One of the problems that project managers, and in fact managers in general, have is that they tend to think that the road to success starts here and ends there – ie, it’s a fairly straight route. The truth is, for most success stories, that they set out on one road and met failure, they then set out on another road, and met failure, and they kept doing this until they arrived at the success they were aiming at. And it’s important to bear in mind, when carrying out those important end-of-year appraisals that this is so often the case.
Don’t believe me? Well, let’s take a look at some examples...
This person wasn’t able to speak until he was almost four years old, and his teachers said that he wouldn’t amount to much. Who was he? Albert Einstein. And you don’t need to be a theoretical physicist to have heard of him.
Or this man, who was sacked from a newspaper for lacking imagination and having no original ideas. He was Walt Disney. Or this woman – she was demoted from her job as a news anchor because she wasn’t fit for television. She’s Oprah Winfrey. Or this person who was told by a teacher that he was too stupid to learn anything and that he should go into a field where he might succeed by virtue of his pleasant personality. That was Thomas Edison. Or the would-be author whose first book was rejected by 27 publishers. That was the best-selling children’s author, Dr Seuss. Or what about the man whose fiancé died, who failed in business, who had a nervous breakdown, and who lost eight elections? That was Abraham Lincoln, who went on to be the 16th US president. Or you might be more familiar with the guy, aged 30, who was left devastated and depressed after being unceremoniously removed from the company he’d started. That was Steve Jobs and Apple.
If you like sport, there was the lad who was dropped from his high school basketball team, who went home, locked himself in his room, and cried. That was Michael Jordan, six times NBA champion, five times NBA MVP, and four times NBA all-star. Or the 11-year-old boy who was dropped from his football team after being diagnosed with a growth hormone deficiency that made him smaller than most children his age. That was Lionel Messi, who became three times FIFA world player of the year.
Then there was the high school dropout, whose personal struggle with drugs and poverty culminated in an unsuccessful suicide attempt. That was Eminem, who became a 13 times Grammy award winner. Perhaps, most famously, was the popular beat combo who were rejected by Decca recording studios because they didn’t like their sound. Decca added that the band had no future in show business. That was The Beatles, arguably the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed band in history
The argument is that if you haven’t failed, you’ve haven’t tried anything new. So maybe, in your team, you’re not seeing the potential in someone, who may go on to become a great success.
But how do you motivate someone? The argument is usually between the carrot and the stick approach. You motivate someone away from pain and towards pleasure. With the stick you threaten them with losing their job if they don’t improve. With the carrot you dangle a promotion in front of them if things go well. But really, you need to know your team and what their values are and what their goals are. That way, you can offer them appropriate incentives to get them to do good work on the project as a stepping stone towards achieving their life goals.
And while not everyone you meet will be an Edison or Einstein, I think it’s important not to write them off as talentless, until you’ve had a chance to explore what talents they have and what they can bring to an organization.
Saturday, 22 February 2014
Sunday, 16 February 2014
IBM resizing and other news
IBMers across the globe must be wondering what’s going on as IBM starts to axe job and downsize its workforce. Particularly badly hit seems to be the Indian subcontinent and Europe. It looks like IBM is reducing commodity equipment staff in favour of software staff.
In Europe, figures being quoted are up to 500 people in France, 430 in Italy, 240 in the Netherlands, 105 in Belgium, and 35 in Norway. It looks like worldwide job cuts could reach 15,000.
IBM recently sold its System X server to Lenovo and, so, many of the job cuts have come from its Systems and Technology Group (STG).
There’s also some talk about IBM asking Goldman Sachs to value its chip division. The implication is that IBM will then sell that off – leading to a further drop in its head count.
Irrespective of that suggestion, we find that Samsung Electronics has joined IBM’s OpenPOWER Consortium. OpenPOWER (announced last August) is a way for companies to licence the architecture and customize it for their specific needs – in the same way that ARM does with its chips. Other group members include Google, Nvidia, Mellanox, and Tyan. IBM has also announced it’s putting up over $1bn to encourage Linux development on the chips – hopefully increasing their usage.
Meanwhile, IBM’s Chief Executive Officer, Ginni Rometty has been to Beijing for three days of meetings with government leaders.
It’s not all bad news from mainframe companies in India, CA Technologies has announced a strategic partnership with IDG Ventures India, a technology venture capital fund investing in India, to help drive innovation in the enterprise software market.
However, it’s not all good news for CA. It recently reported 8 percent lower earnings for its third quarter compared to the previous year. Net income in the three months fell to $232 million. So per-share net income fell 7 percent to 51 cents. Revenues in the quarter of $1.163 billion were down 3 percent from last year.
It seems that layoffs are expected at Compuware, but this is the final phase of its planned cost-cutting, and brings its headcount down to mid-1990s levels.
