businessweek.com— IBM and CA are hard-pressed to replace the aging corps of Baby Boomers who support their still-indispensable mainframe business
Aug 4, 2010View in Crawl 4
When you stop treating your workers like s**t and pawns, and actually show you care about them and won't lay them off so your stock goes up by 1 cent, maybe people will flock to your company.
Uh, if they're nearing retirement working on mainframes, that means they haven't been laid off since the 1970's when mainframes were deployed into businesses. You fail at reading comprehension.Comment is buried, click here to see the rest.
My parents were mainframe employees until they quit (last year) because they got sick of being run into the ground by their employer, Wells Fargo (or Wells f**kup as they like to call them) having to work almost constantly and despite having their salaries whittled down to less than half of what they were in the late '90s.
People have been saying that for forty years. There are still a lot of mainframes out there because it would be too expensive and risky to rewrite the software. The company I worked for less than ten years ago bought a brand new mainframe to replace its old one, and they were overjoyed to do so, too.
Also, for large companies mainframes have quite a few advantages over more common systems because they're designed for 100% uptime - you can replace a bad CPU without even shutting the thing down.
"Well, this wont be a problem with most of the latest post-mainframe computers"
Do you work in a very large enterprise IT shop? Have you worked with companies that have a dozen or more mainframes? Me thinks not.
Not all workloads can be efficiently run on midrange systems. If the workload calls for it, a mainframe can be the best solution, hands down. As a technical architect I will most always go with a midrange solution, but whats best for a particular requirement is whats best, not what I want to be true or read on some web site.
Fired all the smart people eh? Too bad, Captain. Make sure you toast the bread before you spread that really dark s**t on it. Keeps the sandwich from falling apart.
Actually, there's a labor shortage because of lying rat f**k assclowns in management. A medicore programmer could pick up COBOL in two weeks and be productive in a month. Replacing retiring workers is a management responsibility.
But it's much easier to pocket all the money and go whining to the government BAWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW Americans want to get PAID to write COBOL BAWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW
So my message to middle management is the same: Spread the dark s**t on toast. Big smile.
Digg's resident dorm room Marxist weighs in to try and force the news into his world view. They're retiring, doofus, not being fired. I realize you're having a lot of trouble holding onto a job, but out in mainframeland there's not a lot of unemployment.
My father was a mainframe guy. People just don't know how much of the world's critical computing is still being done by 'big iron'. And computer geeks tend to not know much (if anything) about them, and how fundamentally different they are. It's a whole different paradigm.
E.g. redundancy? Some mainframes have two processors which simultaneously execute every instruction and compare the result to ensure integrity. If the result isn't the same, a backup third processor is brought in to determine which one is faulty, and which is then taken offline. The processor can often by swapped without turning the machine off. In over 30 years in the business, my father never once saw a mainframe "crash" in the sense we're used to 'ordinary' computers (including servers) doing. These things were designed from the ground-up for reliability, security, and fast I/O. (processing power, not so much, actually). Relatively new trends like sandboxing and virtualization was being done on mainframes (in hardware even) years and years ago.
PCs on the other hand, started out as a single-process, single user system that was simple and cheap, but not at all bulletproof. That legacy has cast a long shadow, and given the dominance of desktop computers, now everyone thinks that that's just how computer are. That stuff like crashes are unavoidable.
+1 Pretty much every major bank in the world runs mainframes extensively. What do you think handles the transaction when you go pull money out of the ATM? A mainframe.
Did they run out of Indian Nationals or just H1B visas? Cry me a river. Plenty of mainframe programmers out there who would be happy to have a job. It's just that they are probably American citizens and would like a living wage.
In an industry where "the next big thing" could make you a millionaire, who would want to take the "slow and teady course" of mainframe engineering? It's unsexy.
Furthermore, if/when mainframe computing does go the way of the dinosaurs, there is the real risk of not getting reintegrated into the more chaotic part of the industry that has become mainstream today. In short, I believe the sentiment would be, "if you trained yourself to work on mainframes, you have a job until ONE of you retires." The training may be the same between mainframes and servers, but I would be surprised if the disciplines were completely different.
I work on both. If someone from the mainframe side has trouble integrating into another area of software, I question how well they handled the mainframe. The only real challenges with the mainframe are (1) getting access to the system so you can learn it and (2) having to deal with interfaces, commands, and languages originally designed in the 1970's and 80's. (2) would be a breeze if it weren't for (1).
i hate the s/390 mvs systems where i am (old and antiquated).
i thought that ibm was trying to push linux on all these old systems (that boy named linux).
