"Schuh, Richard" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>On the other hand, many companies have their heads buried in the sand
>when it comes to this issue. They acknowledge that there is a problem
>(add TPF to the list of OSes) and say that they are going to do
>something about it. Guess what, they never do. They see an increase in
>personnel costs that makes them put it on the back burner. Eventually,
>they get hit by the retirement or other loss of a key player and either
>muddle through with existing personnel, hire outside contractors, or
>outsource.
>As far as the demand for VM sysprogs is concerned, the increase in the
>number of VM licenses has not been met by a corresponding increase in
>demand for VM sysprogs. I attribute that to the fact that VM has become
>nearly shrink-wrapped over the years. It takes far less sysprog time to
>support a system now than it did 30, or 20, or even 10 years ago. The
>smaller companies look on it almost the same as they do the OSes for x86
>based systems - it is part of an appliance. They count the number of x86
>systems they have and justify staff based on the numbers. The have only
>1 zSystem, so hiring staff to support its OS is not justifiable. "What,
>VM crashed!! Call the Maytag repairman."
Indeed. As a vendor, I've seen an astounding decrease in VM skills on the part
of customers. Many/most of the new VM customers have *no* VM expertise to
speak of, yet are trying to run systems with multiple Linux guests. Some of
them have MVS expertise, which is sort of a good thing -- "sort of" because
while it means things like IOCP and PR/SM are familiar, The MVS Way of doing
things represents its own challenges ("Nobody needs XSTORE any more", things
like that).
I find that I deal with a lot of very smart but *very* VM-ignorant people, with
Linux, AIX, and/or Windows as their background. That means that I spend more
of my time onsite, doing things that might arguably be "not my job", but which
are necessary for the customer to succeed.
I think we're in a "saddle" of the curve. Companies haven't yet had enough
experience on the platform to make the staffing justification that they would
if it was "only" one TPF system (running the company's $xxx,xxx,xxx
transactions!) or if it was 50 standalone Linux boxes, which "of course"
requires at least one staffer. This is sort of like the early days of Windows
servers -- "Hey, Fred has a PC at home, he can do it". Only of course "having
a PC" and "running a server farm" aren't equivalent, which most(?) companies
have learned by now.
Meanwhile, they hear "Linux" and "free" and "one mainframe" and think "Hey, Bob
can handle that, he's not that busy, all he does is apply Windows patches and
order new hardware, and we won't have to order as much hardware now". Over
time, they'll realize that Bob can't keep up with the load and become more
realistic, and will be looking for VM skills. Whether that translates into
realistic salary expectations remains to be seen: some sites will have drunk so
much of the "It's Free!" Kool-Aid that they will have a rude shock when they do
make that realization and start trying to hire experienced VM people.
Meanwhile, it's great fun working with these z/VM newbies, and seeing the
platform growing and succeeding!
...phsiii