Over at BMC, things seem more upbeat. They have announced BMC Engage 2014, an IT management conference that will offer new ideas and insights to help people use technology platforms – from mainframe to cloud to mobile – to achieve organizational and market objectives, and drive major business transformations – they claim. It runs from 13 to 16 October at the Walt Disney World Swan and Dolphin in Orlando, Florida.
Over at Microsoft, new CEO, Satya Nadella, has e-mailed staff saying: “We must zero in on what Microsoft can uniquely contribute to the world”. That is, perhaps, harder than you might think in a world full of Apple and Samsung devices, and with Google pretty much ‘owning’ the Web.
An interesting week!
In Europe, figures being quoted are up to 500 people in France, 430 in Italy, 240 in the Netherlands, 105 in Belgium, and 35 in Norway. It looks like worldwide job cuts could reach 15,000.
IBM recently sold its System X server to Lenovo and, so, many of the job cuts have come from its Systems and Technology Group (STG).
There’s also some talk about IBM asking Goldman Sachs to value its chip division. The implication is that IBM will then sell that off – leading to a further drop in its head count.
Irrespective of that suggestion, we find that Samsung Electronics has joined IBM’s OpenPOWER Consortium. OpenPOWER (announced last August) is a way for companies to licence the architecture and customize it for their specific needs – in the same way that ARM does with its chips. Other group members include Google, Nvidia, Mellanox, and Tyan. IBM has also announced it’s putting up over $1bn to encourage Linux development on the chips – hopefully increasing their usage.
Meanwhile, IBM’s Chief Executive Officer, Ginni Rometty has been to Beijing for three days of meetings with government leaders.
It’s not all bad news from mainframe companies in India, CA Technologies has announced a strategic partnership with IDG Ventures India, a technology venture capital fund investing in India, to help drive innovation in the enterprise software market.
However, it’s not all good news for CA. It recently reported 8 percent lower earnings for its third quarter compared to the previous year. Net income in the three months fell to $232 million. So per-share net income fell 7 percent to 51 cents. Revenues in the quarter of $1.163 billion were down 3 percent from last year.
It seems that layoffs are expected at Compuware, but this is the final phase of its planned cost-cutting, and brings its headcount down to mid-1990s levels.
Over at BMC, things seem more upbeat. They have announced BMC Engage 2014, an IT management conference that will offer new ideas and insights to help people use technology platforms – from mainframe to cloud to mobile – to achieve organizational and market objectives, and drive major business transformations – they claim. It runs from 13 to 16 October at the Walt Disney World Swan and Dolphin in Orlando, Florida.
Over at Microsoft, new CEO, Satya Nadella, has e-mailed staff saying: “We must zero in on what Microsoft can uniquely contribute to the world”. That is, perhaps, harder than you might think in a world full of Apple and Samsung devices, and with Google pretty much ‘owning’ the Web.
An interesting week!
Sunday, 9 February 2014
Social media update
Figures suggest that just about every successful company not only has a Web site, but also uses social media successfully. I thought it was time to take another look at what successful companies are up to and how they can monitor their success.
So just to recap, the big players in social media at the moment are probably Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Google+, and Pinterest. Published figures suggest that 72 percent of all the adults who are online use social networking sites. It’s also reckoned that 92 percent of companies use social media for recruitment. And 86 percent of employers say they research potential job candidates on social networks. Facebook claims to have over 1.19 billion users per month, and it has 728 million users each day. It also has around 9 million photos uploaded each month. 1 in 5 of 18 to 24-year-olds use Twitter each day, and Twitter say they’re adding 300 thousand users per day. Similarly, LinkedIn is growing – it increased by 105 percent between 2011 and 2013. And, of course, Facebook has got a lot attention this past week from the media and individual with its Look Back (https://facebook.com/lookback) short films showing what you’ve done on Facebook over the past 10 years
What many organizations are now setting as a social media goal is having ordinary users speak out for them. ‘Advocacy’ is the word that’s been hijacked for use in this situation. Companies are identifying potential customers or users and building strong relationships with them so that the customer will promote the product or company strongly on social media sites. So how can you build these important relationships? Feedback is an obvious way. Listen to what people are saying on social media and respond appropriately and quickly. To do this effectively, the social media team need to be integrated into the marketing and communications teams at a company. It doesn’t work if they are isolated within the organization. ‘Likes’ are an important place to start. Encourage people to ‘like’ your page, or ‘favorite’ a tweet.
