Friday, April 21, 2017

IBM z Systems Benelux Study Tour unveils benefits of the modern mainframe

29 March 2017 | Written by: Hans Deketele

Ask anyone on the street to tell you what they think of when you say the word “car” and you will get descriptions of the latest Ferrari, BMW or Porsche. You will never get a description of the first car by Carl Benz back in 1886. When you ask the same thing about the word “mainframe”, you will get a description of a huge, room-filling computer from the 70s with spinning tapes in the background. In most cases you will not get the image of today’s stealth-like designed, state-of-the-art computer the IBM mainframe really is. To get people up to date on modern mainframe technology, IBM offers people who are interested in the IBM z Systems a Benelux Study Tour from May 15 to 19 2017. This trip will go to the IBM Client Center in Manhattan, New York.
There they will learn that worldwide 80% of all transactional data still reside on mainframes and that 90% of all credit card transactions pass through this modern IT-platform. Why ? Because of the proven availability, scalability and security of IBM z Systems, in conjunction with new technologies and imperatives like blockchain, hybrid cloud, instant payments and data privacy regulations. And with the vast amount of data on mainframes, it is only logical to do the analytics close to the data. This enables real-time analytics. This makes it possible eg. for insurance firms to detect potential fraud in real-time, before any settlement is paid or document is signed.

Day 1

The agenda of the first day of the z Systems Study Tour is composed of several sessions: one is on the trends in enterprise IT-architecture. Here we will discuss what workload to put on what IT-platform and why. Participants will also get a glimpse into what the future holds for IBM z Systems and LinuxONE (IBM’s dedicated Linux environment on z Systems architecture). As well as how to minimize costs of, for instance, distributed Oracle environments by consolidating on Linux on mainframe or on LinuxONE. We end the first day showing you why LinuxONE is the ideal platform for your blockchain environment.

Day 2

The second day starts with an overview of the new workload strategy for IBM z Systems: (real-time) analytics, hybrid cloud, the API economy, … and a reference case is also on the agenda. Mainframe as cloud server? Yes, indeed. Cloud is all about agility and scalability: what to think of the possibility to create 80.000 virtual servers in one box, with a single click of the mouse? That is the flexibility needed in an agile cloud environment. Furthermore, on the agenda: cognitive computing (artificial intelligence, self-learning systems, …) and the architectural considerations around it plus of course IBM Watson. We close the day with our IBM Research department giving you insight in the newest of the newest: quantum computing.

Day 3

On the last day we will discuss the IT-impact of European rulings and regulations on data privacy (GDPR) and payments. Having z Systems as platform, increases the ease of compliance with these regulations. We end the day with a presentation on Security on z Systems and on digital transformation.
Want to join this IBM z Systems study tour? Have a look at the program and the application form.
Enrollments end on April 13, so be sure to reserve your seat!
Download the application form >>>

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Hans Deketele

z Systems & Power Platform Leader

Tuesday, April 11, 2017

Ancient programming language COBOL can make you bank, literally

by MÁR MÁSSON MAACK — 1 day ago in FINANCE

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You’d think a computer programming language created in 1959 would be outdated — but you’d be incredibly wrong.

Most people know Java and C++, but good ol’ COBOL is still alive and kicking. In the US, around 80 percent of in-person transactions and 95 percent of ATM swipes are based on programs written in COBOL. The problem is there’s not enough people to maintain the current COBOL-based systems.

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According to Reuters, around three trillion dollars in daily commerce flow through COBOL systems. Many major financial corporations and some parts of the federal government have built their entire infrastructure on COBOL bases from the 70s and 80s.

So if something goes wrong, we might be looking at a major shitstorm. However, you could make money preventing that.

Retirees who can’t stop working

Companies are in desperate need for some young blood with COBOL knowledge. Only a few universities are still teaching COBOL but it’s not enough to meet demand.

Currently, banks and financial companies heavily rely on retirees, paying them $100 an hour to fix simple problems (for people with the right expertise).

75-year-old Bill Hinshaw, founder of COBOL Cowboys, is one of the veterans who can’t stop working. In an interview with Reuters he said that he often comes across software he wrote over 40 years ago, which shows how enduring the language is in today’s financial systems.

However, using retirees isn’t exactly a sustainable solution because, let’s face it, they’re going to die at some point and there’s no one to replace them. But the difficult thing about getting new people is that COBOL isn’t as sexy as working with Elixir, or Golang.

COBOL work is often seen as boring maintenance duties which kills creativity. That isn’t necessarily true as there’s still new development and extending of COBOL applications being done, but the reputation persists.

Why not switch from COBOL?

Since there aren’t many young programmers specializing in COBOL, the best thing would probably be to switch to a new coding language. But that isn’t simple.

In 2012 the Commonwealth Bank of Australia replaced its core banking platform to modernize their system. The change ended up costing around 750 million dollars, which is why many banks have opted for trying to keep their COBOL systems going.

