This year at SHARE Pittsburgh (Aug. 4-9), the CICS Project will celebrate the 50th anniversary of its namesake. This anniversary is just one milestone in the long history of the CICS, including its use at the Montreal Olympics in 1976, the addition of web support in 1999, and the introduction of continuous delivery in 2015.
Posted July 22, 2019
Pittsburgh is known as ‘The City of Bridges' because it has so many of them. This makes it an appropriate location for the upcoming SHARE event: an organization that connects people and builds bridges across the industry.
Posted July 08, 2019
Many people believe that seven is a magic number, perhaps the world's favorite number. Leanne Wilson is one to agree, as she's been a security consultant with RSM Partners for seven years. However, a magic number can only carry you so far.
Posted June 24, 2019
Across the United States, colleges and schools are renewing efforts to encourage women of all ages to enter science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields. As companies look to fill their technology-based job openings, many have embarked on diversity initiatives to expand their employee base and talent pipelines.
Posted June 10, 2019
SHARE launched the Women in IT initiative at this year's event in Phoenix, which SHARE Vice President Martha McConaghy previously introduced in the February message from SHARE. She explained that the track would develop a more permanent community for the women in the mainframe industry.
Posted May 28, 2019
The Government Accountability Office's (GAO) 2018 report, "Information Technology: IRS Needs to Take Additional Actions to Address Significant Risks to Tax Processing," calls into question the viability of the mainframe as the system of record for governmental systems. It also cites a shortage of human resources with critical skills.
Posted May 13, 2019
What did the "father of HLASM" and one of the great supporters of SHARE indicate was a key ingredient of success in the mainframe ecosystem? The fun of the mainframe! As anyone who knew Dr. John Ehrman realized, not only did he care deeply about everything he was committed to, he also had fun with it.
Posted April 29, 2019
The SHARE Phoenix event drew a record 380 first-time attendees. First-time attendance has risen steadily, from 214 at the 2017 San Jose meeting to 320 in St. Louis in 2018. Before their arrival, first-time attendees received a dedicated email to help them navigate the Phoenix event, and a "roadmap" with suggested sessions, such as "Early Professionals Pursuing Mainframe Careers? Absolutely!" and "Hybrid Cloud for IBM Z Systems with Live Demo."
Posted April 15, 2019
Blockchain strives to eliminate the need for middlemen by building trust between business parties, automating certain transaction processes, securing transaction data, and reducing costs across the board by creating an immutable ledger or log of transactions or data. Blockchain can simplify the way business is conducted, but it is not a replacement for the database systems in place today.
Posted April 01, 2019
SHARE Past President Anne Caluori is working to collect and catalog important documents from SHARE's more-than-60 years of history. Many of SHARE's long-standing member organizations participated in key working groups, producing white papers, cooperating in technical task forces, and developing presentations that, in retrospect, have influenced the complex computing industry from the 1960's to today.
Posted March 18, 2019
Since the 1950s, open access to source code has been used to create or adapt software for use on the mainframe to meet the needs of individual businesses. Sam Golob, maintainer of the CBT Tape (a collection of donated open source software for z/OS), says there are components of the z/OS operating system that are over 40 years old, but over time the code has changed and improvements were made either through updates from IBM or open access to the source code.
Posted March 04, 2019
Mainframes are the backbone of many systems across the globe. Nearly everyone comes into contact with the mainframe at some point, whether depositing or withdrawing money from their bank or booking an airplane ticket. Reg Harbeck, SHARE member and chief strategist at Mainframe Analytics Ltd., says mainframes are similar to the mythical phoenix.
Posted February 19, 2019
Every once in a while we meet someone exemplary, who is passionate about their area of expertise and yet very humble in that passion. In our IBM mainframe world, one of those people was the late Dr. John Ehrman.
Posted February 04, 2019
Machine learning is a hot topic for businesses that want to offer their customers a unique, personalized experience. To create these interactions in real time, businesses need to access large and diverse data sets, which is why many of them are now looking for ways to bring machine learning capabilities to their biggest source of transactional and customer data: the mainframe.
Posted January 22, 2019
Since the advent of computing machines, one requirement has been the ability to record instructions and present them again to the machine to perform the same process, to either repeat the same output or act on a different set of data. However, this isn't a 20th-century problem. In fact, the first working example of this predates the first electronic computer by over 200 years.
