1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:04,980 This is James Governor from Redmunk, episode of Redmunk TV. 2 00:00:04,980 --> 00:00:09,360 I'm here in New York for the IBM Z Summit and I'm lucky enough to be joined by a couple 3 00:00:09,360 --> 00:00:11,520 of guys that are learning mainframe skills. 4 00:00:11,520 --> 00:00:14,080 My name is Ben Franchek from Warren University. 5 00:00:14,080 --> 00:00:15,080 And I'm Scott Wetter. 6 00:00:15,080 --> 00:00:16,080 I'm from Merisch College. 7 00:00:16,080 --> 00:00:19,680 What interests me is as someone that's been watching the mainframe market for 13 years 8 00:00:19,680 --> 00:00:20,680 now. 9 00:00:20,680 --> 00:00:24,680 And when I originally came into the business, I was actually told by my first boss, "The 10 00:00:24,680 --> 00:00:25,680 mainframe's dead. 11 00:00:25,680 --> 00:00:27,880 So we're giving it to you because you're the junior." 12 00:00:27,880 --> 00:00:33,520 It's kind of 13 years later and many billions of dollars of revenue to IBM since. 13 00:00:33,520 --> 00:00:35,940 But clearly, there has been somewhat of a renewal. 14 00:00:35,940 --> 00:00:37,900 How did you find out about the mainframe? 15 00:00:37,900 --> 00:00:38,900 What brought you to the platform? 16 00:00:38,900 --> 00:00:42,940 As a student really coming in as a computer science major, there really is no exposure 17 00:00:42,940 --> 00:00:43,940 to mainframes. 18 00:00:43,940 --> 00:00:46,760 You don't sit in class and they don't brag about it or anything like that. 19 00:00:46,760 --> 00:00:50,200 Basically, outside external sources, it starts with the mainframe contest. 20 00:00:50,200 --> 00:00:54,060 That's the first time I ever heard about mainframes. 21 00:00:54,060 --> 00:00:55,760 Can you say a little bit more about the mainframe contest? 22 00:00:55,760 --> 00:00:58,980 Oh, the mainframe contest is awesome. 23 00:00:58,980 --> 00:01:01,520 It's open to everybody and it's the easiest thing to get into. 24 00:01:01,520 --> 00:01:03,720 You don't have to be a computer science major. 25 00:01:03,720 --> 00:01:07,520 I could have been a communications major and jumped into it. 26 00:01:07,520 --> 00:01:08,820 It's three parts. 27 00:01:08,820 --> 00:01:10,220 The first part, it's very simple. 28 00:01:10,220 --> 00:01:11,760 They walk you through. 29 00:01:11,760 --> 00:01:12,760 That's kind of cool. 30 00:01:12,760 --> 00:01:14,400 You complete it, you get a free t-shirt. 31 00:01:14,400 --> 00:01:16,900 Like, you know, what I'm wearing right now. 32 00:01:16,900 --> 00:01:18,400 And the t-shirts change every year. 33 00:01:18,400 --> 00:01:23,160 I actually got to be on the contest meeting panel with my internship this past summer. 34 00:01:23,160 --> 00:01:27,540 And actually, I think the biggest argument was over the next t-shirt design. 35 00:01:27,540 --> 00:01:31,500 From there, there's a second part which gets a little bit more difficult and a little bit 36 00:01:31,500 --> 00:01:33,020 more competitive. 37 00:01:33,020 --> 00:01:36,240 Probably the first 60 to complete it get a prize. 38 00:01:36,240 --> 00:01:37,240 After that, you don't. 39 00:01:37,240 --> 00:01:42,480 And then the third part, which is very extreme, very difficult, and they don't expect everyone 40 00:01:42,480 --> 00:01:43,480 to finish it. 41 00:01:43,480 --> 00:01:44,480 Okay. 42 00:01:44,480 --> 00:01:48,240 I believe this past contest, a high school student actually was one of the first people 43 00:01:48,240 --> 00:01:49,240 to finish and win. 44 00:01:49,240 --> 00:01:53,740 It's very interesting that we're hitting the high school level for like a few years. 45 00:01:53,740 --> 00:01:56,780 So you've already got the next generation of you, better come to knock you outside, right? 46 00:01:56,780 --> 00:01:57,780 Yeah, right? 47 00:01:57,780 --> 00:01:58,780 It's a great opportunity. 48 00:01:58,780 --> 00:02:00,080 I thought it was pretty cool. 49 00:02:00,080 --> 00:02:05,200 I was pretty excited to get the t-shirt and stuff, and the most beneficial part of it 50 00:02:05,200 --> 00:02:10,020 to me as a student was that after I completed part two, I could put my resume up on a student 51 00:02:10,020 --> 00:02:14,000 opportunity system, and that's how I got my internship. 