Tom,
Come to a meeting of the Metropolitan VM Users Association and you will
see some VM newbies and VM returnee's. We are getting new member
companies and member companies that left VM and came back. Hallelujah.
I too started as a DOS/VS Operator then System Programmer all the way up
to VSE/SP 2.1, my first VM logon screen also said VM/370. Then in
1990 I was sent to 2 weeks of VM classes at IBM in Crystal City,
Virginia. CP and CMS internals classes. Now I was a VM systems
programmer and I have ridden the HIGHs of the 90's with thousands of
PROFS users and hundreds of VSE guests all running under my VM systems,
to the lows of the late 90's and early 2000's and now once again the
revitialization of z/VM for hundreds of LINUX guests. Hallelujah again
Anyway Phil and everyone have a great SHARE
take care
Bill Munson
VM System Programmer
Office of Information Technology
State of New Jersey
(609) 984-4065
President MVMUA
http://www.marist.edu/~mvmua
Huegel, Thomas wrote:
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