Posted January 07, 2019
Highlights Include Keynote by Captain Mark Kelly and 500+ Technical Sessions on Industry Hot Topics. SHARE Association has just announced its opening keynote, Captain Mark Kelly, and the availability of the online technical agenda for SHARE® Phoenix, March 10-15, 2019, at the Phoenix Convention Center in Phoenix, Ariz.
Posted December 17, 2018
The mainframe is at the core of technology strategy in many industries, but critics often question whether it is still relevant. In this "Mainframe Matters" series, we're examining some of the industries where the mainframe plays a critical role, and answering the question: Why does the IBM Z matter today?
Posted December 03, 2018
Businesses today have the opportunity to introduce a mix of digital engagement and commerce technologies to transform their organizational activities, processes, competencies and models. At the center of this, the mainframe remains a key player.
Posted November 19, 2018
The mainframe is at the core of technology strategy in many industries, but critics often question whether it is still relevant. In this "Mainframe Matters" series, we're examining some of the industries where the mainframe plays a critical role, and answering the question: Why does the IBM Z matter today?
Posted November 05, 2018
We need to talk about the possibility of your mainframe being hacked. Not talking about it won't make the problem go away. In fact, ignoring the issue has the potential to make things even worse.
Posted October 22, 2018
Earlier this year at SHARE St. Louis, representatives from the Open Mainframe Project, IBM, Rocket, and CA got on stage at the Tuesday keynote to announce the launch of Zowe, the first-ever open source project launched on z/OS. Zowe was created to make it easier to access the mainframe environment, lowering barriers for younger professionals just starting with z/OS.
Posted October 08, 2018
Database reorganization has always been about improving database performance and reclaiming free space. However, as Rocket Software software engineer Ka-Chun Ng explained in a recent SHARE presentation, the new capabilities of database management software have changed the "how" and "why" when it comes to reorganization strategy.
Posted September 24, 2018
It's hard to believe the last SHARE event of 2018, held recently in St. Louis, has come and gone. I look forward to these events twice a year, which have played a significant role in shaping my career.
Posted September 10, 2018
At SHARE Academic Student Career Days, held recently in St. Louis, students gathered for an immersive, two-day experience of all things mainframe. From hands-on learning activities, to networking opportunities, interview practice and a panel with recently hired mainframe professionals, there was no shortage of learning and exchange of information taking place.
Posted August 27, 2018
Each day, mainframes are powering the world's banks, healthcare systems, government institutions, and more, processing millions of transactions a day. It's no wonder, then, that security remains a hot topic not only for the industry, but for SHARE events, as well.
Posted August 13, 2018
The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) has been in the making for a few years. It was put together by the European Union to enhance data protection rights for EU citizens and harmonizes data protection laws across all 28 EU member states
Posted July 30, 2018
Classroom education is important for learning new technologies, but when it comes to learning a complex field like mainframe technology, there's no replacement for the value of on-the-job training. With its Mainframer in Training (MIT) program, U.K.-based service provider RSM Partners aims to add structure to this process, addressing the industry's skills gap by developing future mainframe specialists from the ground up.
Posted July 16, 2018
I was recently in Sacramento attending the SHARE mainframe conference. It's always a pleasure to see customers, colleagues and other people interested in all things mainframe. It was especially nice to see all the first-time attendees from hundreds of different companies.
Posted July 02, 2018
For many organizations, data is as much a terrifying liability as it is a valuable asset. In his new SHARE'd Intelligence article, Mark Wilson of RSM Partners asks, "My question is this: are we, as an industry, looking at data the wrong way? Are we missing a trick when it comes to understanding, managing and securing our data?"
Posted June 18, 2018
According to a recent report by research firm International Data Corporation (IDC), global spending on blockchain solutions is expected to reach $2.1 billion this year. However, there's a void of blockchain expertise in enterprises. A Gartner Research survey shows that around 60 percent of IT leaders find blockchain interesting, but aren't clear on what exactly they should do with it. Enterprises want to hire developers with blockchain experience, although candidates for those roles are few and far between.
Posted June 04, 2018
Twelve years ago a friend and mentor of mine, who also happened to be the head of infrastructure at my employer at the time, said something to me that would change my life. He said, "You think the mainframe is going away? I'm not going to try to convince you otherwise, you go do your own homework.
Posted May 21, 2018
Talk to any young mainframe professional and you will hear a familiar story: The biggest barrier preventing college graduates from pursuing a career in mainframe is simply awareness. Misty Decker would agree.
Posted May 07, 2018
The mainframe is at the core of technology strategy in many industries, but critics often question whether it is still relevant.