52 00:02:14,000 --> 00:02:15,000 Okay. 53 00:02:15,000 --> 00:02:18,840 So it's like a platform to launch if you complete the second part. 54 00:02:18,840 --> 00:02:19,840 Interesting. 55 00:02:19,840 --> 00:02:23,740 And for you, is it kind of basically an economic decision, or were there some other things 56 00:02:23,740 --> 00:02:26,240 when you begin to find out about the mainframe? 57 00:02:26,240 --> 00:02:31,080 Freshman year, they had an executive come in and speak to our class, and I can't relate 58 00:02:31,080 --> 00:02:32,240 to high-level executives. 59 00:02:32,240 --> 00:02:36,100 You know, as a student, I sit there and, you know, what are they trying to sell me? 60 00:02:36,100 --> 00:02:39,980 Like, what are you trying to get me into a career that maybe I don't want? 61 00:02:39,980 --> 00:02:45,480 And the skepticism comes along, but as soon as I started my internship, which is, you know, 62 00:02:45,480 --> 00:02:46,840 it's no strings attached. 63 00:02:46,840 --> 00:02:47,840 It's an internship. 64 00:02:47,840 --> 00:02:48,840 You go through it, you don't like it. 65 00:02:48,840 --> 00:02:49,840 You just don't, you switch. 66 00:02:49,840 --> 00:02:50,840 You still have time. 67 00:02:50,840 --> 00:02:57,040 I ended up loving just doing systems programming, just picking up the book. 68 00:02:57,040 --> 00:03:01,840 And for me, like my personality, when I walked onto the raised floor, like, that was probably 69 00:03:01,840 --> 00:03:02,840 the best feeling. 70 00:03:02,840 --> 00:03:06,240 Walking onto the raised floor in your data center, you're walking out to a multi-million dollar 71 00:03:06,240 --> 00:03:07,240 machine, and it's yours. 72 00:03:07,240 --> 00:03:08,240 Yeah. 73 00:03:08,240 --> 00:03:09,240 So that's probably one of the greatest. 74 00:03:09,240 --> 00:03:10,240 And so what about you? 75 00:03:10,240 --> 00:03:13,240 We actually don't have a multi-million dollar machine. 76 00:03:13,240 --> 00:03:16,440 We have a connector there, but all the same. 77 00:03:16,440 --> 00:03:21,240 I also got involved with the contest my freshman year, and it was really interesting. 78 00:03:21,240 --> 00:03:24,240 It starts off click by click, literally, you know, keystroke by keystroke, and then gets 79 00:03:24,240 --> 00:03:26,240 more and more difficult as you go on. 80 00:03:26,240 --> 00:03:30,440 And I really didn't show a lot of interest in my freshman year. 81 00:03:30,440 --> 00:03:35,440 So after my freshman year, I actually had an internship at Volvo IT, and I worked in a group 82 00:03:35,440 --> 00:03:39,440 that everyone was developing on the mainframe, and just looking around, everyone was like 83 00:03:39,440 --> 00:03:42,440 40 to 55 in that age group. 84 00:03:42,440 --> 00:03:46,440 And so I heard we had a class, and that's one of the things they talk about, how typically 85 00:03:46,440 --> 00:03:50,440 you think of a developer as one of the younger roles, entry-level position, and how so many 86 00:03:50,440 --> 00:03:54,440 of the people are getting towards retirement in the mainframe development field. 87 00:03:54,440 --> 00:03:58,440 So I decided to take the class and found it very interesting, and decided to get another 88 00:03:58,440 --> 00:04:01,440 internship at Chase where I was actually developing on the mainframe. 89 00:04:01,440 --> 00:04:07,440 In terms of that experience of Volvo, are they finding it hard to reskill and to bring 90 00:04:07,440 --> 00:04:11,440 people on, or because of the kinds of programs you're associating with, it's perhaps less 91 00:04:11,440 --> 00:04:12,440 of a concern? 92 00:04:12,440 --> 00:04:13,440 Absolutely, yeah. 93 00:04:13,440 --> 00:04:14,440 I know our program has gone for years. 94 00:04:14,440 --> 00:04:17,440 We only brought it back, I believe, two years ago at Widener. 95 00:04:17,440 --> 00:04:21,440 Chase, they're outsourcing a lot of it, but the code quality is a big issue. 96 00:04:21,440 --> 00:04:22,440 They're getting things back. 97 00:04:22,440 --> 00:04:24,440 It's not exactly what they're looking for. 98 00:04:24,440 --> 00:04:27,440 I know we hired three guys full-time last summer. 