IBM's next big line of business is modernizing mainframe applications for megacorporations and governments still stuck in the 70s and 80s. I work for a company that is in this field and we partner with IBM to service numerous major clients who are abandoning their legacy mainframe applications and transitioning them to more powerful, modern systems. You get a system that's easier and therefore cheaper to maintain and runs on cheaper, faster equipment that can be assembled from off the shelf components.
The big challenge is getting through the transition before all those mainframe people retire and the information necessary to effect the transformation as smoothly as possible is lost.
f**k Mainframes. A single quad core 3.0ghz computer can replace a major IBM mainframe from 10 years ago. Once we have 16 core 6ghz processors, who the f**k will need a mainframe anymore.Comment is buried, click here to see the rest.
Um, because you will still be running an thrown together, POS, .Net written, buggy application on those 16 core processors. It's the main problem with software today.
Parallel processing machines can still run circles around the fastest x86 architecture today in both performance and stability. The central issue is price and ease of development.
Mainframe are not much about CPU power as I/O capacity. Some of the features not found yet in pc (though some network storage comes close):
+ They have record based locking implemented at device level.
+ Can write on two disk at 50Km (making the disks 100 Km). Takes two/three high yield warheads to take out.
+ CPU actually program devices. To copy one file it gives the device(s) the instructions to do themselves.
+ Hardware level replication and backup.
+ Variable record sizes on a dataset.
...
@virinix
Read svendmsvendm post and count to 10. If it still does not dawn on you that there is more to modern computing infrastructures than really fast "quad core"s than turn in your geek badge.
This is just bringing back bad memories of the introductory programming class I took 10 years ago, which focused on writing assembly for IBM 370 mainframes. I had to take that before moving on to "more difficult" languages, like Java...
The reason that 70% of the world's corporate data is processed on mainframes is because everything else that has come since then has yet to match the security, ability to handle enormous amounts of I/O, and communications ability of these devices. No need to worry about viruses, hackers, trojans, crappy operating systems that need a new patch each month, security. These machines are rock solid and despited the claims above are very sophisticated. A 25 year old mainframe can run 1000s of virtual machines and one today can easily run 20,000 copies of Linux without issue. They really are a marvel of American engineering.
Yet the reason that IBM and other large companies who use these platforms can't find employees is because they have spent the last 20 years gutting their talent and engineers in search of profits derived though cost cutting and off-shoring. Why pay a windows administrator or java programmer US wages where the 3rd world is much cheaper? However, where they screwed themselves is in the fact that mainframes are so unlike everything else, and utilize technology and techniques at the cutting edge, there isn't the talent in India, Vietnam, Argentina and the other places they put IT jobs these days, that can handle it. This is the failure of American management.
mainframes are quite useful but the problem is that since they have always been there, the incentive to make the server at a similar level isn't there.
Now we are slowly catching up and phasing out the mainframes more... that doesn't mean they still aren't deploying them.... still if servers were designed as strict as mainframes were then this change would've been alot sooner;.
Semerjian says. "Gen Y looks at that 3270 screen and they say: 'You've got to be kidding me. That looks like my father's computer,'" he says. "'I want something that's Web 2.0, that's graphically rich.'"
No admin or programmer talks like that. That person is sales and marketing, pure and simple. Administrators and programmers do not use buzz words.
yeah... about my sentiments.
When i go into a job I will very rarely actually talk about things until I see what they want me to do... if that involves sshing into a shell somewhere and using it like that or programming some php... those things arent graphical...
I'm sorry but mainframe admins and programmers get treated like s**t. My parents both make a living working with them and have been telling me stories since the late 90s about how some clueless VP is going to replace these mainframes with java and web service apps, only to see the projects fall completely apart when they can't match the stability and performance of 30 year old apps written in RPG.
How do these companies show their appreciation for the employees who are still the most critical part of their IT infrastructure? By corralling them into the darkest corners of the offices, giving them the oldest hand-me-down equipment, and forcing them to be 24/7 helpdesk level support for applications they spent years developing. All the while cutting benefits and pay. (and btw when you are 55 years old and in IT, it's not so easy to just quit and get rehired in another IT job for all the kids out there want to pass along that advice. )
In conclusion, to all the companies that complain about not being able to find good mainframe programmers these days... f**k you.
This is straight, in the company that I work for in the Mainframe team they're all in the 50's whereas in my team (unix/linux) we're all in the 20's 30's.
