Who'll mind the mainframes?

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Dewayne Hendricks <dewayne () warpspeed com>
Date: August 26, 2005 12:27:44 PM EDT
To: Dewayne-Net Technology List <dewayne-net () warpspeed com>
Subject: [Dewayne-Net] Who'll mind the mainframes?
Reply-To: dewayne () warpspeed com


[Note:  I just loved this statement in the article, '....most young  
people aren't prepared for the complexity of mainframes.'.  Maybe  
Hiawatha needs to get out a bit more and take a look at the sorts of  
systems that young people are working on these days.  DLH]

Who'll mind the mainframes?
Few students are learning to run decidedly unsexy, but vital, systems
By Hiawatha Bray, Globe Staff  |  August 26, 2005

<http://www.boston.com/business/globe/articles/2005/08/26/ 
wholl_mind_the_mainframes/>

They're the grizzled, unglamorous veterans of the computing world,  
middle-aged men and women who don't create best-selling computer  
games or dazzling special effects for the movies. All they do is  
quietly run the most important computer systems in the world.

They operate mainframe computers, the ''big iron" machines that run  
businesses and governments all over the planet. Mainframes issue  
Social Security checks, track credit-card purchases, and oversee the  
nation's air-traffic network. They're immensely powerful computers,  
and immensely reliable, routinely running around the clock for years  
at a time.

But many mainframe operators have been at it for decades, and they've  
begun to realize that their time is running out.

''Some of us started dying," said Robert Stanley, 56, director of  
research for Air Traffic Software Architectures Inc. in Ottawa.  
''Heart attacks and the like. Thirty years of Twinkie-eating."

Stanley sits on the board of directors of SHARE Inc., an organization  
of mainframe computer users which is meeting in Boston this week.  
Founded in 1955, SHARE is probably the oldest computer users'  
organization on earth -- in more ways than one. Indeed, Stanley said  
that 80 percent of the 1,300 conference attendees are 40 or older.

Amid concerns that America doesn't produce enough technically trained  
young people, mainframe computer users and developers are especially  
concerned. Most computer science students concentrate on small- 
computer technology, such as Microsoft Corp.'s Windows operating  
systems, or the popular alternatives Unix and Linux. Few have been  
trained on zOS, the operating system that runs IBM Corp.'s massive  
mainframes.

One of the few young people at the conference, 26-year-old Lamonia  
Whitaker of Columbus, Ga., never had to learn about mainframes while  
earning her computer science degree at Columbus State University. ''I  
don't even think they offer mainframe courses anymore," said  
Whitaker, a database administrator at Total System Services Inc., a  
credit-card processing firm.

Stanley and other mainframe partisans say that media hype is partly  
to blame. During the Internet boom of the late 1990s, many industry  
pundits declared that mainframes were obsolete, destined to be  
replaced by clusters of smaller, cheaper machines using personal  
computer technology. Indeed, smaller computers supported many of the  
hot Internet companies like eBay and Amazon.com. Students clamored  
for training in Windows and Unix technologies, and colleges  
redesigned their course offerings.

But the pundits were wrong. Traditional mainframe users have remained  
loyal to the technology. That's good news for the venerable computer  
giant IBM Corp., by far the leading maker of mainframe machines.  
After getting clobbered in desktop computers by nimble businesses,  
IBM recently sold its money-losing desktop computer business to the  
Chinese company Lenovo Group Ltd. But IBM still makes lots of money  
from its mainframes. According to the research firm Gartner Inc., IBM  
sold $4.5 billion worth of them in 2003 and $5.3 billion last year.

Mainframe sales have slumped in the first two quarters of 2005, but  
it's probably because customers were waiting for IBM to unveil its  
latest upgrade. The new machine, called Series z9, is on display at  
the conference, and goes on sale next month.

Big companies still love mainframes. Unlike desktop PCs, these  
machines are designed to deliver near-perfect reliability. They can  
be repaired or upgraded while still running, and their software is  
vastly more stable and reliable than that found on desktop machines.  
In addition, mainframes use massive data channels that let them  
process immense amounts of information. This makes them perfect for  
banks, airlines, or any organization that must track millions of  
transactions.

Another strength of mainframes is ''virtualization," the ability of  
one large machine to act like hundreds of small computers. ''You can  
run multiple workloads and multiple applications together on the same  
box, sharing resources," said IBM mainframe marketing director Mike  
Bliss. For instance, mainframes can run the popular Linux operating  
system as well as any desktop machine.

[snip]

Hiawatha Bray can be reached at bray () globe com.

Weblog at: <http://weblog.warpspeed.com>



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