99 00:04:27,440 --> 00:04:30,440 They came in with me, and one of them had absolutely no experience whatsoever. 100 00:04:30,440 --> 00:04:33,440 They got to train them from the absolute ground up. 101 00:04:33,440 --> 00:04:38,440 So the more skills you have going into the position, the more valuable you are to the company. 102 00:04:38,440 --> 00:04:39,440 I'd like to ask both of you. 103 00:04:39,440 --> 00:04:41,440 I mean, a balance between operations and development. 104 00:04:41,440 --> 00:04:43,440 I mean, are you more interested in development? 105 00:04:43,440 --> 00:04:46,440 What's most interesting? 106 00:04:46,440 --> 00:04:51,440 Because clearly, especially in mainframe environments, there's a lot of separation of concerns. 107 00:04:51,440 --> 00:04:52,440 Right. 108 00:04:52,440 --> 00:04:57,440 Tend to get quite specialized, and so I'm quite interested in what's most interesting to you. 109 00:04:57,440 --> 00:05:03,440 Computer science major, the biggest fear of any computer science major is I don't want to be outsourced. 110 00:05:03,440 --> 00:05:13,440 You know, I want to have a career where I don't have to worry about being replaced by outsourcing overseas, which is application development is one of the biggest things you outsource. 111 00:05:13,440 --> 00:05:18,440 And so to go into systems programming, there's a little sense of job security. 112 00:05:18,440 --> 00:05:22,440 Like how many people are actually going to outsource your systems programmers? 113 00:05:22,440 --> 00:05:25,440 Not many because those skills really aren't developed overseas yet. 114 00:05:25,440 --> 00:05:35,440 And so basically, it comes from a standpoint where, not only that, but personally, I'm not the kind of person who would enjoy sitting in a black box coding programs all day. 115 00:05:35,440 --> 00:05:38,440 You know, being fed one, pushing out the other. 116 00:05:38,440 --> 00:05:40,440 I really like to interact with the environment. 117 00:05:40,440 --> 00:05:42,440 You know, the environment where I work is a big deal. 118 00:05:42,440 --> 00:05:44,440 You know, how are the people? 119 00:05:44,440 --> 00:05:45,440 Are they social? 120 00:05:45,440 --> 00:05:46,440 How are all the people? 121 00:05:46,440 --> 00:05:47,440 There's a lot of the mainframe guys. 122 00:05:47,440 --> 00:05:48,440 Yeah. 123 00:05:48,440 --> 00:05:49,440 They can only talk to them. 124 00:05:49,440 --> 00:05:50,440 It's a mixed bag. 125 00:05:50,440 --> 00:05:51,440 It's definitely a mixed bag. 126 00:05:51,440 --> 00:05:53,440 You have some that are definitely characters. 127 00:05:53,440 --> 00:05:58,440 And you have some who are, you know, they forget about the users and they focus straight on the system. 128 00:05:58,440 --> 00:05:59,440 So. 129 00:05:59,440 --> 00:06:00,440 Same as in anything. 130 00:06:00,440 --> 00:06:01,440 Yeah. 131 00:06:01,440 --> 00:06:03,440 There's a bunch of different breeds that work for it. 132 00:06:03,440 --> 00:06:06,440 I know one guy in particular that was a lead architect there. 133 00:06:06,440 --> 00:06:08,440 Didn't care how long it was going to take. 134 00:06:08,440 --> 00:06:09,440 Didn't care how much it was going to cost. 135 00:06:09,440 --> 00:06:14,440 If you save that one character for all these accounts, you're going to dedicate the time to it. 136 00:06:14,440 --> 00:06:17,440 And then you have people that just want to get it done as soon as possible. 137 00:06:17,440 --> 00:06:21,440 But one thing's for sure, across the board, they all speak their own language. 138 00:06:21,440 --> 00:06:22,440 There's so many acronyms and things like that. 139 00:06:22,440 --> 00:06:23,440 It is unbelievable, isn't it? 140 00:06:23,440 --> 00:06:26,440 I mean, I think that's one of the biggest challenges for IBM. 141 00:06:26,440 --> 00:06:28,440 Just talking to people to help them understand. 142 00:06:28,440 --> 00:06:30,440 Because it is an entire language. 143 00:06:30,440 --> 00:06:31,440 A self-contained language. 144 00:06:31,440 --> 00:06:32,440 Right. 145 00:06:32,440 --> 00:06:35,440 We try and encourage them to speak in English. 