Today, IBM Z users have many different options for tools to automate their mainframe processes. JCL, REXX, z/OSMF Workflows and Zowe CLI are all such options and all specifically designed for IBM Z, and therefore resulted in the need for specialized skills, for which current education is lacking.
Posted February 22, 2022
SHARE President and CEO, James Erdahl, shares his thoughts, excitement and association updates for the year ahead. As part of his message, James says, "As we look forward to, and anticipate, ‘what's next' for SHARE, all signs point to in-person."
Posted February 07, 2022
Start the year off strong! Reg Harbeck goes into detail on how to effectively use social media as means of interaction, networking, and career building for all enterprise IT professionals.
Posted January 24, 2022
In the six-and-a-half decades since SHARE began, mainframe computing has evolved and grown into the stable, secure platform that many enterprises rely on today. From the first meetings in the basement of the RAND Corp. headquarters building to its twice-yearly events today, SHARE has become the go-to place for mainframers and developers alike to share their knowledge and build their networks.
Posted January 10, 2022
The year 2020 marked the 16th annual Master the Mainframe (now IBM Z Xplore) competition. IBM reported that there were more than 25,000 registered learners from 129 countries around the globe.
Posted December 13, 2021
As the mainframe platform evolves with new capabilities — and even as it moves to the hybrid cloud environment — enterprises will need all the skilled workers they can find. Part of that pipeline-building process is ensuring that the next generation of workers are engaged in science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics (STEAM).
Posted November 29, 2021
Ian Coldwater, a leading expert on containers and container security, and Chad Rikansrud, a leading expert on mainframes and mainframe security, revealed they were the first to accomplish a mainframe container breakout — when a malicious or legitimate user is able to escape the container isolation and access resources on the host machine, such as file systems — at DEF CON 29 this year.
Posted November 15, 2021
As you know, with the General Availability of z/OS V2.5 on September 30, 2021, all the IBM Shopz product catalog is now fully available to install with z/OSMF. However, that brings up another point.
Posted November 01, 2021
Like coffee energizes workers, the Java programming language can invigorate enterprises by ensuring employees can easily modernize their organizations' applications, bolstering their resiliency and updating them as marketplace needs change.
Posted October 18, 2021
The Z Ambassadors play a key role in their local student community in advocating for IBM Z technologies and enterprise computing. Each Z Ambassador not only builds the IBM Z Global Student Hub community but also spreads the word about Hour of Z and other learning opportunities.
Posted October 04, 2021
Women hold just 28% of leadership positions in the technology field, according to a recent study. Nearly a quarter of those women believe their advanced technical skills are the most important factor in their career advancement, compared to just 13% of men.
Posted September 20, 2021
Mainframe testing continues to be essential to the continued success of the platform. Petr Vacula, mainframe product manager at Broadcom, and Josh Dorfman, a UX research strategist at Broadcom, explored manual and automated testing in their session, "Breaking the Habit of Manual Testing," during the SHARE Virtual Experience 2021 (August 9-13).
Posted September 07, 2021
I remember my first few weeks working on MVS. The syprogs around me used JCL, assembler, and what seemed to be an arcane set of CLISTS to manage the system. Lucky for me, there was this new language on the scene called Rexx that allowed me to use skills I already had to build management routines. Like it did for many others in the industry, Rexx allowed me to grow my MVS skills and manage my environment without having to learn everything all at once.
Posted August 23, 2021
The Open Mainframe Project brings together academics and mainframe business experts to collaborate and advance the deployment of Linux and open source in a mainframe computing environment to leverage business technology and infrastructure for a competitive advantage.
Posted August 09, 2021
Building upon our previous look at z/OS Container Extensions (zCX), we spoke with Kershaw Mehta, chief architect at IBM, about the potential capabilities of containers for organizations, including those moving to the cloud.
Posted July 26, 2021
Job markets evolve and the skills needed in the workplace change. Analysts have recently asked whether colleges are up to the task of keeping up with the skills necessary for students to flourish in their chosen careers.
Posted July 12, 2021
Cultivating community is a top priority in the mainframe space. IBM Z Ambassadors, or ZAmbassadors for short, represent just one program aimed at growing the mainframe community, with ambassadors in at least 17 countries.
