18. The Mainframe is Still Going Strong – Tech Field Day Podcast

Despite the hype about modern applications, the mainframe remains central to enterprise IT and is rapidly adopting new technologies. This episode of the Tech Field Day podcast features Steven Dickens, Jeffrey Decker, and John Hildebrand talking to me about the modern mainframe prior to the Share conference in Kansas City, which will be attending next week. Welcome to the Tech Field Day podcast, where we bring together a group of IT technical experts to discuss a single idea about key concepts in the industry.

This podcast features a variety of perspectives from members of the Tech Field Day delegate community, and is often recorded in association with one of our events. Tech Field Day is part of the RUM group, and this podcast is also published on our sister company Techron. On this episode recorded before the Share Kansas City Conference, our premise is the enduring popularity, strength, and value of the mainframe.

Despite what you may have heard, the mainframe keeps on chugging it is probably the most important element of global commerce. Before we get going though, let's meet who's on the panel today. Hey, Steven.

My name's Steven Dickens. I'm from the Futurum Group. I'm a Chief Technology advisor and also lead our research efforts around the mainframe space.

Hi, I'm Jeffrey Decker. I'm an instructor in mainframe curriculum at Northern Illinois University, And I'm John Hildebrand. Um, currently in between jobs and unemployed, but, uh, happy to, uh, be, uh, there at the, at the share conference here in Kansas City.

Being that I'm one of the local delegates. Yeah, John's been to, uh, many of our tech field a events before and, uh, represents the the new world. Um, I think, John, to start off, I think your experience at Cher is gonna be a lot like mine was when I attended Cher earlier this year.

Uh, you know, walking around on the show floor, looking at the booths, looking at the topics on the agenda, uh, listening to the keynotes, it really sounded a lot like the kind of things that we would hear from any other event that we would be attending. I mean, just a a, apart from the names and the specific technologies involved, most of the conversation at Cher was, uh, very, very familiar to new media folks. Um, Steven, I'm gonna throw this to you first.

What are the key topics in the mainframe industry today? Well, I mean, Obviously this is a transactional system that provides the backbone. You mentioned it in your introductory comments, the backdrop to the, to the entire sort of industry.

We're talking systems that sit behind, you know, credit card processing between at the back of airlines, government departments, tax offices, you know, doing that transactional heavy lifting. So there's obviously that piece. I think the big themes that are coming through is operational resilience.

We're recording this after the CrowdStrike and Microsoft US Central outages that happened last week. A lot of the mainframe community. I saw the flicker go over Jeff's face there.

There's a lot of sort of operational resilience, but you mentioned other, other sort of new topics like DevOps. We're starting to see the mainframe space adopt that, and it'd be crucial to application development. Security's always top of mind for these guys, but increasingly ai we're seeing that come into some of the tools we're seeing that come into, um, infuse from a coding perspective.

You know, big announcements from the likes of BMC and IBM and, and Broadcom in that space over the last few weeks around what they're doing with AI to infuse their tools. So largely what you'd expect if you were talking about a, a cloud platform or an on-premises platform, same things are top of mind, operational, resilience, cybersecurity, DevOps, and ai. And Jeff, you're teaching the next generation of, uh, mainframe operators and programmers.

I imagine that these are the topics that you're teaching, right? Well, uh, in the two classes that I'm able to teach at Northern Illinois, uh, just a little background, NIU, uh, the Department of Computer Science is legendary in the mainframe world, but unfortunately over the last 10, 15 years, the department did its best or has done its best to try to close out the mainframe curriculum. But I think that's kind of stopped for now, thankfully, because of the, the dire need companies have for mainframe developers.

And so, uh, I try to teach everything that I can in two 16 week classes. And, uh, I'm finding that assembler and the basics of mainframe assembler, it's three 70 assembler that I teach, uh, beginning and also the smorgasbord sort of mainframe topics that I teach in my upper level class, like JCL and COBOL and, uh, assembler Qem, other, uh, advanced Assembler. Those are really necessary.

