Mainframe
blogger Trevor Eddolls, managing director of
iTech-Ed, started working on mainframes in 1979, and now runs the
Virtual IMS Connection mainframe user group. He says, "In the 60s,
70s and 80s, the mainframe was the place to be. Previously older
people would have been replaced byyounger IT staff. But now younger
people want the excitement of new technologies like Java and
SQL.
This has meant that on average, mainframe staff are now in their
50s and 60s. So what happens when they retire? "No one has
experience of how to fix the mainframe when it goes wrong,"
according to Trevor Eddolls. This is worrying because almost every
Fortune 500 company has a mainframe site.
IBM plans to bolster the numbers of mainframe engineers coming
out of universities by giving undergraduates and graduates access
to mainframes and helping universities develop mainframe curricula
for computer science students, As well as working with
universities, systems software company CA aims to tackle the skills
crisis using software - by effectively capturing 25 years of
mainframe administration experience in a software tool.
Under its mainframe 2.0 strategy, CA has developed a management
tool that aims to simplify the procedures for installing software
on a mainframe, using a GUI-based tool. The problem CA is trying to
address is that it is impossible to take someone straight out of
university and teach them the skills a mainframe admin has acquired
over 25 years, says Marcel der Horlog, senior principal product
marketing manager at CA responsible for the mainframe business.
With the company's system administration software background, CA
aims to make the mainframe simpler. Marcel der Horlog says, "We
must automate software installation and make software more
intelligent." For instance, applications deployed 10 years ago must
be reconfigured to take advantage of the greater memory and
processing power available on modern mainframes. CA is looking how
such reconfiguration could be automated.
Like other mainframe businesses, CA has needed to tackle the
skills gap head-on. Its mainframe centre of excellence in Prague
works with local universities to help undergraduates and
postgraduates understand mainframe programming. One recent recruit
came over from the UK. Originally from the Czech Republic, he got
onto CA's internal training programme, having worked on a CRM
system previously. "The first few months were the hardest," he
says. But now, within two months or so, trainees understand
mainframe techniques like assembler coding,
JCL
(job control language),
REXX (restructured
extended executor), the mainframe macro programming language
and the CICS
transaction manager.
IBM lowers costs with specialty processors >>