American business has always taken the edge after all they invested with the peoples money from Wall Street into their business.
Now when things get tight they bleed the people working for them.
Sadly the out-sourcing of jobs is a step used for instant profits.
Obama is trying to correct that with corporations buying the Supreme court in their pockets allowing unlimited contributions to political party's
The American people's right have been sold out, for the Tightens of Wall Street and the banks again. I feel for trained educated people in American industry when we sell out our best and finest.
infestusAug 4, 2010
When you stop treating your workers like s**t and pawns, and actually show you care about them and won't lay them off so your stock goes up by 1 cent, maybe people will flock to your company.
Closed AccountAug 5, 2010
Mainframe guys are actually pretty well treated and well paid at the moment, because they're in such short supply.
bipolarruledoutAug 6, 2010
Pay them more and they will stick around.
zephyrprimeAug 5, 2010
Uh, if they're nearing retirement working on mainframes, that means they haven't been laid off since the 1970's when mainframes were deployed into businesses. You fail at reading comprehension.Comment is buried, click here to see the rest.
thrillhausAug 5, 2010
My parents were mainframe employees until they quit (last year) because they got sick of being run into the ground by their employer, Wells Fargo (or Wells f**kup as they like to call them) having to work almost constantly and despite having their salaries whittled down to less than half of what they were in the late '90s.
braskyAug 5, 2010
If your salary is actually being reduced, leave. End of story.
thrillhausAug 5, 2010
Hey, I completely agree. I always tried to persuade them to find other work but they never really listened to me, until last year.
dbcuteAug 5, 2010
Well, this wont be a problem with most of the latest post-mainframe computers
tsothaAug 5, 2010
People have been saying that for forty years. There are still a lot of mainframes out there because it would be too expensive and risky to rewrite the software. The company I worked for less than ten years ago bought a brand new mainframe to replace its old one, and they were overjoyed to do so, too.
Also, for large companies mainframes have quite a few advantages over more common systems because they're designed for 100% uptime - you can replace a bad CPU without even shutting the thing down.
elwood_bluesAug 6, 2010
"Well, this wont be a problem with most of the latest post-mainframe computers"
Do you work in a very large enterprise IT shop? Have you worked with companies that have a dozen or more mainframes? Me thinks not.
Not all workloads can be efficiently run on midrange systems. If the workload calls for it, a mainframe can be the best solution, hands down. As a technical architect I will most always go with a midrange solution, but whats best for a particular requirement is whats best, not what I want to be true or read on some web site.
Closed AccountAug 5, 2010
Replace them all with bending units.
skeloothAug 5, 2010
Cobol
akairennAug 5, 2010
Praise the Lords of Cobol!
elwood_bluesAug 6, 2010
Praise the Lords of Kobol!
There, I fixed it for ya.
cubicledroneAug 5, 2010
Fired all the smart people eh? Too bad, Captain. Make sure you toast the bread before you spread that really dark s**t on it. Keeps the sandwich from falling apart.
Big smile now. Big f**kING smile.
Closed AccountAug 5, 2010
Actually, most of the the smart COBOL and Mainframe people are getting old and retiring. That's why there's a labor shortage.
cubicledroneAug 5, 2010
Actually, there's a labor shortage because of lying rat f**k assclowns in management. A medicore programmer could pick up COBOL in two weeks and be productive in a month. Replacing retiring workers is a management responsibility.
But it's much easier to pocket all the money and go whining to the government BAWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW Americans want to get PAID to write COBOL BAWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW
So my message to middle management is the same: Spread the dark s**t on toast. Big smile.
Closed AccountAug 5, 2010
So I take it you're having problems keeping a job.
I wonder why.
kd1sAug 6, 2010
It isn't just COBOL. I know COBOL but rarely if ever use it.
It's IBM's JCL, and other acronym laden applications and utilities. DOS/VSE anyone?
tsothaAug 6, 2010
@NiftyG,
It's because his running dog capitalist employer is keeping him down, man.
robusticaAug 5, 2010
Your names hints that you might be biased.
tsothaAug 6, 2010
Digg's resident dorm room Marxist weighs in to try and force the news into his world view. They're retiring, doofus, not being fired. I realize you're having a lot of trouble holding onto a job, but out in mainframeland there's not a lot of unemployment.
Closed AccountAug 5, 2010
My father was a mainframe guy. People just don't know how much of the world's critical computing is still being done by 'big iron'. And computer geeks tend to not know much (if anything) about them, and how fundamentally different they are. It's a whole different paradigm.
