That's about what I would say too - at least a month. Of course it's
easy to figure out things like TMS vs. RMM, RACF vs. TSS, etc. and the
different naming conventions, install methods, and where's the CSI. But
what about the overall view, like how do they do their DR tests, what
prod freeze dates are undocumented, what change control methods are
needed, which LPARs do what, etc. That all takes time and if you don't
know, you can appear pretty green.
But I admit there are people who can swap jobs at a moment's notice and
pick things up with a few questions. Those are probably the best of the
bunch. For example, I once heard Gilbert Saint-flour wrote SHOWMVS to
give him a quick overview of a site he just started working at - all the
basics in one report.
On 2/17/2023 4:08 PM, Steve Beaver wrote:
At least a month depending on what is falling in your court. And assuming that
zOSMF is functional. Are products current. I just depends
Sent from my iPhone
No one said I could type with one thumb
On Feb 17, 2023, at 17:35, Mark Zelden <m...@mzelden.com> wrote:
Wow! I think I'm pretty good and I would never say "1 day". Even back when
I was consulting
full time at different small-ish clients it normally took a few days to get
into the groove and figure out
the local environment. And that's with bringing all my own tools to help
figure things out
because they are rarely documented well as someone wrote. Even if things are
documented,
each site has naming conventions, processes and procedures that are unique.
Figuring out and
learning all the red tape takes longer than one day! Back at that time I did a
lot of jumping
around to different clients there were usually local sysprogs around and they
didn't want to
help a consultant anyway. So someone helping / volunteering information would
make it a
bit easier. I still run into that today with people that think it is job
security to share information
or purposely don't document something. I always felt it was my duty and it
also let me
move onto other things if someone could do what I was doing easy enough with
proper
documentation.
Today, I work in an environment with 8 sysplexes, 30 LPARs, different standards
for things
in different sysplexes. I've often wondered how long it would take a good
experienced
sysprog to be productive in it. Not a "superstar". What I deal with is
"experienced"
off shore resources that typically have 6-8 years of z/OS system programming and
even with a ton of documentation about everything they still aren't productive
at all
for 6 months and it takes another 6 months before they're doing real work. I'm
not
talking about being able to do parmlib APF and LNKLST updates. I'm referring to
being able to install, configure and roll out software upgrades (not just
installing
PTFs) across a large complex environment without breaking something. And
hardware? Forget it... they don't have a clue.
And my comments above refer to "OS" system programming. Other areas like
CICS, DB2, MQ, Network have similar challenges but the local learning curve is
probably half or less than half.
Regards,
Mark
--
Mark Zelden - Zelden Consulting Services - z/OS, OS/390 and MVS
ITIL v3 Foundation Certified
mailto:m...@mzelden.com
Mark's MVS Utilities: http://www.mzelden.com/mvsutil.html
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