Enterprise technology requires mainframers to move with precision, excellent timing, and up-to-date skills—both technical know-how and soft skills. This September for National Learning and Development Month, mainframers at all career stages can seize their talent upgrade with this playbook, put together with advice from SHARE members.
Dive Deep Into Mainframe Resources
Working in the mainframe environment requires knowledge not only of the platform, but also of its connected components and applications. Emma Dean, information technology infrastructure engineer at enGen, advises, “Get to know the mainframe. Learn the underlying systems. Pick up the mainframe textbooks and documentation to really dive into the foundational elements. Explore new products and ways to interact with the mainframe—there’s a lot to dive into and enjoy.”
Technical knowledge can come from a variety of channels. Reg Harbeck, chief strategist for Mainframe Analytics, recommends reading IBM’s Redbooks, including the “ABCs of System Programming.”
He adds, “Dig into the local platform's partitioned data sets' (PDS) text-based documentation, as well as any locally generated readable items."
There are also several textbooks available:
- "The Mythical Man-Month" by Fred Brooks
- “The Design of Design” by Fred Brooks
- “Introduction to Enterprise Systems” by Karl-Erik Stenfors, Reginald Harbeck, Cameron Seay, and David Boyes
- “DB2 Developer's Guide: A Solutions-Oriented Approach to Learning the Foundation and Capabilities of DB2 for z/OS by Craig S. Mullins
- “Database Administration: The Complete Guide to Dba Practices and Procedures” by Craig S. Mullins.
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