It’s important that your social media presence has good content. You want people to keep coming back to read more. You can publicize products, and you can add more information about how to use your products, as well as answering users’ questions. You publicize great thing that staff or the company as a whole has done. This could be charity events, or prizes received. And you can advertise jobs. Make sure that good content is updated regularly and frequently. Then the next stage is to get product users to start adding content – photos of them using the product, reviews, how they used it to do something extra to its design spec! It’s at this stage that you can start monitoring and measuring interactions. Facebook pages contain lots of data. If you want measurement tools, there are: Crowdbooster, Demographics Pro, Moz Analytics, Simply Measured, Social Crawlytics, and True Social Metrics. If you want to listen to what people are saying (the technical term is sentiment) you can try Radian6, RowFeede, Sysomos, Topsy, or Vocus. For monitoring and responding there’s: BuddyMedia, Buffer, HootSuite, Meshfire, SocialEngage, and Sprout Social.
Not all social media has to be externally facing. You can have internal social media – allowing people from other departments to comment on developments, increase cross-team collaboration, and generally build up rapport between people. I’m very familiar with Microsoft’s Yammer, which is free and creates an easy-to-use forum. Other, similar, products are Chatter from Salesforce, Basecamp (which comes with a 60-day free trial), and Jive (originally called Clearspace).
If you start on social media, there are some terms that you need to be familiar with – for example sentiment, influence (measured by Klout and Social Authority), conversation drivers, engagement, timing, Click Through Rate (CTR), and followers and fans.
Get social media right, and you’ll stay in business. Get it wrong, or ignore it, and your organization could be heading for all sorts of trouble.
So just to recap, the big players in social media at the moment are probably Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Google+, and Pinterest. Published figures suggest that 72 percent of all the adults who are online use social networking sites. It’s also reckoned that 92 percent of companies use social media for recruitment. And 86 percent of employers say they research potential job candidates on social networks. Facebook claims to have over 1.19 billion users per month, and it has 728 million users each day. It also has around 9 million photos uploaded each month. 1 in 5 of 18 to 24-year-olds use Twitter each day, and Twitter say they’re adding 300 thousand users per day. Similarly, LinkedIn is growing – it increased by 105 percent between 2011 and 2013. And, of course, Facebook has got a lot attention this past week from the media and individual with its Look Back (https://facebook.com/lookback) short films showing what you’ve done on Facebook over the past 10 years
What many organizations are now setting as a social media goal is having ordinary users speak out for them. ‘Advocacy’ is the word that’s been hijacked for use in this situation. Companies are identifying potential customers or users and building strong relationships with them so that the customer will promote the product or company strongly on social media sites. So how can you build these important relationships? Feedback is an obvious way. Listen to what people are saying on social media and respond appropriately and quickly. To do this effectively, the social media team need to be integrated into the marketing and communications teams at a company. It doesn’t work if they are isolated within the organization. ‘Likes’ are an important place to start. Encourage people to ‘like’ your page, or ‘favorite’ a tweet.
It’s important that your social media presence has good content. You want people to keep coming back to read more. You can publicize products, and you can add more information about how to use your products, as well as answering users’ questions. You publicize great thing that staff or the company as a whole has done. This could be charity events, or prizes received. And you can advertise jobs. Make sure that good content is updated regularly and frequently. Then the next stage is to get product users to start adding content – photos of them using the product, reviews, how they used it to do something extra to its design spec! It’s at this stage that you can start monitoring and measuring interactions. Facebook pages contain lots of data. If you want measurement tools, there are: Crowdbooster, Demographics Pro, Moz Analytics, Simply Measured, Social Crawlytics, and True Social Metrics. If you want to listen to what people are saying (the technical term is sentiment) you can try Radian6, RowFeede, Sysomos, Topsy, or Vocus. For monitoring and responding there’s: BuddyMedia, Buffer, HootSuite, Meshfire, SocialEngage, and Sprout Social.
Not all social media has to be externally facing. You can have internal social media – allowing people from other departments to comment on developments, increase cross-team collaboration, and generally build up rapport between people. I’m very familiar with Microsoft’s Yammer, which is free and creates an easy-to-use forum. Other, similar, products are Chatter from Salesforce, Basecamp (which comes with a 60-day free trial), and Jive (originally called Clearspace).
If you start on social media, there are some terms that you need to be familiar with – for example sentiment, influence (measured by Klout and Social Authority), conversation drivers, engagement, timing, Click Through Rate (CTR), and followers and fans.
Get social media right, and you’ll stay in business. Get it wrong, or ignore it, and your organization could be heading for all sorts of trouble.
Sunday, 2 February 2014
10 years at iTech-Ed Ltd
2014 is a bit of a special year here at iTech-Ed Ltd. It was our 10th anniversary on 1 February. I thought you might be interested in some of the changes that have taken place in that time.
