Hi Steve,
You are right, many think that mainframes are already gone. While at SHARE in
Anaheim, I was on the elevator, with a young couple. The man saw my SHARE
badge, remarked that he had seen lots of them and asked what SHARE is. I
explained. Turns out he is an IT professional on the distributed side. He
remembered seeing that IBM commercial a few years back, the one where all of
the servers have been "stolen", but he thought that IBM had switched over to
only making servers now. I told him a bit about the z196. When I told him that
I had not needed to "reboot" my z800 server in over a year and the the last
unplanned outage was caused by a whole building power outage a couple of years
ago, he was amazed. Then he questioned security. We have a service that does
penetration testing on a regular basis. When it was first brought in, all
groups were given 3 weeks to harden their systems. We did no prep - the only
group not to. The mainframe was the only system that wasn't penetrated. I
gave him my card, told him a bit about zNextGen, and said that he might
consider a day pass for SHARE and check it out. I don't know if he did or not.
The fact is, in my shop, the distributed server folks deal with problems not
heard of on the mainframe. When was the last time somebody had to rebuild and
reintall z/OS because the system crashed and corrupted the OS files?
Linda
----- Original Message -----
From: "Steve Comstock" <st...@trainersfriend.com>
To: IBM-MAIN@bama.ua.edu
Sent: Monday, April 4, 2011 7:44:42 AM
Subject: Re: mainframe fresher
On 4/4/2011 7:20 AM, Przemyslaw Kupisz wrote:
> Hello,
>
> It's unbelievably difficult to find a mainframe job with my current
> professional experience so I decided to write this mail as my last try
> to remain in the mainframe world.
>
> If you are looking a guy with my skills and knowledge please write me a
> message.
>
> For more details please follow the link in my signature.
>
> Thanks for your time.
>
Follow the link he supplies. He looks like a bright young
man, the kind we want to sustain our favorite platform
- but he can't find a job. And we on this list know he is
not alone.
This is the kind of reality we face if we don't,
collectively and individually, take positive actions.
Promote z/OS, get current ourselves, tell the stories of cool
things you can do in z/OS. If we (and especially IBM and
the re-marketeers like Mainline and all the ISVs) don't win
the hearts and minds of young management, and even people
outside of the business ("Are they still making mainframes?"),
then how can you tell your children to look for a career in
mainframes?
There are things every one of us can do, but we tend to let
it slide, let it get done by others: it's not my job. But
it is your job, literally, that's on the line.
How long will your career last? Some say it's already too
late. And maybe they are right. But I like to think there is
still some extended potential for z/OS. But we each have to
take on some responsibility for promoting awareness and
appreciation of z/OS, or the window will shut all the way.
Then we all lose.
--
Kind regards,
-Steve Comstock
The Trainer's Friend, Inc.
303-393-8716
http://www.trainersfriend.com
* To get a good Return on your Investment, first make an investment!
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