Grow with Mainframes
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Reliable and resilient, Mainframes continue to be an attractive career option, writes Karri Sriram.
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In the world of data processing, there is nothing more reliable than Mainframes.
Any seminar on careers in software begins with the nearly cliché sounding warning that "technology is changing so rapidly... what you learn today is obsolete tomorrow... ."
Probably true for some - client-server, networking, web. But, apparently, for the oldest elephants of Information Technology obsolete is not in the dictionary.
Commencing from the IBM 701 of 1952 to the IBM eServer zSeries 990 of 2003, Mainframes have come a long way in the world of data processing. And, for those looking for a career option in Mainframes, the future is rosy.
Reliability factor
Let's analyse why Mainframes will always be in demand and what opportunities they present career-wise. One of the most fundamental reasons is the reliability factor. Mainframes are not as susceptible to virus attacks as the emerging fourth-generation languages or open systems. Businesses like banking, retail, money markets and insurance, for instance, where huge data is processed every minute and where each failure can prove fatal to business, will never trust any other machine.
Mainframes are the software equivalent of Rolex in watches, or the Rolls Royce in cars. It seldom fails, and there is nothing more reliable.
Computation capacity
Another major factor in favour of Mainframes is the enormous computation capacity, which is surprising for something created over five decades ago and still ahead of most of the latest machines.
Most Fortune Corporations globally have, use and intend to continue Mainframes. Old giants like Ford and GE, which started with Mainframes, have stuck to them for obvious reasons. Another reason why we can bet on the eternal existence of these power horses is the potential cost of migration - for a machine with billions of lines of code, moving to client-server systems will cost phenomenally, a reason why companies corrected the Y2K bug than replace them.
Given the staying prowess of the Mainframes, the career options are also very stable. And since most of the Fortune companies employ their services, almost all major IT Service Providers work on them. Among bigger Indian players, TCS, Infosys, Wipro and Satyam provide jobs on Mainframes, not to mention IBM itself, where one can look to working in the Research Department.
Options aplenty
Work with it... you feel you are in elite strata.
"The market for Mainframes is very strong. There are lots of requirements for maintenance in Mainframe systems. The options in legacy systems are especially very lucrative," says Muralidhar Kumanduri, Associate Manager, Accenture Services.
Mainframe systems are considered aged and not many of the present generation software engineers are well versed with the technicalities of Mainframes. The natural dearth of resources in terms of human skill when it comes to maintenance of the Mainframe systems creates great demand.
The skills required to work on Mainframes are largely COBOL, CICS and DB2.
"Customer Information Control System (CICS), a front-end application, is a very hot option. About 65 per cent of business market employs Mainframes," says Vikas Kumar, a senior software engineer and module leader with a major IT firm, who has been working on Mainframes for more than three years.
"Resumes claiming experience in Mainframes get at least two major calls everyday," says Mr. Vikas, stressing the saleability of the field. A search on Monster.com or Naukri.com gives a good indication of the kind of demand for expertise in Mainframes.
Contrary to the myth that a job in Mainframes maintenance is boring and monotonous, Shiva K., a project leader, says, "once you get in, it adds a lot of value to your career and you have a feeling of having entered into the strata of the elite. It is both challenging and interesting."
Majority of the jobs are in to maintenance, while a small, but significant chunk of jobs are into applications.
Applicants are hired. Starting as developers, they go up to the level of Project Managers. Indian software companies that frequently come up with openings in Mainframes are Infosys, Kanbay, Masteck, Polaris, Satyam, Wipro, Visualsoft, among others.
"The market for Mainframes will not see the downtrend. It is highly reliable and widely used," says Ayyappa Nagubandi, Chief Software Architect of TrulyIntelligent Technologies. "Unlike other software areas, it is not easy to make transition to Mainframe systems from other fields. This is because technology related to Mainframes is vast and one needs a certain level of expertise to start a career in the field. One should have a good grounding in COBOL to get going."
Where to learn?
There are very few institutions that provide genuine coaching on Mainframes. The Keane School of Excellence, at IIIT, Hyderabad, offers a certificate course in software technologies covering Mainframes.
But candidates making a foray into Mainframes should be extremely cautious about choosing the right kind of institute that offers an exhaustive course. If not a certificate course from premier institutes, one should, at least, opt for a training course from reputed and reliable institutes.
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