EXEC I/O Mainframe Blog

Death to the Penguin!

Reg Harbeck — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 12:12:00 GMT

If the title of this blog entry got your attention, I hope it also gets the attention of everyone that has been saying "death to the mainframe" for the past three decades. After all, given the number of people who have been trying to portray the mainframe's invisibility as some sort of demise over the years, it seems like that's actually a good indicator of something that works...

Shifting into Overdrive

Reg Harbeck — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 13:04:00 GMT

I just checked Wikipedia.org, and the disambiguation page for "Overdrive" took me by surprise with the large number of entries, all of which seem to hearken back to the original, automotive concept of a high gear for fuel savings when you're already cruising at full speed (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overdrive_(mechanics)). Interestingly, one definition I didn't find...

What is a SysPrague?

Reg Harbeck — Wed, 27 May 2009 13:13:00 GMT

Hello from CA's Prague Mainframe Center of Excellence! This week, I've had the pleasure of meeting with some members of our new generation of mainframers in person. As you'll know from my blog of May 5, 2009 (see http://community.ca.com/blogs/execio/archive/2009/05/05/gdg-generations-doing-good.aspx) or our New Mainframers video (see...

No Compliants?

Reg Harbeck — Wed, 20 May 2009 13:52:00 GMT

If you've been reading this blog for a while, you'll know that one of the subjects I often mention - and often give presentations about - is regulatory compliance (for example, see http://community.ca.com/blogs/execio/archive/2009/04/02/pci-and-other-compliance-related-tla-s.aspx). In a way, it almost seems odd that a mainframer should spend so much time on this topic, when the mainframe...

GDG: Generations Doing Good

Reg Harbeck — Tue, 05 May 2009 14:34:00 GMT

It's happening! I know because I've seen the video: http://www.ca.com/files/videos/mainframe-recruit_205295.asx. A new generation is arriving on the mainframe! This is some of the best news I've heard since I wrote my original whitepapers (http://ca.com/us/whitepapers/collateral.aspx?CID=64111 and http://www.ca.com/us/whitepapers/collateral.aspx?cid=78289) and article...

Let the Mainframe Madness Begin

Reg Harbeck — Fri, 01 May 2009 13:43:00 GMT

It's May first! May Day! And, for the first time ever, CA is beginning our month-long celebration of the mainframe that we're calling "May Mainframe Madness." Now, if you don't live in the United States, or maybe just aren't a big basketball fan, you may not catch the reference to a popular American tradition called "March Madness." Suffice to say that...

A Lean Green Machine

Reg Harbeck — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 04:27:00 GMT

"Lean IT" - makes me think of that song "Lean on Me" - though, of course, it's a different meaning of the word "Lean". Still, we do lean heavily on IT, and we need it to be responsive but still responsible with such things as resource consumption and manageable complexity. And, particularly during these lean times, we need IT to be cost-effective. That's...

Wow - Brazil!

Reg Harbeck — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 18:08:00 GMT

Well, I finally did it: I've now been to every continent where there are mainframes (unless there's one in Antarctica that they haven't told me about - if so, please let me know)! And what a great experience. As I've mentioned previously, wherever I travel in the world I find some of the same things true about mainframers: intelligent, hard-working, concerned, interesting people,...

NO!! A mainframe is NOT expensive....

Marcel Hartog — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 11:06:00 GMT

Mainframers, Imagine you have 5 cars (I know... Just imagine..). The family car does 50+% of the work. Holidays, kids to school (or worse, pick them up after a party at 2 o'clock at night), shopping, garbage to the local pitt, things like that. They fit you and the spouse and the kids and the dog(s) easy, and there is even room for a portable BBQ. The other 4 cars are used for...

Putting the "L" in COBOL

Reg Harbeck — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 15:22:00 GMT

As anyone who's been around for 50 years would likely know (though I'm assuming here, as I'm not quite of that vintage myself), "L" is the Roman numeral for 50, as well as the last letter in "COBOL". Which is only relevant for one reason: the day after the mainframe turned 45 years old, COBOL turned 50! That's right: according to Wikipedia (see...

In the Prime of Life

Reg Harbeck — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 22:28:00 GMT

Can you believe it? The IBM mainframe turned 45 years old today! Reading the original announcement at http://www-03.ibm.com/ibm/history/exhibits/mainframe/mainframe_PR360.html, I'm impressed with how consistent the business-oriented approach, that made the mainframe strong, has remained through these past four-and-a-half decades. I was exchanging email reminiscences about our mainframe...

PCI and Other Compliance-Related TLA's

Reg Harbeck — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 22:26:00 GMT

Talk about TLA's - start talking regulatory compliance and you'll get TMI PDQ. Of course there's SOX, which refers to Sarbanes-Oxley. Then there's CIA, for Compliance Information Analysis, a feature of CA ACF2 and CA Top Secret in r12 and later. But the compliance TLA that I've been most focused on recently is PCI, which is shorthand for two TLAs together: PCI DSS, or...

Moore is Less

Reg Harbeck — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 23:03:00 GMT

Two weeks since SHARE and I'm still feeling the glow of information! Strange, really, that it's taken two weeks to get to this one, as it's been on my mind since the System z Keynote at 10:30 AM Monday morning, March 2. Moore's Law is over! Well, not really: Intel's Gordon Moore originally (in 1965) was just observing that the number of integrated circuits that fit in a...

The Un-Distributed

Reg Harbeck — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 15:53:00 GMT

Talk about an epiphany! There I was at one of the sessions I attended at SHARE in Austin, when someone mentioned something that hadn't really occurred to me yet, and it completely shifted my perspective. Then, later that same week, someone else mentioned something similar - possibly something I'd heard before but had never connected the dots about. So, later, I mentioned it in a...

Speaking of Penguins

Reg Harbeck — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 17:41:00 GMT

I just realized I should have included a link to the following cartoon from http://ca.com/knowhow to complement yesterday's blog: http://www.ca.com/us/content/page.aspx?cid=199714 Share this post: Email it! | bookmark it! | digg it! | reddit!