I wish that I could get into other subjects, uh, like Steven mentioned, um, but unfortunately not with the time limits that I have here. My ultimate idea or ultimate wish would be to have a second upper level course to, to teach, but the department won't give that to me at this point. So I'm glad to help all I can.

Well, hopefully Jeff, they'd watch somebody in the administration watches this episode and realizes this April the mainframe is. Yes. Well, you wouldn't believe the, the type of recruiting I've tried to get so that companies that are interested in my graduates, uh, will write letters to state senators, to the governor, to, uh, the university administration and to our department chair asking for this course, these mainframe courses to be expanded, to be kept, uh, going.

And, uh, I think it's worked at least so far. One of the things though, uh, is that next week at share, Dr. Cameron say, and I will be presenting on education in mainframe curriculum.

I think that's gonna be Thursday morning if I'm right. Cher has been incredible. Cher has been incredible.

I've only attended this, I think will be my fifth May 4th or fifth time there. And it's just a great group of people doing a lot of good work. That's all there is to it.

Well, thank you. And, uh, it's, it's really great to have you and it's great to have, uh, so many of the incredible thought leaders from the Share Conference joining us around the table next week for the tech field day presentations. Yeah, and Cher is the longest running technology conference in, uh, it, which is phenomenal.

Um, John, uh, you've been to most technology conferences with me. I think, um, I I, I know you haven't been to share yet, but, um, you know, the things that I'm saying, uh, what does that make you think and and what's your initial gut reaction when hearing about things like AI and DevOps and containerized applications on the mainframe? Well, obviously the first thing that comes to mind is when I think the mainframe, I think of something dark and dusty in the back corner of my data center.

Um, just, it's still chugging away, but I underappreciate to some degree what the, uh, level of, uh, just transactional stuff that it does for the business overall. Um, since I've been focused mostly around say, like DevOps and cloud and things like that, it's, it's interesting to see that these things are intersecting now. It used to be that you would think of ways to get out of mainframe or you would add another layer on top for an application that somehow would access information to it.

But now we're going to see vendors who are trying to put, uh, mainframes, latency wise nearby to cloud workloads. We're trying, we're going to be seeing to some degree, like you mentioned, ai, um, being involved in some capacity with, uh, with mainframe technologies. These are the, when I was considering the Venn diagram of overlapping, these weren't necessarily two things that I was necessarily putting together in an overlap sense.

But it is exciting to see that, uh, this technology that is old to some degree is now new Again, as, as mentioned, um, plenty of, plenty of businesses are needing these sorts of folks to be able to work with the mainframe systems that they currently have. And I think even in a past technology conference, Steven, you and I discussed that the, the, the salaries for some of the folks like COBOL programmers and things like that is the age, uh, issue starts to become an even more prevalent issue inside of that particular industry. It's, i, it, it's definitely something that new graduates should definitely look into as far as need and want inside of the IT industry.

A conversation over the dinner table with one of my daughters, they brought one of their friends around who was doing Comp Psci and was is going do to graduate next year. And he is, he, his comment to, well, where would you spend your time? Where would you go and try and find the highest paid job?

I said, well, you're probably gonna think game developer or you're gonna think of a programmer. But I said, let me give you something that will blow your mind. You come outta college with a COBOL eccentricity, you are a cobolt programmer.

You're gonna work for Citibank, Wells Fargo, Walmart, you're gonna work for some of the biggest names in the industry, and they're gonna pay you, if not six figures, very close to it, straight outta college. And his mind was blown. And I'm, and because literally I've seen it, the feeding frenzy that goes on.

And Jeff, you've got a perspective here, no doubt, the feeding frenzy that goes on for these big name sort of companies. If they can find a recent graduate who wants to join the mainframe team, you know, you are working for some of the biggest companies with blue chip names, great benefits packages, and they're paying you a crazy salary just 'cause you want to learn cobolt versus Java. At the end of the day, the job of a programmer is to write in a language.

