Mainframe IT skills are undergoing a renaissance. Over 600
colleges have joined IBM's multi-million pound programme to develop
a new generation of mainframe administrators and
programmers.
As many mainframe staff approach retirement, IBM has been
encouraging computer science undergraduates and graduates to
learn mainframe skills through a university curriculum called
the
IBM Academic Initiative, which it introduced in 2004.
Students are trained by IBM engineers and have access to a
dedicated mainframe where they can practice system administration,
batch processing and script programming, and use software such as
the
DB/2 database and IBM's
WebSphere Java application server in a mainframe
environment.
Surrey University has been running an MSc module for the past
three years, as part of IBM's Academic Initiative. Surrey was the
first UK university to offer a mainframe module. To date, 20
students have competed the optional training module, says Lee
Gillam, a lecturer at the university's department of computing.
Mainframe learning
Learning about the mainframe is more than just supporting
legacy. "The course gives people enough of an overview to keep
mainframe systems running and provides a solid background in
business continuity, cloud computing concepts and virtualisation,"
says Gillam.
Elsewhere in Europe, the University of Karlsruhe in Germany and
EPSI in France are working to introduce a full-year mainframe
education programme. In Italy, La Banque Postale, Sogeti and IBM
have created the zAcademy to offer a professional course on
IBM System z technologies for the banking sector.
In the US, Bank of America has used the graduates of the IBM
Academic Initiative to support its mainframe infrastructure. "Bank
of America is building a new generation of talent to support our
infrastructure. We have hired students from colleges and
universities enrolled in IBM's Academic Initiative," says Kim Grim,
senior vice-president, mainframe engineering at Bank of
America.
Job prospects for mainframe administrators look promising,
according to Trevor Eddolls, who runs the
mainframe
update blog and has been working in the mainframe business
since 1979.
"Sixty per cent of business data is still stored on the
mainframe so it is essential to have new people. Banks, airlines
and many major companies run mainframes. Given the number of job
seekers with hot skills such as Java, Oracle and Windows, in these
recessionary times people with mainframe skills are almost
guaranteed a job," he says.