Posted June 28, 2021
"Packed Decimal Pachyderms" — that's us. Mainframe Elephants — long memories, very versatile, and — until recently — mostly grey. But if the pachyderm reference is obscure, the packed decimal part probably qualifies as obfuscation if used beyond the scope of mainframe technical insiders.
Posted June 14, 2021
Like all conferences over the last year, SHARE events have shifted to a virtual platform in 2021 so we can best continue to serve our attendees by providing high-quality enterprise technology education while also striving to include peer networking and industry influence.
Posted June 01, 2021
Cloud computing has evolved into serverless computing, an application architecture that includes more client-side code, a reliance on managed services, and the removal of direct server interaction.
Posted May 17, 2021
The refreshed website is complete and was officially released to the world on April 15, 2021. When you first arrive at the new website, you'll find easy and intuitive navigation plus more information at your fingertips from the home page.
Posted May 03, 2021
One could spend numerous pages—books—trying to catalog all the mainframe pop culture errors and correct them, and a small number of people might even read such a massive collection.
Posted April 19, 2021
It's been quite a year for working women, and it wouldn't be right to close out Women's History Month 2021 without recognizing the women of SHARE. That's why, for this month's Message From SHARE, I'm turning the tables and asking some of our SHARE Virtual Summit Women in IT panelists a few questions.
Posted April 05, 2021
Enterprises rely on add-on security software products, such as External Security Managers (ESMs), to provide security on the mainframe, enabling them to meet compliance and customer expectations. But there are additional considerations enterprises need to take into account.
Posted March 22, 2021
Brian Kithcart, SHARE's vice president, currently serves as systems engineer manager at Rocket Software. Over the last decade, Brian has held positions at SHARE such as project manager and deputy director, which is why, today, we're sitting down with Brian to chat all about his new role with SHARE.
Posted March 08, 2021
We will soon be joining together for SHARE Virtual Summit 2021. The Conference Operations team and the Program Council have prepared a slate of presentations, panel discussions, and various other opportunities to interact with partners and peers for updates on the latest developments.
Posted February 22, 2021
Mainframes are at the core of our digital economy. In fact, recent research from Key Resources, Inc. (KRI) reported that 86% of IT and security managers agreed that mainframes are essential for scaling workloads, with 75% stating they're critical for business continuity.
Posted February 08, 2021
Mainframers are aware that the Interactive System Productivity Facility (ISPF) editor, introduced in the 1970s, is easy to learn and helps with basic editing.
Posted January 25, 2021
Five decades of service with one organization is a milestone. Looking back over my 50 years as a SHARE volunteer, I hope that my history provides other members with a snapshot of where the organization has been and where it is going — a first-hand look at history.
Posted January 11, 2021
Serving on the Board of Directors is rounding out my experience and appreciation of SHARE — as a vendor, sponsor, speaker, volunteer, founding member of its Women in IT Initiative, and now as Director of Industry Influence and chair of the Editorial Advisory Committee. In my first few months on the Board, I have learned a lot about the power and influence of our association.
Posted December 14, 2020
SHARE is well known for its twice annual events in which presenters offer educational and technical sessions on everything mainframe. In an expansion of its year-round education strategy, SHARE Nibbles offers short, digestible content to members similar to how-to videos on YouTube. These 10-minutes or less tutorials, created by users, will present a quick learning opportunity for IT enterprise questions.
Posted November 30, 2020
Before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, progress toward gender parity in the U.S. workplace was moving in the right direction, but as more companies strove to remain productive through remote work and other means, gender parity progress has slowed or halted, according to McKinsey's "Women in the Workplace 2020" report.
Posted November 16, 2020
With SHARE Virtual 2020: Power-on Reset (Sept. 22-24 and Sept. 29-Oct.1) in the books, many of the hottest sessions ran the gamut from the z/OS Keynote and MVS Program opening to z/OS containers and Git for ISPF to PDSE Pitstop and hidden treasures of z/OS. Here, we explore the Top 15 sessions - by attendance - for SHARE Virtual 2020.
Posted November 02, 2020
As SHARE turns 65 and the mainframe turns 56, it's significant that Moore's Law has been around for 55 of those years — since 1965. Over the last five decades, the world of computing has come to rely on ever-denser and faster computing technology to mitigate the constantly increasing amount of functionality packed into a given amount of capacity and response time.