The actual job is the same. You're sitting there at a screen, you're sitting in Citibank or Wells Fargo's nice plus offices. You're sitting writing code every day.

The actual job is the ex the same or you're writing in Java or writing in Cobalt. The way I look at it is, if I told you you could speak French and earn 150 KA year, or you spoke Spanish and earn 70 KA year, which language would you learn? It's ex it's the same principle.

So I mean, it's a job to get people to talk about skills, and we're doing some work at Share, and we've just done some recent research on it. But, you know, for any of these graduates who pick up the show across any of the social platforms, learn Cobalt would be my advice. And the funny thing is, um, I was actually surprised by the diversity of people at at Share as well.

It is not just, you know, a bunch of old dinosaurs. It looks a lot like the same kind of people that you might encounter at a biotech conference or, you know, pretty much any mainstream corporate kind of conference. And, um, the people that are coming out of a lot of these degree programs, uh, you know, you mentioned Cameron, you mentioned, uh, you know, Jeff, your program as well.

Uh, the people that are coming outta these, uh, degree programs, uh, they're, they're, they're fun, they're good people. They're, they're good to be around, right, Jeff? Yes, they are.

And one of the things I try very hard is, uh, with these usually young students that I have that have no idea about Mainframe is I try to tell them that yes, you may be interested in doing things that are not assemble or not cobol not mainframe oriented, but it will at least get your foot in the door of any major corporation because any major corporation has a mainframe. And if they have a mainframe, they're doing everything. They're doing web development, they're doing Android, iOS, they're doing ui, uh, Youi development, uh, you, you name it.

And so if they get their foot in the door making really good money and they don't like COBOL or they don't like Assembler, whatever they're doing, there's always the opportunity to move elsewhere within the company and do something that they would consider. And I put air quotes on this more elegant than COBOL or Assembler, to me, there's nothing better. But, uh, yeah, that's, you just have to get their interest in it and they really pick it up.

Yeah, I mean, the po the point for me is, you know, if there's a job opening for a Java developer or a Python developer, there's gonna be a thousand candidates for it. So get rising to the top of that list of a thousand candidates. It's really hard.

If she's a Cobalt developer job, there'll be tens of candidates for that job rising to the top of the, of, you know, 50 versus 2000 candidates and know where I back my chances. It's an interesting point because, um, my, my own kid recently graduated with a, a computer science degree and, um, has focused on, you know, the hot technologies, data science, um, you know, artificial intelligence, user experience, user interface design, that sort of thing. Now there are plenty of jobs in that field.

Oh, yeah. And, um, and that, and, and, and, and that's been, you know, their experience as well. But that being said, it is hard to rise above the crowd because there's also plenty of graduates in those fields and, you know, knowing Rust and Python and Ruby, and, you know, these are great, great skills, don't get me wrong, but it is, as you say, uh, Steven, it's kind of cool to be able to say, I am differentiated in this one.

Incredible, unusual, and in demand way. But I, I wanna switch gears here and talk about some of the technologies because one of the things, Steven, I remember you and I looking at, and it was just kind of jaw dropping, uh, to see some of the things that are being done on mainframes now, running Linux on a mainframe, running OpenShift on a mainframe with cons, with container orchestration, uh, as you mentioned, web applications running directly on the mainframe. Uh, let's talk about that a little bit.

What are Mo what is the modern mainframe platform look like from a technology perspective? So, I mean, you've got obviously the core of the hardware, the core of the hardware. You can run multiple operating systems that you can run slays, you can run debon, you can run Z os, you can run VSE, you can run rail.

There's a whole bunch of operating systems. So you've kind of got the traditional space, and then you've got the new space. If I've kind of pause it out, the traditional space is still not the traditional space.