Before we set up iTech-Ed Ltd, I had worked for Xephon for 18 years. Xephon ran briefings on mainframe topics, ran surveys on mainframe topics, and created user guides to things like databases. In 1986, they decided to try a small publication by CICS professionals for CICS professionals. They called it CICS Update. It sold very well – remember there was no Google or Internet in those days and it was difficult to easily get your hands on working bits of code and alternative solutions to common problems. VM Update followed in 1987, and then a whole range of mainframe-based publications. I was there at the very beginning and over the next 18 years edited most of them.
In 2004, Xephon sold the name and the publications to TCI publications. We set up iTech-Ed and we got the contract to edit around five or six of these Updates each month. My first activity, at one minute after midnight on 1 February 2004, was to upload the new issues to the Web site.
Over the next three and half years, iTech-Ed was responsible for encouraging technical people to write articles, editing and checking them to produce each edition every month, paying contributors, and sending the publications to the printers and putting them on the Web site. A small team of experts checked the text for punctuation and grammar as well as technical accuracy.
At the same time, iTech-Ed was carrying out consultancy work and producing technical documentation that was used in-house by a number of well-known companies. And we also started blogging at Mainframe Update using Blogger and Mainframe World on IT Toolbox
Towards the end of 2007, the Updates ceased publication, and the very first Virtual IMS user group meeting was held using Webex. The user group was immediately very popular and was sponsored by NEON Enterprise Software. That year also saw a growth in number of companies using our Web design and development services.
In 2008 the company took its first steps in offering advice on social media and how organizations could use it both to get their message out there and also to interact with customers in a positive way. It was a hard job back then. I also qualified as a Microsoft Office trainer – MOS MI – and ran a number of on-site training courses.
We picked up the Arcati Mainframe Yearbook – the de facto reference work for mainframers – and have worked with Arcati for many years producing this. The 2014 edition is now available from arcati.com/newyearbook14.
I was made an IBM Champion in 2009 and have been a champion every year since. As well as producing internal documentation for companies, I have had numerous articles published in a variety of Web-based and printed publications, such as Enterprise Tech Journal. In 2010 I attended Microsoft SharePoint Administrator and Developer training. And I started my regular blog on Destination z in July 2011, where I’ve written about Big Data , the Internet of Things, Deep Learning, and, of course, mainframes.
Also in 2011, Fundi Software took over as sponsor of the Virtual IMS user group and we then launched the Virtual CICS user group. Both of them enjoy regular meetings and newsletters and have around 400 members. I chair both of these user groups, and we use Citrix GoToMeeting to facilitate the webinars.
Over recent years, we’ve published guest blogs and I’ve ghost written blogs for many other blog sites. I’ve also contributed to IBM’s IOD blogs for the past couple of years. And I’ve created podcasts for a number of different companies.
So, here we are – 2014. 10 years in business and still very much in demand and looking forward to the future. If you want to get in contact with us, our Web site is itech-ed.com or you can e-mail trevor@itech-ed.com. You can Like us on Facebook at fb.com/itech-ed, follow me on Twitter at @t_eddolls, connect on LinkedIn at linkedin.com/in/teddolls, or follow us on Google+ at google.com/+TrevorEddolls.
Before we set up iTech-Ed Ltd, I had worked for Xephon for 18 years. Xephon ran briefings on mainframe topics, ran surveys on mainframe topics, and created user guides to things like databases. In 1986, they decided to try a small publication by CICS professionals for CICS professionals. They called it CICS Update. It sold very well – remember there was no Google or Internet in those days and it was difficult to easily get your hands on working bits of code and alternative solutions to common problems. VM Update followed in 1987, and then a whole range of mainframe-based publications. I was there at the very beginning and over the next 18 years edited most of them.
In 2004, Xephon sold the name and the publications to TCI publications. We set up iTech-Ed and we got the contract to edit around five or six of these Updates each month. My first activity, at one minute after midnight on 1 February 2004, was to upload the new issues to the Web site.
Over the next three and half years, iTech-Ed was responsible for encouraging technical people to write articles, editing and checking them to produce each edition every month, paying contributors, and sending the publications to the printers and putting them on the Web site. A small team of experts checked the text for punctuation and grammar as well as technical accuracy.
At the same time, iTech-Ed was carrying out consultancy work and producing technical documentation that was used in-house by a number of well-known companies. And we also started blogging at Mainframe Update using Blogger and Mainframe World on IT Toolbox
Towards the end of 2007, the Updates ceased publication, and the very first Virtual IMS user group meeting was held using Webex. The user group was immediately very popular and was sponsored by NEON Enterprise Software. That year also saw a growth in number of companies using our Web design and development services.
In 2008 the company took its first steps in offering advice on social media and how organizations could use it both to get their message out there and also to interact with customers in a positive way. It was a hard job back then. I also qualified as a Microsoft Office trainer – MOS MI – and ran a number of on-site training courses.