E.g. redundancy? Some mainframes have two processors which simultaneously execute every instruction and compare the result to ensure integrity. If the result isn't the same, a backup third processor is brought in to determine which one is faulty, and which is then taken offline. The processor can often by swapped without turning the machine off. In over 30 years in the business, my father never once saw a mainframe "crash" in the sense we're used to 'ordinary' computers (including servers) doing. These things were designed from the ground-up for reliability, security, and fast I/O. (processing power, not so much, actually). Relatively new trends like sandboxing and virtualization was being done on mainframes (in hardware even) years and years ago.
PCs on the other hand, started out as a single-process, single user system that was simple and cheap, but not at all bulletproof. That legacy has cast a long shadow, and given the dominance of desktop computers, now everyone thinks that that's just how computer are. That stuff like crashes are unavoidable.
r00fusAug 5, 2010
Wow, sounds like the basis (in part) of the MAGI system from Neon Genesis Evangelion
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neon_Genesis_Evangelion
Pretty awesome actually, though amazingly expensive I'm sure.Comment is buried, click here to see the rest.
clippclopAug 5, 2010
Funny thing is that computing business computing is moving back to the mainframe ideals with a modern twist.
Web Portals are gaining lots of ground in business solutions. Portlets and portals are a very powerful tool for companies though.
mdoverkillAug 5, 2010
+1 Pretty much every major bank in the world runs mainframes extensively. What do you think handles the transaction when you go pull money out of the ATM? A mainframe.
soc7Aug 5, 2010
Did they run out of Indian Nationals or just H1B visas? Cry me a river. Plenty of mainframe programmers out there who would be happy to have a job. It's just that they are probably American citizens and would like a living wage.
otaku244Aug 5, 2010
In an industry where "the next big thing" could make you a millionaire, who would want to take the "slow and teady course" of mainframe engineering? It's unsexy.
Furthermore, if/when mainframe computing does go the way of the dinosaurs, there is the real risk of not getting reintegrated into the more chaotic part of the industry that has become mainstream today. In short, I believe the sentiment would be, "if you trained yourself to work on mainframes, you have a job until ONE of you retires." The training may be the same between mainframes and servers, but I would be surprised if the disciplines were completely different.
spongedaveAug 5, 2010
I work on both. If someone from the mainframe side has trouble integrating into another area of software, I question how well they handled the mainframe. The only real challenges with the mainframe are (1) getting access to the system so you can learn it and (2) having to deal with interfaces, commands, and languages originally designed in the 1970's and 80's. (2) would be a breeze if it weren't for (1).
schneidz101Aug 5, 2010
i hate the s/390 mvs systems where i am (old and antiquated).
i thought that ibm was trying to push linux on all these old systems (that boy named linux).
zephyrprimeAug 5, 2010
They'll just have to spend some money building out new systems. End of story.
jeffh4Aug 5, 2010
Still got my System 370 JCL book on my shelf. Hope I never have to open it again, though.
shazoocowAug 5, 2010
IBM's next big line of business is modernizing mainframe applications for megacorporations and governments still stuck in the 70s and 80s. I work for a company that is in this field and we partner with IBM to service numerous major clients who are abandoning their legacy mainframe applications and transitioning them to more powerful, modern systems. You get a system that's easier and therefore cheaper to maintain and runs on cheaper, faster equipment that can be assembled from off the shelf components.
The big challenge is getting through the transition before all those mainframe people retire and the information necessary to effect the transformation as smoothly as possible is lost.
virinixAug 5, 2010
f**k Mainframes. A single quad core 3.0ghz computer can replace a major IBM mainframe from 10 years ago. Once we have 16 core 6ghz processors, who the f**k will need a mainframe anymore.Comment is buried, click here to see the rest.
enantiodromiaAug 5, 2010
Some people use computers differently than other people.
manstein01Aug 5, 2010
Um, because you will still be running an thrown together, POS, .Net written, buggy application on those 16 core processors. It's the main problem with software today.
Parallel processing machines can still run circles around the fastest x86 architecture today in both performance and stability. The central issue is price and ease of development.
spongedaveAug 5, 2010
What does't run faster than systems - mainframe, PC, whatever - from 10 years ago?
simbaitAug 5, 2010
Mainframe are not much about CPU power as I/O capacity. Some of the features not found yet in pc (though some network storage comes close):
+ They have record based locking implemented at device level.