The great need for new COBOL programmers means great job-security and possibly higher salaries in the future, as the talent-pool gets smaller and smaller.

Some predict it will remain a major language for the next 20 years, which is an amazing feat, given it was created at the very beginning of the computer age. So if you’re a programmer who doesn’t mind working in a slowly dying but fairly lucrative field, then COBOL might be just the thing for you.

TECH

https://thenextweb.com/finance/2017/04/10/ancient-programming-language-cobol-can-make-you-bank-literally/#.tnw_EgHEDTVC

Wednesday, April 5, 2017

Who are these millennials with the mainframe vendettas?

Published on February 6, 2017

Rhiannon Dakin

Helping to Future Proof Mainframe, IBM i, Unix and MultiValue Applications | Secure Modernisation, Mobile & Cloud

It’s becoming a weekly occurrence. Whether in conversations with customers, or in our industry’s publications, the millennial distain for the mainframe is a hot topic.
We are supposed to subscribe to the idea that we have a looming skills crisis because people in my generation treat the mainframe with contempt. Where did this idea come from? Have we all been throwing our mobiles in disgust as we check our bank balances, or crashing GSE conferences chanting "death to COBOL"? Do I just miss the invites? If there’s anything causing large scale unrest in my generation at the moment- it's not the mainframe.
We are guilty here at Flynet as well, that’s actually what prompted me to write this post. I was reading our article in Compare the Cloud and this paragraph struck a cord “we have technical push back from new millennial-aged employees who simply refuse to work with a system where they can’t touch the screen or point and click. Explaining that the application has been built over many years and therefore not all the processes are linear and in turn the information architecture isn’t intuitive doesn’t seem to quell their complaints”
How irrational are we perceived as a generation, when the lack of a responsive, touch screen UI would make us down tools? That’s it, I can’t pinch to zoom, I’m off! I don’t care that I am likely at a pivotal point in my career, I cannot and will not lower myself to use those function keys.
It’s a tragic state of affairs, well it would be, but it over simplifies and misses the point. I’m 27, right in the middle of the millennial bracket and I love the mainframe. I’m not going to pretend that I’m not an outlier, I am. The majority of my generation have no real opinion on it whatsoever. When I asked my friends for their take (it was a wild night) there wasn’t a negative view amongst them. In the interest of full disclosure there were a couple of Matrix comments as I tried to explain the green screens.
There’s no denying the skills shortage though, or the training and retention difficulties with millennial employees on green screen legacy applications. So if it doesn’t come from an inbuilt repulsion for 'legacy technology', where does it come from and what can be done?
Our generation were the first to learn tech from childhood en masse. We learnt, but we weren’t taught and this distinction is important and often overlooked. Few of our parents or teachers could use computers before we could. I have fond memories of teaching my mum to use our computer and watching her pick up the mouse and tapping it on the boxy monitor to ‘click’. We are used to a fast pace of technological change, we accept it, adapt to it and have even come to expect it. I will be quite disappointed if in the next ten years I can’t project a browser from my watch down my forearm and eliminate my phone entirely. My mum would not share this view. In fact, I am already dreading the support calls.
So what happens when we enter organisations and are faced with green screen mainframe applications? Contrary to popular belief, the majority of us don’t throw a hissy fit, or spontaneously combust. We try to learn and adapt, but our default technical learning style makes this more difficult. It's a weakness.
We can’t learn green screen applications instinctively, they just don't work that way, so we have to be taught. This isn't how we previously conquered the Tivo box and mastered applications; it’s unchartered territory for us and it jars. It’s like memorising your times tables when you know you’ll have a calculator. You understand the need, but it seems a bit tedious when you know there’s a much quicker way. Training will take longer, moral may be lower, but in isolation it’s unlikely to make anyone leave.
The real problem comes when those same applications force a convoluted path through 100 screens to enter information that could easily fit on one web page. When you spend an hour completing a workflow when a comparable task on your phone takes minutes. This is where frustration builds. Millennials don’t leave because you have a mainframe, millennials leave because the green screen applications are completely at odds with everything we have learned about technology in the last 20 years.
The applications restrict productivity and breed a level of frustration that may not be as acute in previous generations. For people like my mum who were programmed to learn by rote, so much so that she used to write the workflow for eBay purchases or Google searches in a little book, a green screen application is unlikely to build much resentment. She would accept it as something distinct and follow her process. Learning styles have changed, my generation is adaptive; we are problem solvers driven by intuition, but we are not patient.
That’s actually why I love the mainframe. The mainframe is anything but slow; get the emulator right and modernise the UI and ironically you’re left with a millennial nirvana. Performant, robust applications with almost zero downtime. Responsive applications that accessible instantly on any browser or device with intuitive navigation.
That’s what I help customers do and it’s probably why my opinion of the mainframe is apparently atypical. I work with other millennials to develop these mainframe applications with commodity skillsets using our no code low code software. I don’t see the skills shortage, or the frustration, I just see the power and it’s a beautiful thing.

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