Where is the Mainframe going?

[rexxhead]

Originally Posted by JimMoore

I will be helping on a z/OS 1.11 install in the next week. Mainframe is kept ultra-current - IBM and all third party products. Rigorous testing, benchmarking and IVPing done with a small, but technically skilled team.

My former employer is now about 3 levels behind due to the fact that they can't get some of the application code to work with newer versions of z/OS and 3rd party s/w.

Much of this ap/code was written in the ancient past by newly-minted progr... err... coders who lacked discipline or foresight, and now that certain loopholes have been closed it no longer works.

The solution, of course, is to fix the code-in-error, but the alternate plan is to simply stop putting in new versions of s/w that causes problems. The first has costs today; the second, costs tomorrow.

Well, I'm glad that's settled...

[yarnseeker]

Originally Posted by JimMoore

Haven't the "client-server" gang figured out that time marches on? They have had about 17-18 years now.

clearly not. our guys just last year installed a major new system that they KNEW would not work with the current release of internet explorer that was out LAST SUMMER (2009). Now IF they knew that your software is already out of date when you install it, what hope do you think that this company will ever have of keeping that mess 'current' or even close?

they are talking about upgrading us all to a newer version of IE (we're on 6.0 now!) and the email specifically states for those apps that cannot run on the new version, they'll be creating or giving them some sort of CITRIX environment to run those apps in. I know nothing about it. I don't even WANT to know anything about it! It sounds like a disaster waiting to happen.

[JimMoore]

Something I really don't like are the legacy client-server systems from the mid-1990s, 1995-98 or so. Gawd they blow chunks, especially, the in-house written ones.

Patched to death, no browser interface - just "buttons", "icons" and "drop downs" - they are starting to look like green screens did around the same time they were "new and exciting".

Every system will become a legacy system. If it survives long enough.

[steeleweed]

I've had programs written for OS MVT 11 that are still running today on z/OS 1.7 systems. It all depends on the quality of the original coding.

[David Crayford]

http://www-03.ibm.com/systems/z/news...sr =systemshp