I literally had a briefing this week. If I told you could run containerized Java applications in a mainframe operating system, that would probably blow your mind. But that's reality.

The IBM team has put ZEOs container platform and embedded OpenShift ported 1800, um, open source packages, things like Pod man and put those directly into the mainframe operating system. So even the traditional space isn't traditional in the lens it used to be. And then on the other side of the house, you've kind of got Linux that's, we've had Linux running on the mainframe now since 1999.

So that's even not new. What's that? 23, 24 years maybe in production and sort of fully set up.

Linux has only been going 30 years, so we're only six years kind of behind, if you will. Um, so that's running sls, that's running rail, that's running, um, a tu that's running Debbie, and, you know, running Liberty, running a whole bunch of the sort of open source and that's running things that you would expect, you know, MongoDB, it's running containerized workloads. So I, so I, I think from the underlying hardware capability, yes, we're running a lot of PL one, a lot of cobol, a lot of kicks applications, a lot of DB two, a lot of the traditional stuff that's still there, Chuck in away.

But the ability to run, have this platform run some of the newest, most innovative AI workloads. The, you know, there's accelerators built into the hardware to be able to run AI workloads inside a transaction. So if you are doing a credit card transaction on a mainframe, being able to do an account sort of fraud or risk management AI sort of decision process in the transaction, you know, that type of stuff is possible.

So I think yes, you, you've always gotta think about the traditional stuff that this platform's been doing for the last 60 years, and it does a great job of those, but it's also the other Stiff that sits around it. I hit on it earlier about latency. Latency has been, especially for app modernization, has been the killer.

And one of the things that we've seen is a movement to move cloud workloads near the, um, mainframe itself. But now to take it one step further and to say some of those particular workloads to run directly on the mainframe itself, you can't really get any lower latency than that as far as application performance is concerned. So I think that's the part of it that has been eyeopening to me, has been the fact that these technologies exist.

Uh, you mentioned OpenShift. When I think OpenShift, I'm sure not thinking mainframe, but now after what I've seen as far as what's going to be happening at Share and the information that we're going to get from the various vendors, I have to change my mindset and realize that that's part of the equation now. And has been, as you've mentioned, for quite some time, um, especially with the Linux, you know, 24, 25 years being available to a mainframe that's, uh, in, in the, in the realm of the 30 years that it's been in existence for the enterprise, for the most part, that's, uh, I've, I in and of myself have to change my mindset when it comes to my approach when thinking about a mainframe.

It's no longer just as I mentioned that hidden, I wouldn't say hidden, but the, the big black box sitting in the, uh, sitting in the corner of the data center just chugging away. That's been doing it for 25, 30 years. So I think in the end, app modernization to me, um, I definitely do have to change my mindset when it comes to what the approach with the mainframe is nowadays, because latency is no longer an issue when you consider these particular technologies running directly on the iron itself.

A lot of students, young ones here at NIU are involved in classes on data science and learning Python and that sort of thing. And that's become a hot topic in the department. And a lot of new of our new faculty, graduate faculty, the professors, they, they do a lot of that.

But here's the thing, I bring to their attention that that work can be done even better on the mainframe. They don't understand that there's a 32 terabyte data lake in which they can do their analysis on the mainframe. And they're floored by that even though they're using a supercomputer, uh, that we have available to us to do their work, their, their data analysis, they, uh, they don't understand the amount of data that's stored on DS D units around the world that's been collecting for 60, 70 years.

And that data is out there ready to be analyzed as necessary without that much translation or transposition. And they really get amazed at it. They really do.

I mean, that kind of leads into some of the attendees that we've got coming to Mainframe Field Day at Share. You look at companies like Pop-Up Mainframe, not a household name. We've obviously got talking about people.

