travelers only cary one) it's made their lives much easier by thining their wallets or purses significantly, much in the same way your universal remote makes life easier for you.
The reason They didn't go the route of a one size fits all smart card soloution is because that requires new infrastructure for the retailers, which typically has a long adoption period. This device interfaces with exsisting card based technologies that are in use today, which makes it a much easier sell to consumers and merchants alike.
Given how the IBM mainframe archectucture is constructed, in order to get data they would have needed to steal a storage device, not the mainframe itself. This is because the mainframe box itself only contains the CPU's and volitile memory, with fibre channel connections out to everything else.
The unit I work for has a policy of hiring new tech staff via a temp agency first, so if they don't work out they're easy to get rid of... I don't think it's the best way to do things, but depending on your situation it just might work.
I believe that maggard is right about schools not doing their part in the information age, and teaching kids how to effectively use search engines, espically considering the fact that many schools are moving towards electronic card catalogs.
I personally am self taught in the 'art' of searching the net. this includes using boolean operators and as previously mentioned, the use of quotes around phrases. Why can't schools teach these usefull skills?
Slashdot Mirror
Did anyone else notice that while all the articles provided the time that the impact would happen, none provided a time zone reference so that those who want to plan to watch it know what time they need to be outside with their telescope? Just my 2 cents on the reporting.....
Having worked on both sides of the IT vs Business user / programmer fence, I think any measure of the success of IT needs to include some form of customer satisfaction. This is important because IT's customers tend to be internal and most customer satisfaction queries are focused on external customers.
I've seen battle lines drawn between IT and everyone else, and nobody wins because energies are focused on battling with the other side instead of finding ways to help the company make money. While I understand that IT's responsibility is to the infrastructure, it should be done in a way that makes it easy for their customers (the rest of the company) to do their jobs quickly and efficiently.
I'm a Linux user, so the process is simple:
1 - install new version of favorite distro (currently Ubuntu)
2 - use package manager to install any additional apps
3 - Use and enjoy!
This process takes me about 2 - 4 hours, including time to download and burn the iso, and does not require a backup of my home mount point because it sits on a seperate physical drive (actually SATA RAID array) in my box which I simply reference and mount during the install.
From my limited experience I have found that in larger companies the process of producing new code is much more important to the company than the code itself regardless of what language it is written in, whereas in smaller comanies the reverse is true. So my advice boils down to this, if you appriciate a strong software development process and enjoy having your work process being defined, go for the .net job. If you would rather have a more unstructured work process and environment (in more than one way per your original post), go for the Perl job.
First, I am not your typical Mainframe admin / programmer, as I am 27 and a relitave expert on mainframe constructs like JES, JCL, SMF, SMS, and RACF. From my 5 years of experience working in the mainframe operations group I've noticed the following differences and similarities from Linux (I'm a home user) and Windows (my work laptop):
- The mainframe is highly structured in it's change management procedures. This is an artifact of how long mainframes have been around. The procedures support the mainframe's goal of 24x7x365 uptime.
- Due to the high level of structure, there are usually at least 3 groups (often times many more depending on the size of the orginization) that are responsible for the mainframe: System programmers, Operators, and Application programmers. Each fills a very specific role in the operation of a mainframe system.
System programmers are typically responsible for the health of the operating system, and installing new system wide applications from vendors. The nearest match for system programmers is a Unix admin or windows admin.
Operators provide the 24x7x365 support aspect, making sure that the hardware is healthy, jobs are running, and important business applications remain available or come up on schedule. Operators may also be responsible for the scheduling package, and security. Again in the Unix world, this is equivalent to the system administrator. The operator position originated because mainframes at one time required people to run around and physically mount tapes and disk drives, and to spite automation that takes care of these tasks, the position remains.
The final group, application programmers, are what are most frequently though of when talking about a mainframe. They tend to work in languages like COBOL, CICS, DB2 stored procedures, and on occasion Asembly. Their role is to produce the online and batch applications that process the transactions that make the company money. App deveopers on the MF tend to be very carefull about testing code to ensure the proper result because first it could hurt the bottom line, but mroe importantly the operations group won't let it run in production with out assurances that it will run smoothly.
- Mainframes have been built from the begining for reliability, availability. scaleability, and performance. IBM accomplished this by virtualizing everything. This virtualization allowed IBM to have duplicate pieces of hardware internally double checking each other. For example, every instruction is run thru two physical CPU's at the same time, and if the result is different, the diagnostic code kicks in, disable the CPU that's incorrect, and calls IBM to replace it. This method of RASP is very different from what you see in the windows and unix world where multiple machines are load balanced with geographic redundancy, and if 1 box fails, the others pick it up.
- Operationally, in a windows or Unix/Linux world if you need to run sumething you just run it. In the mainframe context you submit it in a job to JES. JES (Job Execution Stream) is a resource manager that manages all the mainframe resources for executing jobs and tasks. The biggest difference is that on a mainframe yor job or task may not start running immediately if resources are not available, unlike Unix or Windows where it will start taking time away from already running tasks.
- Development on the mainframe is usually given very low priority for resources, in order to ensure that the production onlines and batch get everything that they need. Where Linux and Unix have 40 levels of priority (20 to -20) The mainframe has virtually unlimited priorities, because the system programmer jugles CPU, DASD (disk to the uninitiated), tape, and resource wait information to determine the real time priority of a particular task using relitavely sophisticated algorithms to do so. Because of this the system can be tuned very specifically to give the most resources to the tasks which earn the company the most money.
The company you work for has a serious problem, and as many others have said before, go see a lawyer about this. The company I work for found a way to keep it's employees safe while maintaining productivity by providing VPN capibilities to us, and having non essentials telecommute when the weather gets bad. (It also makes life easier when I get that 2a support call)
Additionally it may not be a bad idea to search for a new job where your safety is a concern for the company...
The reason They didn't go the route of a one size fits all smart card soloution is because that requires new infrastructure for the retailers, which typically has a long adoption period. This device interfaces with exsisting card based technologies that are in use today, which makes it a much easier sell to consumers and merchants alike.
Given how the IBM mainframe archectucture is constructed, in order to get data they would have needed to steal a storage device, not the mainframe itself. This is because the mainframe box itself only contains the CPU's and volitile memory, with fibre channel connections out to everything else.
The unit I work for has a policy of hiring new tech staff via a temp agency first, so if they don't work out they're easy to get rid of... I don't think it's the best way to do things, but depending on your situation it just might work.
so are we as techies going to fix theis problem, or just wait for the public to get smarter (which may never happen)?
PS - fp
You could archive it to CD or DVD with a jukebox. that would probably solve your access time problem, but you'd need alot of them....
Why would anyone want to be a Minesweeper & Solitare Consultant / Expert?
Just out of curiosioty, did you read satire wire's disclaimer about all stories posted on the site?
I believe that maggard is right about schools not doing their part in the information age, and teaching kids how to effectively use search engines, espically considering the fact that many schools are moving towards electronic card catalogs.
I personally am self taught in the 'art' of searching the net. this includes using boolean operators and as previously mentioned, the use of quotes around phrases. Why can't schools teach these usefull skills?