We picked up the Arcati Mainframe Yearbook – the de facto reference work for mainframers – and have worked with Arcati for many years producing this. The 2014 edition is now available from arcati.com/newyearbook14.
I was made an IBM Champion in 2009 and have been a champion every year since. As well as producing internal documentation for companies, I have had numerous articles published in a variety of Web-based and printed publications, such as Enterprise Tech Journal. In 2010 I attended Microsoft SharePoint Administrator and Developer training. And I started my regular blog on Destination z in July 2011, where I’ve written about Big Data , the Internet of Things, Deep Learning, and, of course, mainframes.
Also in 2011, Fundi Software took over as sponsor of the Virtual IMS user group and we then launched the Virtual CICS user group. Both of them enjoy regular meetings and newsletters and have around 400 members. I chair both of these user groups, and we use Citrix GoToMeeting to facilitate the webinars.
Over recent years, we’ve published guest blogs and I’ve ghost written blogs for many other blog sites. I’ve also contributed to IBM’s IOD blogs for the past couple of years. And I’ve created podcasts for a number of different companies.
So, here we are – 2014. 10 years in business and still very much in demand and looking forward to the future. If you want to get in contact with us, our Web site is itech-ed.com or you can e-mail trevor@itech-ed.com. You can Like us on Facebook at fb.com/itech-ed, follow me on Twitter at @t_eddolls, connect on LinkedIn at linkedin.com/in/teddolls, or follow us on Google+ at google.com/+TrevorEddolls.
Sunday, 26 January 2014
The Arcati Mainframe Yearbook - user survey findings
The Arcati Mainframe Yearbook 2014 is now available for download from http://www.arcati.com/newyearbook14 – and it’s FREE. Each new Yearbook is always greeted with enthusiasm by mainframers everywhere because it is such a unique source of information. And each year, many people find the results of the user survey especially interesting.
The results came from the 100 respondents who completed the survey on the Arcati Web site between 1 November and 6 December 2013. 51% were from North America, 33% were from Europe with the remainder from the rest of the world.
Half of the respondents worked in companies with upwards of 10,000 employees worldwide. Below that, with 24 percent of respondents, were staff sizes of 1001-5000, 10 percent with staff sizes of 0-200, nine percent with staff sizes of 201 to 1000, and only seven percent with staff sizes of 5001 to 10,000. In terms of MIPS, 28 percent had 1000-10,000 MIPS, down again from last year’s figure of 36 percent. 16 percent had under 500 MIPS, only 15 percent had 500-1000 MIPS, 13 percent had 10,000 to 25,000 MIPS, and 17 percent had over 25,000 MIPS installed.
Looking at MIPS growth produced some interesting results. 71 percent of sites of mainframe installations are experiencing some growth, with three sites claiming growth in the region of 26-50 percent. Only eight percent of sites are reporting a decline in mainframe capacity growth. 11 percent of sites are not expecting any kind of change in their MIPS this year. Small sites (32 percent) are most likely to have seen some kind of decline or to have stayed the same, and yet, in complete contrast, they were more likely to see growth in the 26-50 percent range. While some larger sites (above 10,000 MIPS) did report a decline or no growth, the majority were anticipating some kind of growth possibly up to 50 percent per year. Mid-range respondents were typically expecting some kind of growth (89 percent of sites). It is a confusing picture with nearly a third of small sites, 10 percent of medium sites, and 17 percent of larger sites showing no growth or a decline. Perhaps sites have been holding off on growth until the global economic climate brightens up.
The survey looked at whether sites currently used their mainframe for cloud computing. Only seven percent of respondents said they did. The survey also asked whether respondents were planning to adopt cloud computing as a strategy. 50 percent said they weren’t at present. 16 percent thought some mainframe applications would be cloud enabled in the future. And 15 percent claimed that some of their applications are using the cloud model.
There’s been a huge growth in the use of social media in recent years, and the survey wondered whether those people “using their dad’s technology” found social media (Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, etc) useful for their work on the mainframe. 18 percent said that they did, with 13 percent not sure, and the rest not using it at all. With IBM having Facebook pages dedicated to IMS, CICS, and DB2, it seems a shame if they’re not being used.
With the growth in number of software products that allow users to monitor the mainframe from a browser on a tablet/iPad or smartphone, the survey looked at whether mainframers were using these devices to monitor or control their mainframe. Only nine percent said that they were.
Another hot topic through 2013 has been Big Data and all the things associated with that (such as Hadoop). The survey asked whether sites had any plans to use Big Data. Just two percent of sites said that they were already using Big Data, with a further 12 percent planning to do so.