Uh, we've got a couple more attendees and sort of big net household names that you would expect to be being involved. But you look at somebody like a popup mainframe that is all around mainframe developer and making that easy to get for dev dev teams to get onto the platform, being able to set up a quick development environment, set up these test regions, set up the ability for a developer with zero skills in mainframe backend to be able to jump on the platform, set something up quick, do the tests they need to do, do the work they need to do, bounce back to their day job. I think John, you are gonna really enjoy sort of Gary's presentation and the team at popup talking about what they're doing.

'cause it's gonna bring the intersection of kind of your world that you understand from a DevOps point of view to the mainframe pop up as a vendor, sit right at that intersection. So it's gonna be fascinating discussion. And I think that's probably the piece that the delegates and the mix that we've got, Steve with kind of new delegates to the mainframe platform and then, you know, guys like Jeff and me and Derek and some of the others that we've got coming who are kind of mainframe guys.

Exactly. I I think you're gonna be really impressed by, I pop-up was a, a, a revelation when I heard about it. I was like, that is so cool.

It's such a neat idea. And, um, and it really addresses one of those key challenges here, which is, um, I, I need a, an environment to, to to, to develop and to test, and I can have one while I need it. It's like, it's like on demand, which is, you know, how we use the cloud today.

So before we go, um, you know, uh, share is next week, um, we're gonna be doing some, uh, some presentations for Tech Field Day. Uh, we're also gonna be doing some, uh, six five recordings and broadcast from Share. You'll catch those, uh, on the six five channels as well as Techstrong channels.

Um, John, uh, tell me about it, uh, from your perspective, what are you looking forward to at Share? What do you expect to see and, and what do you think you might be, uh, excited by? Well, I think in the end we've already kind of discussed that, um, the mind shift that folks like myself have to take into consideration that the mainframe is definitely part of the DevOps movement, um, and app modernization movement.

It's not just a, you know, uh, an old piece of rust sitting out there anymore. It's, it's what's old is new again when it comes to a lot of folks. And changing that mindset over so that I can understand how app modernization can get even better with, as mentioned, 60, 70 years of data available at, at fingertips in some of these, uh, some of these systems.

That's going to be key for me moving forward is getting a, a broader understanding of how that app development movement is going to embrace and ultimately succeed with the mainframe at the core. Well, I, I look forward to meeting all the new people that are interested in hiring my graduates, uh, from the, from the mainframe curriculum here, and also working with Cameron say, and getting people, getting companies to understand that we offer COBOL and Assembler to, uh, to companies as they need them and can hire us to teach a cohort whenever they need it. And, uh, also I'm looking forward to being from Kansas City.

I'm looking forward to good barbecue and some good Mexican food. And then, uh, working with you guys with Tech Field Day. So thank you for inviting me.

Well, thank you so much for coming. And, um, as someone who spends a lot of time in, uh, Texas, I have to say that Kansas City Barbecue is better. Uh, Steven, um, what are you, uh, what are you gonna look forward to there?

Well, I mean, the barbecue, I, I, being a Brit I've got no frame of reference, but I'm looking forward to the barbecue. I mean, for me, share's just always a melting pot of the en entire mainframe ecosystem. I've got some great friends in this community.

It's also a chance for me as an analyst to sort of be on listen mode for the entire sort of trip and, and walk the booths in the expo hall, find out what's going on, what new features, functions, new technologies come into the platform. So I, I come away, um, I'll spend three days there and just my brain will expand, uh, in real time at the event. And then I'm obviously looking forward to kicking off with our mainframe field day.

So, um, a great new format, bringing that to a new show. Super, super excited to be able to do that. Excellent.

Well, it's great to have the three of you joining us along with the other delegates. com, you can see a complete list. It's about half, uh, mainframe, uh, uh, who's who and, and about, uh, and, and some, some really exciting, uh, tech field Day folks.

Uh, some, some veterans like, uh, Gina and, uh, and John, as well as a couple of new folks. So do check that out as well. Well, thank you so much for joining us, uh, for this episode of the Tech Field Day podcast.

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