Posted October 19, 2020
For the past several years, I have volunteered to mentor students participating in the Master the Mainframe (MtM) student competition, IBM's premiere activity to introduce students—secondary and post-secondary—to the IBM Z ecosystem. I have found it very rewarding, personally, work with students learning about the best platform for enterprises and become interested in pursuing a career on the platform.
Posted October 05, 2020
Prior to the IBM z10, applications achieved significant performance improvements from hardware upgrades, but as processing power has increased through new hardware features, such as new instruction sets, applications compiled with Enterprise COBOL v.4 and all earlier compilers are unable to exploit these new facilities and are not running efficiently on modern Z systems.
Posted September 21, 2020
With IBM's pervasive encryption technology on their z14 and z15 mainframes, you can transparently encrypt data sets and Coupling Facility (CF) structures at low cost on z/OS. While this is an attractive feature, exploiting pervasive encryption is not as simple as flipping a switch.
Posted September 08, 2020
Why is defending the mainframe so difficult? One reason is that many people do not fully understand what is meant by the term "mainframe." Ubiquitous computing leads many to believe that the mainframe is an amorphous type of computer from the mid-20th century that was made obsolete by laptop computers and mobile technologies.
Posted August 24, 2020
Digital certificates are equivalent to a website's identification card, or driver's license, ensuring that a website is real and not a scam website attempting to steal users' personal information, such as credit card numbers. At SHARE Fort Worth, Broadcom software engineers Seamus Hayes and Jamieson Walker explained that digital certificates also contain a cryptographic key that can be used to send encrypted messages to the server, allowing for private, secure communication.
Posted August 10, 2020
For 60 years, COBOL has been the cornerstone language for application development on mainframes. It effectively engages in large-scale batch and transaction processing jobs at a number of companies, government organizations, and other firms.
Posted July 27, 2020
COVID-19 may have changed the economic landscape, but the reality is that companies still need to hire top technical talent to secure their mainframes and ensure their systems continue to operate at their optimum.
Posted July 13, 2020
As you probably already know, the SHARE summer conference, scheduled for Boston, will not occur. Boston Mayor Marty Walsh announced the cancellation of all gatherings in Boston for the summer, up to and including Labor Day. However, that doesn't mean that SHARE is going to miss out on an opportunity to fulfill our mission.
Posted June 29, 2020
The guiding principle of SHARE has always been its motto: SHARE: It's not an acronym, it's what we do. With more than half a century of history, the organization has a wide range of technical expertise at its fingertips.
Posted June 15, 2020
To be a champion in any field, a person has to have the drive and curiosity to strive for more, but they also have to be passionate about their work and advocate for the advancement of the field. This is particularly true in the IT community where technology evolves quickly.
Posted June 01, 2020
Successful organizations and companies have well-trained workers at their foundation. Training is not only essential for new workers, but also for existing employees to refresh their knowledge, especially when new technologies are adopted or greater responsibilities are expected in a new role.
Posted May 18, 2020
The IBM Master the Mainframe competition may be 15 years old, but it shows no signs of slowing down. There was a 40% surge in contest registrations to more than 25,500 participants in 2019, and participants came from nearly 4,000 schools and 154 countries.
Posted May 04, 2020
SHARE Pittsburgh Best of the Best Session Winner, Dusty Rivers, director of z Systems Software: IMS & CICS at GT Software and SHARE program manager for IMGT, says implementing application programmable interfaces (APIs) at IMS installations can be as simple as knowing what issues you'll run into before you run into them.
Posted April 20, 2020
Mainframe systems are the backbone of finance, health care, and many other industries, which is why the reliability of those systems is paramount.
Posted April 06, 2020
More than 1,300 attendees convened last month in Cowtown for SHARE Fort Worth (Feb. 23-28). Attendees heard the latest scoop on IBM z15 and a variety of other hot topics in enterprise IT.
Posted March 23, 2020
In the session, Transforming Z Applications with APIs, CI/CD and Modern Languages, SHARE Phoenix Best Session winner Keith Wilson, technical architect at USAA, laid out USAA's journey in transforming its critical enterprise applications running on the Z platform to participate in its API ecosystem.
Posted March 09, 2020