+ Can write on two disk at 50Km (making the disks 100 Km). Takes two/three high yield warheads to take out.
+ CPU actually program devices. To copy one file it gives the device(s) the instructions to do themselves.
+ Hardware level replication and backup.
+ Variable record sizes on a dataset.
...
nmatrix9Aug 5, 2010
@virinix
Read svendmsvendm post and count to 10. If it still does not dawn on you that there is more to modern computing infrastructures than really fast "quad core"s than turn in your geek badge.
sndreamAug 5, 2010
If IBM stop running their company around the idea of head count, they wouldn't have a shortage of talent.
thevariableAug 5, 2010
This is just bringing back bad memories of the introductory programming class I took 10 years ago, which focused on writing assembly for IBM 370 mainframes. I had to take that before moving on to "more difficult" languages, like Java...
topcat5Aug 5, 2010
The reason that 70% of the world's corporate data is processed on mainframes is because everything else that has come since then has yet to match the security, ability to handle enormous amounts of I/O, and communications ability of these devices. No need to worry about viruses, hackers, trojans, crappy operating systems that need a new patch each month, security. These machines are rock solid and despited the claims above are very sophisticated. A 25 year old mainframe can run 1000s of virtual machines and one today can easily run 20,000 copies of Linux without issue. They really are a marvel of American engineering.
Yet the reason that IBM and other large companies who use these platforms can't find employees is because they have spent the last 20 years gutting their talent and engineers in search of profits derived though cost cutting and off-shoring. Why pay a windows administrator or java programmer US wages where the 3rd world is much cheaper? However, where they screwed themselves is in the fact that mainframes are so unlike everything else, and utilize technology and techniques at the cutting edge, there isn't the talent in India, Vietnam, Argentina and the other places they put IT jobs these days, that can handle it. This is the failure of American management.
rakusukAug 6, 2010
mainframes are quite useful but the problem is that since they have always been there, the incentive to make the server at a similar level isn't there.
Now we are slowly catching up and phasing out the mainframes more... that doesn't mean they still aren't deploying them.... still if servers were designed as strict as mainframes were then this change would've been alot sooner;.
clippclopAug 5, 2010
Hooray for z/os and TN3270 terminal emulators!
I am 24 and I work with these for a major Canadian business.
Closed AccountAug 5, 2010
FTA:
Semerjian says. "Gen Y looks at that 3270 screen and they say: 'You've got to be kidding me. That looks like my father's computer,'" he says. "'I want something that's Web 2.0, that's graphically rich.'"
No admin or programmer talks like that. That person is sales and marketing, pure and simple. Administrators and programmers do not use buzz words.
rakusukAug 6, 2010
yeah... about my sentiments.
When i go into a job I will very rarely actually talk about things until I see what they want me to do... if that involves sshing into a shell somewhere and using it like that or programming some php... those things arent graphical...
bipolarruledoutAug 6, 2010
Show people the money and they will learn it. Trust me.
no1nosAug 6, 2010
I'm sorry but mainframe admins and programmers get treated like s**t. My parents both make a living working with them and have been telling me stories since the late 90s about how some clueless VP is going to replace these mainframes with java and web service apps, only to see the projects fall completely apart when they can't match the stability and performance of 30 year old apps written in RPG.
How do these companies show their appreciation for the employees who are still the most critical part of their IT infrastructure? By corralling them into the darkest corners of the offices, giving them the oldest hand-me-down equipment, and forcing them to be 24/7 helpdesk level support for applications they spent years developing. All the while cutting benefits and pay. (and btw when you are 55 years old and in IT, it's not so easy to just quit and get rehired in another IT job for all the kids out there want to pass along that advice. )
In conclusion, to all the companies that complain about not being able to find good mainframe programmers these days... f**k you.
kooltoAug 6, 2010
This is straight, in the company that I work for in the Mainframe team they're all in the 50's whereas in my team (unix/linux) we're all in the 20's 30's.
thenemo1Aug 16, 2010
American business has always taken the edge after all they invested with the peoples money from Wall Street into their business.
Now when things get tight they bleed the people working for them.
Sadly the out-sourcing of jobs is a step used for instant profits.
Obama is trying to correct that with corporations buying the Supreme court in their pockets allowing unlimited contributions to political party's
The American people's right have been sold out, for the Tightens of Wall Street and the banks again. I feel for trained educated people in American industry when we sell out our best and finest.
thenemo1Aug 30, 2010
I hope the people learn the banks are not their friends don't pay interest to these robber Barrons.