The survey also asked about BYOD (Bring Your Own Device). It wanted to know how important sites thought it was to make mainframe data available to other platforms. 78 percent of sites said that it was very important to the way they work at the moment. Three percent are in the planning stage, and nine percent expect to do some work on this in the future. When it comes to how important is the idea of people using their own devices (BYOD) to access mainframes, 15 percent of sites said it was very important to the way they work now – but 47 percent said it wasn’t important.
Anyway, full details of the responses to many other questions can be found in the user survey section of the Yearbook. It’s well worth a read.
The Yearbook can only be free because some organizations have been prepared to sponsor it or advertise in it. This year’s sponsors were: Software Diversified Services (SDS), Software AG, zIT Consulting, and CA Technologies.
The results came from the 100 respondents who completed the survey on the Arcati Web site between 1 November and 6 December 2013. 51% were from North America, 33% were from Europe with the remainder from the rest of the world.
Half of the respondents worked in companies with upwards of 10,000 employees worldwide. Below that, with 24 percent of respondents, were staff sizes of 1001-5000, 10 percent with staff sizes of 0-200, nine percent with staff sizes of 201 to 1000, and only seven percent with staff sizes of 5001 to 10,000. In terms of MIPS, 28 percent had 1000-10,000 MIPS, down again from last year’s figure of 36 percent. 16 percent had under 500 MIPS, only 15 percent had 500-1000 MIPS, 13 percent had 10,000 to 25,000 MIPS, and 17 percent had over 25,000 MIPS installed.
Looking at MIPS growth produced some interesting results. 71 percent of sites of mainframe installations are experiencing some growth, with three sites claiming growth in the region of 26-50 percent. Only eight percent of sites are reporting a decline in mainframe capacity growth. 11 percent of sites are not expecting any kind of change in their MIPS this year. Small sites (32 percent) are most likely to have seen some kind of decline or to have stayed the same, and yet, in complete contrast, they were more likely to see growth in the 26-50 percent range. While some larger sites (above 10,000 MIPS) did report a decline or no growth, the majority were anticipating some kind of growth possibly up to 50 percent per year. Mid-range respondents were typically expecting some kind of growth (89 percent of sites). It is a confusing picture with nearly a third of small sites, 10 percent of medium sites, and 17 percent of larger sites showing no growth or a decline. Perhaps sites have been holding off on growth until the global economic climate brightens up.
The survey looked at whether sites currently used their mainframe for cloud computing. Only seven percent of respondents said they did. The survey also asked whether respondents were planning to adopt cloud computing as a strategy. 50 percent said they weren’t at present. 16 percent thought some mainframe applications would be cloud enabled in the future. And 15 percent claimed that some of their applications are using the cloud model.
There’s been a huge growth in the use of social media in recent years, and the survey wondered whether those people “using their dad’s technology” found social media (Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, etc) useful for their work on the mainframe. 18 percent said that they did, with 13 percent not sure, and the rest not using it at all. With IBM having Facebook pages dedicated to IMS, CICS, and DB2, it seems a shame if they’re not being used.
With the growth in number of software products that allow users to monitor the mainframe from a browser on a tablet/iPad or smartphone, the survey looked at whether mainframers were using these devices to monitor or control their mainframe. Only nine percent said that they were.
Another hot topic through 2013 has been Big Data and all the things associated with that (such as Hadoop). The survey asked whether sites had any plans to use Big Data. Just two percent of sites said that they were already using Big Data, with a further 12 percent planning to do so.
The survey also asked about BYOD (Bring Your Own Device). It wanted to know how important sites thought it was to make mainframe data available to other platforms. 78 percent of sites said that it was very important to the way they work at the moment. Three percent are in the planning stage, and nine percent expect to do some work on this in the future. When it comes to how important is the idea of people using their own devices (BYOD) to access mainframes, 15 percent of sites said it was very important to the way they work now – but 47 percent said it wasn’t important.
Anyway, full details of the responses to many other questions can be found in the user survey section of the Yearbook. It’s well worth a read.
The Yearbook can only be free because some organizations have been prepared to sponsor it or advertise in it. This year’s sponsors were: Software Diversified Services (SDS), Software AG, zIT Consulting, and CA Technologies.
Sunday, 19 January 2014
The Arcati Mainframe Yearbook 2014 has been published
Every year, about this time, mainframe users are excited to get their hands on the latest edition of the Arcati Mainframe Yearbook. What makes the Yearbook stand out is that it’s an excellent reference work for all IBM mainframe professionals – no matter how many years of experience they have.
What makes this annual publication so important? The answer is that it provides a one-stop shop for everything a mainframer needs to know. For example, the technical specification section includes model numbers, MIPS, and MSUs for zEnterprise processors (zEC12s, z196s, and z114s). There’s also a hardware timeline, and a display of mainframe operating system evolution.
