Mainframe timebomb

Dave Bailey hit on a point that has been a growing topic of discussion at Share, the IBM mainframe user group (Age is withering the mainframe’s support, www.computing.co.uk/2238642).

Having just spoken on this topic at the group’s meeting in Austin, Texas a few weeks ago, I can confidently say that there are actually three areas of concern.

One is diminishing skills, which can be addressed by in-house training or university partnership initiatives such as IBM’s zNextGen. The tougher issues are mission-critical experience, which requires months of mentoring, and the loss of company domain knowledge – which can only be addressed by a comprehensive documentation initiative.

Yet, sadly, many organisations are ignoring the problem altogether. My colleagues and I believe this issue is so important that it should be included in an organisation’s disaster recovery and business continuity planning.

Or perhaps the mainframe can just lay idle for a few days. Maybe no one will notice.

Jim Fowler