146 00:06:35,440 --> 00:06:36,440 That would be nice. 147 00:06:36,440 --> 00:06:38,440 When do you guys see your career in ten years? 148 00:06:38,440 --> 00:06:41,440 And what do you think the role of the mainframe might have been in that time? 149 00:06:41,440 --> 00:06:44,440 Within ten years, I expect to at least have my MBA as well. 150 00:06:44,440 --> 00:06:47,440 Because I want to go up the management level and the architect level. 151 00:06:47,440 --> 00:06:51,440 I definitely want being around the systems programming role. 152 00:06:51,440 --> 00:06:53,440 A little bit on the higher level. 153 00:06:53,440 --> 00:06:55,440 Because I know a lot of corporations are very big. 154 00:06:55,440 --> 00:06:56,440 They have huge data centers. 155 00:06:56,440 --> 00:06:59,440 They employ tons of systems programmers. 156 00:06:59,440 --> 00:07:01,440 So I just want to be up there around the top. 157 00:07:01,440 --> 00:07:04,440 I definitely don't want to be near the bottom of the hierarchy structure. 158 00:07:04,440 --> 00:07:06,440 I'd like to start out in development. 159 00:07:06,440 --> 00:07:08,440 Just to learn the language and the entire system. 160 00:07:08,440 --> 00:07:09,440 Because it takes some time. 161 00:07:09,440 --> 00:07:11,440 And maybe go back to school. 162 00:07:11,440 --> 00:07:13,440 Have to research more. 163 00:07:13,440 --> 00:07:14,440 Definitely interested in that. 164 00:07:14,440 --> 00:07:18,440 But hopefully, like you, I think an architect is absolutely an amazing position. 165 00:07:18,440 --> 00:07:19,440 Pays very well. 166 00:07:19,440 --> 00:07:20,440 It's interesting. 167 00:07:20,440 --> 00:07:21,440 You get to interact with a lot of different people. 168 00:07:21,440 --> 00:07:23,440 So hopefully one day. 169 00:07:23,440 --> 00:07:25,440 One thing I am interested in. 170 00:07:25,440 --> 00:07:29,440 Did Linux have any role in making you comfortable to start using the mainframe? 171 00:07:29,440 --> 00:07:31,440 Did you have any Linux background beforehand? 172 00:07:31,440 --> 00:07:33,440 So that was a thing you could understand? 173 00:07:33,440 --> 00:07:34,440 Or has Linux not been? 174 00:07:34,440 --> 00:07:38,440 Did Linux play any role in terms of bringing you to the platform and making you feel comfortable? 175 00:07:38,440 --> 00:07:39,440 Oh, of course. 176 00:07:39,440 --> 00:07:40,440 Especially with our generation. 177 00:07:40,440 --> 00:07:42,440 We're very, you know, Linux oriented. 178 00:07:42,440 --> 00:07:44,440 Not only that, but Java as well. 179 00:07:44,440 --> 00:07:48,440 And so I believe like earlier in the speaking they were talking about COBOL and what not. 180 00:07:48,440 --> 00:07:52,440 But we're attracted to the mainframe because you can run Java. 181 00:07:52,440 --> 00:07:54,440 You can sit there on Linux. 182 00:07:54,440 --> 00:07:58,440 And that's probably one of the biggest reasons why it's going to attract our generation. 183 00:07:58,440 --> 00:07:59,440 I'd say the same thing. 184 00:07:59,440 --> 00:08:00,440 There's a lot of different breeds now. 185 00:08:00,440 --> 00:08:02,440 If you get Ubuntu there's really no need for it. 186 00:08:02,440 --> 00:08:05,440 And Windows you can run through the command prompt if you wanted to. 187 00:08:05,440 --> 00:08:07,440 But with the GUI sitting there there's no reason. 188 00:08:07,440 --> 00:08:12,440 But we actually in our labs use Slackware which is straight down command prompt. 189 00:08:12,440 --> 00:08:14,440 So it really gets you used to the emulator. 190 00:08:14,440 --> 00:08:15,440 Great. 191 00:08:15,440 --> 00:08:16,440 Well, how about that? 192 00:08:16,440 --> 00:08:20,440 I used to be the youngest guy in the room when it came to mainframes. 193 00:08:20,440 --> 00:08:23,440 And that is no longer the case. 194 00:08:23,440 --> 00:08:26,440 So that's another fun packed episode of Red Munk TV. 195 00:08:26,440 --> 00:08:27,440 Thanks very much guys. 196 00:08:27,440 --> 00:08:28,440 I really appreciate that. 197 00:08:28,440 --> 00:08:29,440 Thanks. 198 00:08:29,440 --> 00:08:30,440 Okay. 199 00:08:30,440 --> 00:08:31,440 Nice to meet you.