Monday, July 31, 2006

Network World: Mainframes Still Relevant

Just finished reading a great new article at NetworkWorld.com called Working on mainframes not just for old fogies. Well, that is sure good to know. I may be getting older, but I sure don't think of myself as one of those "old fogies" yet... and I still work on mainframes.

The article talks about the continuing relevance of mainframe computing in a novel way -- by talking to several young mainframe newbies. Yes, there are twenty-somethings out there who are working on mainframes, they are just hard to find. And the article makes the point that all of us in the mainframe world know -- we need more young 'uns to learn the mainframe.

The article goes on to point out some interesting mainframe statistics from the industry analysts. According to Gartner "large mainframe users have been increasing their mainframe environments for years." They say that installed MIPs will continue to gorw at a CAGR of 15 to 20 percent through 2009. And the analysts at IDC seem to agree, with 2006 MIPS shipments up 14.2 percent.

If you work on mainframes be sure to click over and give the article a read. To me, anyway, it is invigorating to hear about young people embracing the mainframe. And the more younger people who learn about mainframe computing, the stronger the platform becomes... and that is good, too.

3 comments:

Ramesh said...

Hi craigmullins,

i am working in mainfrmae technology, like to learn more about mainframe and db2. i dont have the opportunity to see the big machine(mainframe).i searched thru google for mainframe pictures, but no result. where can i find ??

Craig S. Mullins said...

Hi Ramesh:

Here are some links you should review for information and pictures of mainframes.

An Introduction to z/OS and the New Mainframes - http://publibz.boulder.ibm.com/zoslib/pdf/zosbasic.pdf

Mainframe Server Software Architectures - http://www.sei.cmu.edu/str/descriptions/mssa.html

IBM Mainframe Servers -
http://www-1.ibm.com/servers/eserver/zseries/

IBM z/OS Home Page -
http://www-1.ibm.com/servers/eserver/zseries/zos/

The History of the Mainframe -
http://www.vikingwaters.com/htmlpages/MFHistory.htm

IBM Mainframe Computing Equipment Model Numbers - http://www.beagle-ears.com/lars/engineer/comphist/ibm_nos.htm

A Picture of an Old IBM 360/67 - http://www.cs.newcastle.ac.uk/events/anniversaries/40th/images/ibm360_672/slide07.html

You might also want to consider joining the mainframe mailing list. To join the IBMMAIN list server, send an email to: LISTSERV@BAMA.UA.EDU.

Leave the subject line blank, and in the first line of the text enter:
SUBSCRIBE IBM-MAIN your name

You should then receive an e-mail asking you to verify the request.

Cheers!
Craig S. Mullins

Anonymous said...

Not only that, but you can still run your vintage 1968 COBOL apps on the same box. And you get all of this without having to increase your datacenter rack space, power and cooling utilization, property taxes, etc.

Sounds like a winner to me!