In addition, there’s the glossary of terminology section explaining what all those acronyms stand for, in a way that means you can understand them. And this year we’ve added a number of Big Data terms that are becoming commonly used.
One section provides a media guide for IBM mainframers. This includes information on newsletters, magazines, user groups, blogs, and social networking information resources for the z/OS environment. Amongst the things it highlights are Enterprise Tech Journal, IBM Listservs, SHARE’s Five Minute Briefing on the Data Center, Facebook pages, and LinkedIn discussions; as well as user groups such as SHARE and IDUG.
The vendor directory section contains an up-to-date list of vendors, consultants, and service providers working in the z/OS environment. There’s a summary of the products they supply and contact information. As usual, there are a number of new organizations in the list this year – indicating that this is still an exciting market place to be in.
The mainframe strategy section contains articles by industry gurus and vendors on topics such as:
For many people, the highlight each year is the mainframe user survey. This illustrates just what’s been happening at users’ sites. It’s a good way for mainframers to compare what they are planning to do with what other sites have done. I will be looking at some of the survey highlights in a future blog.
The other great thing about the Yearbook – as far as many of the 20,000 people who download it are concerned – is that it is completely FREE.
It can only be free because some organizations have been prepared to sponsor it or advertise in it. This year’s sponsors were: Software Diversified Services (SDS), Software AG, zIT Consulting, and CA Technologies.
To see this year’s Arcati Mainframe Yearbook, click on www.arcati.com/newyearbook14. If you don’t want to download everything at once, again this year, each section is available as a print-quality PDF file.
You won’t want to miss out on this excellent publication.
What makes this annual publication so important? The answer is that it provides a one-stop shop for everything a mainframer needs to know. For example, the technical specification section includes model numbers, MIPS, and MSUs for zEnterprise processors (zEC12s, z196s, and z114s). There’s also a hardware timeline, and a display of mainframe operating system evolution.
In addition, there’s the glossary of terminology section explaining what all those acronyms stand for, in a way that means you can understand them. And this year we’ve added a number of Big Data terms that are becoming commonly used.
One section provides a media guide for IBM mainframers. This includes information on newsletters, magazines, user groups, blogs, and social networking information resources for the z/OS environment. Amongst the things it highlights are Enterprise Tech Journal, IBM Listservs, SHARE’s Five Minute Briefing on the Data Center, Facebook pages, and LinkedIn discussions; as well as user groups such as SHARE and IDUG.
The vendor directory section contains an up-to-date list of vendors, consultants, and service providers working in the z/OS environment. There’s a summary of the products they supply and contact information. As usual, there are a number of new organizations in the list this year – indicating that this is still an exciting market place to be in.
The mainframe strategy section contains articles by industry gurus and vendors on topics such as:
- Research Report – Software Diversified Services’ E- Business Server: Encryption, Compression, Key Creation and Management?
- The Challenge: Actively Control MLC Costs for IBM’s System z
- Mainframe meets mobile
- Your Business is Dynamic – Are You? Empowering the Dynamic Data Center.
For many people, the highlight each year is the mainframe user survey. This illustrates just what’s been happening at users’ sites. It’s a good way for mainframers to compare what they are planning to do with what other sites have done. I will be looking at some of the survey highlights in a future blog.
The other great thing about the Yearbook – as far as many of the 20,000 people who download it are concerned – is that it is completely FREE.
It can only be free because some organizations have been prepared to sponsor it or advertise in it. This year’s sponsors were: Software Diversified Services (SDS), Software AG, zIT Consulting, and CA Technologies.
To see this year’s Arcati Mainframe Yearbook, click on www.arcati.com/newyearbook14. If you don’t want to download everything at once, again this year, each section is available as a print-quality PDF file.
You won’t want to miss out on this excellent publication.
Sunday, 12 January 2014
2013 at iTech-Ed Ltd
Because it’s the start of the New Year, I thought I’d review the events of 2013 through the lens of events at iTech-Ed Ltd.
In January, The Arcati Mainframe Yearbook 2013 was published. It had around 20,000 downloads during the course of the year, and I’m Editorial Director for this highly-respected annual source of mainframe information. My article entitled, “IMS: Stretching Across Computing Platforms and Applications” was published in Enterprise Tech Journal. My blog, “Needing That Network Guy”, was published on the Destination z Web site. And the Virtual CICS user group meeting on 15 January had a presentation from IBM’s Nick Garrod and Ted Caffarelli entitled, “CICS V5.1 – Portfolio Update”.
On 5 February, the Virtual IMS user group enjoyed a presentation from SQData’s Scott Quillicy entitled, “Best practices: maximizing the use of your IMS data through replication”. My blog entitled. “What’s Skeuomorphism and Why Should I Care?” was published on the Destination z Web site. And at the very end of February, I heard that I had been recognized by IBM as a 2013 IBM Champion – that’s the fifth year in succession.
