Phil,
It has been a realy long time since I had the oppertunity to meet a VM
newbie, but I can still remember some 30+ yrs. ago when I was one. Comming
from a pure 360/DOS shop I was totally amazed at the powers of VM/370. I can
remember as I peeled back the layers of VM being amazed each time I found
something new, and then figuring out how to use this new treasure.
The interesting thing is that even then I was not a VM systems programmer, I
was hired to install and maintain DOS/VS rel 34..
Maybe things don't change all that much.
Tom
-----Original Message-----
From: The IBM z/VM Operating System [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Behalf Of Phil Smith III
Sent: Sunday, February 24, 2008 8:16 AM
To: IBMVM@LISTSERV.UARK.EDU
Subject: Re: Article: In Search of Mainframe Engineers
"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
