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Mainframes as a lifestyle choice

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Re: Mainframes as a lifestyle choice

#11

Post by insulanian »

> Part of the reason I took the job ... because I have a fascination with older computer technology.

I was also thinking about going the mainframe route, also because general impression is that the mainframe developer earns big bucks. However, when I started exploring the job offers I was surprised that salaries were not that high at all.

So why is that impression still around, and do mainframe developers really earn significantly more money than a full stack enterprise web developer?

Re: Mainframes as a lifestyle choice

#13

Post by snaky »

insulanian wrote: post #11

> Part of the reason I took the job ... because I have a fascination with older computer technology. I was also thinking about going the mainframe route, also because general impression is that the mainframe developer earns big bucks. However, when I started exploring the job offers I was surprised that salaries were not that high at all. So why is that impression still around, and do mainframe developers really earn…

It depends on what the role is and many other things, the same as it is in any field. Of course, highschooler in Brazil who recently read a half of 'COBOL for dummies' in two weeks would not earn much more than other who choose 'J2EE for dummies'. Deep knowledge and experience could bring significant profit, but the same is true for almost any other industry - maybe J2EE performance consulting for z/OS with CICS would pay more than J2EE performance consulting for AIX with TXSeries but not too much more.

Re: Mainframes as a lifestyle choice

#14

Post by 83457 »

gaius wrote: post #10

Curious about his point about virtualisation; sure you can't run a VM locally but those mainframe OSs have had excellent support for VMs since the 1960s and are still in many ways far ahead of more mainstream hypervisors.

He was talking about local development environment.

Re: Mainframes as a lifestyle choice

#17

Post by mastax »

PhasmaFelis wrote: post #16

What exactly is a "mainframe" in a modern sense? I thought it exclusively referred to old-fashioned big iron. Is it a cluster? Or are we actually talking about quarter-century-old monoliths running ancient, indispensable code?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_mainframe

These are completely disconnected from commodity hardware. They are descendents of System/360, with a completely custom architecture and "mainframe processors" which only run specific types of code (Java, XML, DB2).

Or that's what I gather from wikipedia anyway.

Re: Mainframes as a lifestyle choice

#18

Post by zhte415 »

insulanian wrote: post #11

> Part of the reason I took the job ... because I have a fascination with older computer technology. I was also thinking about going the mainframe route, also because general impression is that the mainframe developer earns big bucks. However, when I started exploring the job offers I was surprised that salaries were not that high at all. So why is that impression still around, and do mainframe developers really earn…

Mainframe is possibly the most offshored field there is in enterprise technology. There are masses of roles in India and to a lesser extent China and Phillipines where is offers a stable decent paying career for these countries. That's where the base-line and critical mass of roles are.

Re: Mainframes as a lifestyle choice

#19

Post by sitharus »

mastax wrote: post #17
PhasmaFelis wrote: post #16

What exactly is a "mainframe" in a modern sense? I thought it exclusively referred to old-fashioned big iron. Is it a cluster? Or are we actually talking about quarter-century-old monoliths running ancient, indispensable code?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_mainframe These are completely disconnected from commodity hardware. They are descendents of System/360, with a completely custom architecture and "mainframe processors" which only run specific types of code (Java, XML, DB2). Or that's what I gather from wikipedia anyway.

sort of. The run z/Architecture CPUs which implement a lot of backwards compatibility.

In the old days you had various modules you connected with dedicated CPUs for certain tasks, you'd pay more for them. These days they have a bunch of CPUs and the amount of money you pay IBM determines what those CPUs can do.

There's no physical difference between the Linux CPU, the DB2 CPU and the Java CPU, they're all the same as the main CPUs. IBM just charge you more for general purpose CPUs.

Re: Mainframes as a lifestyle choice

#20

Post by PeterisP »

sitharus wrote: post #19
mastax wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_mainframe These are completely disconnected from commodity hardware. They are descendents of System/360, with a completely custom architecture and "mainframe processors" which only run specific types of code (Java, XML, DB2). Or that's what I gather from wikipedia anyway.

sort of. The run z/Architecture CPUs which implement a lot of backwards compatibility. In the old days you had various modules you connected with dedicated CPUs for certain tasks, you'd pay more for them. These days they have a bunch of CPUs and the amount of money you pay IBM determines what those CPUs can do. There's no physical difference between the Linux CPU, the DB2 CPU and the Java CPU, they're all the same as…

Ahh, I recall that we ordered an upgrade of the system hardware because we needed 4 more CPUs, and this was accomplished by sending a code that unlocked extra CPUs that had been sitting in our basement all along since the day they installed that system.
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