Computer World Canada Magazine - September 28, 2007

: interview

Mainframes 101

the 1970s. They simply didn’t need any more mainframe people, and a lot of people went off on a tangent into distributed systems, wireless systems, and these were the new emerging and evolving technologies. But a lot of the processing that a lot of enterprises do is still on the mainframe. They’re good jobs and people never left. We could compare this to the Y2K scare in the late 1990s when they were pulling old mainframers out of retirement to do Y2K projects. There’s a generational shift, but the mainframes are still there.

Predictions that legacy hardware
would die out were premature. What
you need to know about managing
that big, black box

n ryerSON UNIverSITy’S Chang School for Continuing Education has developed a certificate program designed to train IT workers in mainframe system computing. All courses in this one-of-a-kind program are offered on Saturdays which is designed to allow working professionals to complete the certificate in less than a year. Francois Des Jarlais, instructor and academic coordinator for

the program at Ryerson, spoke with Computer World Canada’s Shane Schick about what students can expect to learn.

 What happened to mainframe proficiency? Why did it die out? FRANCOIS DES JARLAIS: There’s two reasons. A lot of it was generational — in terms of the mainframe, I think, the labour market really got saturated in

 Can you give me some examples of what might be considered main-frame-specific skills? FDJ: A lot of it would be in terms of architecture, just setting up a database. Some of it is even archaic languages, or structured languages like Assembler. That’s a skill that’s coming back. People thought it would be long gone by now, but here we are having to retrain or retool people in the Assembler programmer language.

 How steep is the learning curve if you have a basic understanding of IT architecture? FDJ: It’s not too bad. Of course,

University of Fredericton

seeks IT pros for e-MBA

By Rafael Ruffolo

n The UNIverSITy Of

Fredericton’s new online executive MBA program could be beneficial for those in IT looking to hone their leadership skills, according to the head of a Canadian association of IT professionals.

The executive MB A, which focuses on leadership and relationship management skills, is set to begin its inaugural term this fall. The Canadian Information Processing Society (CIPS) is just one of many associations of IT professionals that have received bursaries and scholarships for the new program.

CIPS president Stephen Ibaraki said that because of the wide-ranging role that technology plays in most businesses, IT pros would be wise to look at shoring up their business management skills. “IT is embedded in every aspect of an organization and

the business elements are a critical
part of that,” Ibaraki said. “There is
research to indicate that the profes-
sional needs of the future would be
somebody that has business and
industry core knowledge, as well as a
service-oriented attitude, interrela-
tionship, communication
and technical skills.
Increasingly, organ-
izations are finding that
these skills are in high
demand and a graduate
program in business will
help a person enhance
those areas con-
siderably.”
And according to Glenn McInnes,
president and director at the
University of Fredericton, increased
popularity of management degrees
in leadership, as well as the changing
world of today’s business, led to the
creation of the program.

“Overall, the demand for MBA programs is increasing and we’ve

identified the area where there’s the most demand, which is relationship or soft skill-based MBAs,” McInnes said. “Today business is all about relationships and how to give people the knowledge to manage that way. The students we’re looking at will be 35 to 45 years old and wanting to broaden and deepen these business skills because they are moving up in their careers.”

Ibaraki said the focus on the established industry professional is what makes the program particularly attractive. With its 8,000 members in various stages of their professional careers, Ibaraki believes CIPS’s partnership with the university will bring great benefit.

Because the program is aimed at existing industry

it’s a different system. Struc- ing to be progressive in terms of
tured programming is a lot bringing in things like (IBM’s)
different than object-oriented Websphere. A Websphere
programming. But I think the enables Java applications to
whole idea is the same because execute on the mainframe,
anyone who’s worked and to connect with
on object-oriented legacy systems. So for
systems has eventu- example, if you have a
ally had to tie back DB2 on your main-
into legacy systems frame and be able
in the background. to have your clients
Eventually all these check in on account
systems tie back to information, you have
mainframe systems that tie in directly
somewhere. So I onto the mainframe
think for people in ^DeS ^JarLaIS: ^Main-from the Internet
frame coders make

the industry, there is _more _money _than using technologies a little bit of appre- ^game ^developers.like Websphere. hension, because the (Editor’s note: IBM mainframe was supposed to be is providing funding for the gone, mainframes are these big Ryerson course.) black boxes that they’re a little bit afraid of because they don’t know what happens on it. But I think the skills are adaptable.

 Mainframes may not have gone away, but they obviously haven’t stayed the same, either. What will you be teaching in this course that might be new to people who worked on mainframes back in the 1970s? FDJ: One of the things about the course is we’re not only trying to be comprehensive in touching on all aspects of the mainframe, but we’re also try-

 How will taking this course benefit IT professionals in terms of furthering their careers?

FDJ: There’s tremendous demand right now, and demand is growing. There are a lot of people heading into retirement over the next three or four years, and there’s no one coming up behind them to replace them. A lot of companies are trying to get in gear. Mainframers make more money than distributed systems designers, more than game developers.

078637

pros, McInnes said the online environment allows students to complete an MBA program without disrupting their business and personal lives. He also said the program will give professionals working outside the major cities a chance to get university-quality education.

“This will help people who can’t access the traditional universities because they may live in Bathurst instead of Fredericton, or Renfrew instead of Ottawa,” McInnes said.