Posted April 23, 2018
Is your enterprise ready for the upcoming European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)? If you're not sure, you're not alone. A recent survey of mainframe users found that only 25 percent of IBM mainframe customers are confident that their security system is GDPR compliant
Posted April 09, 2018
You know that's not part of the log-on screen on any production mainframe system. The corporate lawyers made sure a long time ago that nothing could be construed as inviting unauthorized people to log on to the system of record for the world's most important corporate data and processing.
Posted March 19, 2018
Security is always a hot topic in mainframe, and that's definitely the case at SHARE Sacramento, taking place March 11-16. Beyond a keynote on securing the mainframe by experts Phil Young and Chad Rikansrud, there are more than a dozen technical sessions that touch on security in some way.
Posted March 05, 2018
How can the mainframe world attract and retain millennial talent? That, and the mainframe skills gap, are two of the most important issues facing mainframers today
Posted February 20, 2018
There are a very few hereditary mainframers out there. You know: people whose parents, grandparents or other progenitors worked on the IBM mainframe, either directly for IBM or one of the other members of our ecosystem in a mainframe role and passed the mantle on to them. But there are quite a few more of us who have found that we belong "in the family" due to the compatibility of our background with the concepts, culture and technology of the mainframe, and have found ourselves warmly welcomed when we were recognized as "one of us" after demonstrating a natural fit with the platform.
Posted February 05, 2018
Mainframe technicians are all-too familiar with the growing threats to data housed on the mainframe, but are fighting against a strong public perception to the contrary. Without a greater focus on education and transparency, the world's largest organizations will be vulnerable to significant data breaches and the mainframe community will be unable to train the next generation of employees to prevent them.
Posted January 22, 2018
An enterprise decides it needs to implement DevOps principles in its IT organization. A z/OS developer asks, "Why change? Everything works just fine now."
Posted January 08, 2018
Implementing enterprise encryption can be a daunting and complex process. Organizations often struggle with questions such as: What data should be encrypted? Where should encryption occur? In a recent SHARE event presentation, IBM Cryptographic Software Developer Eysha Shirrine Powers discussed various encryption techniques available and the pros and cons of each.
Posted December 18, 2017
Any effective data security system needs to be built as an integrated and intelligent security immune system, according to Julie Bergh, World Wide Lead Z Security Champion for IBM. According to Julie, security once mainly consisted of perimeter controls such as firewalls and web gateways.
Posted December 04, 2017
It's not easy to hack the mainframe, but it is possible. Naturally, it's easier for company insiders, who already have privileged access to key mainframe information, to wreak havoc.
Posted November 20, 2017
When new regulations are implemented, it's challenging to figure out where you stand and what you need to stay compliant. From an IT perspective, it's important for companies to show regulators how you protect corporate data, and that might mean demonstrating strong data encryption standards.
Posted November 06, 2017
At SHARE Providence this August, more than 60 students from 16 colleges and universities from around the country participated in Student Career Day and competed in the Master the Mainframe Hackathon. With fun challenges to experience the power of z Systems in Application Development, competitors earned points towards prizes and had the opportunity to connect with IBM and Rocket Software experts.
Posted October 23, 2017
Recent data breaches at major corporations have CEOs across the board on heightened alert. Now more than ever, it's essential that security becomes a main priority. At SHARE Providence 2017, Brian Marshall spoke about mainframe user authentication, including multi-factor authentication (MFA), IRSXT00 for CICS, TSO PREPROMPT, and APAR OA43999.
Posted October 09, 2017
Technology and analytics are being used to improve processes in all areas of business. Software development is no exception, and the leading driver of this revolution is DevOps.
Posted September 25, 2017
On August 6-11, more than 1,200 enterprise IT professionals gathered in Providence for six days of 500+ unique technical education sessions and plenty of networking with colleagues at festive events. What made SHARE Providence extra special; however, was the excitement around IBM's recent unveiling of the new Z mainframe and, attendees were treated to a special message from IBM Chairman, President and CEO Ginni Rometty.
Posted September 11, 2017
In the words of a longtime SHARE member, "as I look back throughout all my years being involved with SHARE I can point to numerous occasions when working side-by-side with peers resulted in very positive outcomes." To him, collaboration is the one thing that remains irreplaceable as the industry, our roles and tools that we use continue to change.
Posted August 28, 2017
At SHARE Providence, August 6-11, students from around the country gathered at Student Career Day to participate in a competitive Hackathon and attended educational sessions, met with technology partners and connected with industry professionals.
Posted August 14, 2017