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IBM lifts lid on latest bid to halt mainframe skill slips

theregister.com

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Re: IBM lifts lid on latest bid to halt mainframe skill slips

#3

Post by CanaryLayout »

If IBM weren't hostile to the Hercules project and allowed local licensing to run z/OS, CICS, IMS and DB2 on it, perhaps more hobbyists would want to careerpath themselves on to the s390 architecture.

I do love the s390 arch and the massive IO hardware over there, but IBM has paywalled down entry so hard that there is no audience.

They even went to the trouble of making Go binaries transportable for direct execution under z/OS. But if you want new people to write code on the platform you need to make access to the platform a thing.

Re: IBM lifts lid on latest bid to halt mainframe skill slips

#5

Post by CanaryLayout »

CanaryLayout wrote: post #3

If IBM weren't hostile to the Hercules project and allowed local licensing to run z/OS, CICS, IMS and DB2 on it, perhaps more hobbyists would want to careerpath themselves on to the s390 architecture. I do love the s390 arch and the massive IO hardware over there, but IBM has paywalled down entry so hard that there is no audience. They even went to the trouble of making Go binaries transportable for direct execution…

And no, the paywalled IBM Cloud LPARs are a joke.

The mainframe is not a special thing anymore, hasn't been since the late 90s. It's just a server box.

I work at a shop with a z/14. I would love it if we finished the last COBOL retirements and go back to the mainframe but this time to run container farms, fresh Go code, and use thr power to run way deeper matrices of tests that take days to run locally and cannot afford to run on AWS.

Re: IBM lifts lid on latest bid to halt mainframe skill slips

#6

Post by neilv »

pram wrote: post #2

“32 percent of organizations with a mainframe hired 11–20 mainframe related roles last year, while 35 percent filled more than 20 positions.” This doesn’t sound like a whole lot.

Yeah, I'm also curious how many total jobs this is.

And also what the pay is. These jobs are overall more important than the tens of thousands of random software engineers at FAANGs.

To solve the talent deficit, they could say "We pay like FAANG. And if you do serious work, we expect stable jobs and steady career progression for at least 20 more years." Fund it by investing some of the wealth where it needs to be invested.

(The hard part I see is holding companies to career progression, so they don't just bring in people at Google L4/L5 equivalent TC, but plan for those people to become less mobile to other employers due to mainframe skillsets, so easy to retain without normal tech growth in compensation over time.)

Re: IBM lifts lid on latest bid to halt mainframe skill slips

#7

Post by CanaryLayout »

CanaryLayout wrote: post #5
CanaryLayout wrote: post #3

If IBM weren't hostile to the Hercules project and allowed local licensing to run z/OS, CICS, IMS and DB2 on it, perhaps more hobbyists would want to careerpath themselves on to the s390 architecture. I do love the s390 arch and the massive IO hardware over there, but IBM has paywalled down entry so hard that there is no audience. They even went to the trouble of making Go binaries transportable for direct execution…

And no, the paywalled IBM Cloud LPARs are a joke. The mainframe is not a special thing anymore, hasn't been since the late 90s. It's just a server box. I work at a shop with a z/14. I would love it if we finished the last COBOL retirements and go back to the mainframe but this time to run container farms, fresh Go code, and use thr power to run way deeper matrices of tests that take days to run locally and cannot aff…

IBM could sell the future of the on premises z/xxx boxes as "datacenter in one rack"

Running x86 in z/VM has been a discussion for 25 years. Just fucking do it. Let people run whatever they want.

Just as people are excited about ARM for low-watt computing, make s390x just as exciting for people who want insane vertical resources but using the same dev tools that are used now for easy x86/ARM crossover.

But IBM culture has always been about overcharging a small and rich audience and now they are sitting around hocking their services cohosted thru AWS and everyone who has COBOL and 360ASM running are doing retirements with no plans to use the boxes after its all unloaded.

Re: IBM lifts lid on latest bid to halt mainframe skill slips

#8

Post by yjftsjthsd-h »

CanaryLayout wrote: post #7
CanaryLayout wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And no, the paywalled IBM Cloud LPARs are a joke. The mainframe is not a special thing anymore, hasn't been since the late 90s. It's just a server box. I work at a shop with a z/14. I would love it if we finished the last COBOL retirements and go back to the mainframe but this time to run container farms, fresh Go code, and use thr power to run way deeper matrices of tests that take days to run locally and cannot aff…

IBM could sell the future of the on premises z/xxx boxes as "datacenter in one rack" Running x86 in z/VM has been a discussion for 25 years. Just fucking do it. Let people run whatever they want. Just as people are excited about ARM for low-watt computing, make s390x just as exciting for people who want insane vertical resources but using the same dev tools that are used now for easy x86/ARM crossover. But IBM cultur…

> Just as people are excited about ARM for low-watt computing, make s390x just as exciting for people who want insane vertical resources but using the same dev tools that are used now for easy x86/ARM crossover.

The funny thing is that AIUI the technology is already basically there. They actually did throw the resources into getting a lot of Open Source software to be compatible with s390x, they've got Linux LPARs and LinuxONE. My understanding is that they just... don't make any effort to sell, outside a tiny fraction of Enterprise™.

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