So, the whole mainframe thing is a black box for me. Mainly because it's not easy to go hands on a mainframe.
What's the best way to get into that whole world?
Ask HN: How to Get Started with IBM Mainframe and Z/OS?
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Re: Ask HN: How to Get Started with IBM Mainframe and Z/OS?
#2[deleted]
Re: Ask HN: How to Get Started with IBM Mainframe and Z/OS?
#3SHARE is user group / association for people working with IBM mainframe type products. http://www.share.org/about
I taught CFEngine at one of their conferences (for managing Linux running on z/OS) and got exposed to more mainframe-y stuff than I ever had before in my career as a UNIX/Linux sysadmin.
What are you looking to do in the mainframe world?
You can also go to https://www-03.ibm.com/systems/z/ and then ask for a quote and talk to a sales rep to price one out, you'll see what's involved and capabilities.
Re: Ask HN: How to Get Started with IBM Mainframe and Z/OS?
#4I got into doing IBM mainframe stuff by becoming certified by IBM as a DB2 DBA on AIX/HPUX/Solaris OS, i.e. IBM, HP & Sun *nix systems. The block mode operations on mainframes quickly drove me away. After decades of experience with interactive systems, block mode was a rude step backwards. Mind you my experience was with "traditional" IBM mainframe OS, e.g. MVS. I did dabble with Linux on 370's and it was a pain doing Unix commands using block-mode.
Mind you, all of the above was quite a few years ago. Things may have changed since.