5 March saw a great presentation by Fundi Software’s Reuben Andrews to the Virtual CICS user group entitled “No more Cold Start surprises – how Deployment Analysis in IBM CICS Configuration Manager for z/OS saves your bacon”. My blog entitled, “What is the ‘Third Platform?’” was published on the Destination z Web site.
My blog “Linux All the Way Down” was published on the Destination z Web site in April. And on 9 April, the Virtual IMS user group heard a presentation from James Martin of Fundi Software entitled “IMS Configuration Manager: streamlining the transition to dynamic resource definition”.
In May, my blog “The Internet of Things” was published on the Destination z Web site. And on 14 May, at the Virtual CICS user group meeting, HostBridge Technology’s Director of Technical Services, James Alexander, gave a presentation entitled, “Integrating Life-Comm, Life/70, or other CICS resident insurance and annuity applications with distributed applications utilizing the ACORD standard”.
There was a great presentation to the Virtual IMS user group on 11 June entitled, “Taking IMS to New Heights – What the Future Holds for IMS” by Betty Patterson, IMS Chief Architect with IBM. Also in June, my blog entitled, “Biological computers” was published on the Destination z Web site.
The Virtual CICS user group meeting on 11 July was packed with people enjoying a terrific presentation from IBM’s CICS and CICS Tools Technical Specialist, Satish Tanna, entitled, “Extracting optimum performance out of CICS”. The session was introduced by Ted Caffarelli, CICS Tools Product Line Manager with IBM. In addition, July saw my blog entitled, “IMS 13 Aims to Reach New Heights”, published on the Destination z Web site.
In August, my article entitled, “Strategies for Migrating Your Mainframe to IPv6” was published in Enterprise Tech Journal. And my blog entitled, “The Ongoing Evolution of Cognitive Computing”, was published on the Destination z Web site. The meeting of the Virtual IMS user group on 6 August enjoyed a presentation from Rocket Software’s Wayne Morton entitled, “Putting IMS/DB in Business Analytics / Intelligence”.
In September, my blog “Security Threats Require Constant Vigilance Even on the Mainframe” appeared on the Destination z Web site. Also in September, my blog, Lync and Yammer, appeared here on the IT Central Station Web site. And on 10 September, the Virtual CICS user group meeting was enthralled by a presentation entitled, “Creating Modern CICS Web Applications by Exploiting Open Source Javascript Libraries” from Stephen Mitchell, Managing Director of Matter of Fact Software Limited.
BMC Software’s Glenn Witt gave a good presentation to the 8 October meeting of the Virtual IMS user group entitled, “Tuning Your Mainframe IMS Batch Processing”. In the same month, my blog, “Looking forward to IOD 2013”, appeared on the IOD 2013 Web site. And my blog, “An Absolute Beginner’s Guide to Big Data”, was published on the Destination z Web site.
In November, my blog, “What is Bring Your Own Identity?”, was published on the Destination z Web site. My blogs, “What’s been happening at IOD?” and “IOD 2013: What you missed!”, were published on the IOD 2013 Web site. Also, on 12 November, the Virtual CICS user group meeting was packed to hear a presentation entitled, “Programming with CICS TS Channels and Containers” from CreativeDataMovers’ Mary Abdill.
The 3 December meeting of the Virtual IMS user group enjoyed a presentation entitled, “IMS in the Connected World – Why You Should Pay Attention!” from Dusty Rivers, Principal Technical Architect with GT Software. And my final blog of the year, “Fat Clients Ride Again”, appeared on the Destination z Web site.
I continued to blog at Mainframe Update (mainframeupdate.blogspot.com) and Mainframe World (it.toolbox.com/blogs/mainframe-world/). And I continued to tweet at twitter.com/t_eddolls, twitter.com/virtualims, and twitter.com/virtualcics. And on Facebook you can find me at fb.com/itech-ed, fb.com/VirtualIMS, and fb.com/VirtualCICS. And I have groups on LinkedIn for Virtual IMS (www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=379256) and Virtual CICS (www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=3847862). And I’m on Google plus (gplus.to/teddolls).
And don’t forget, the Arcati Mainframe Yearbook 2014, will be published very shortly. And look out for this year’s meetings of the Virtual IMS and Virtual CICS user groups.
Trevor Eddolls
In January, The Arcati Mainframe Yearbook 2013 was published. It had around 20,000 downloads during the course of the year, and I’m Editorial Director for this highly-respected annual source of mainframe information. My article entitled, “IMS: Stretching Across Computing Platforms and Applications” was published in Enterprise Tech Journal. My blog, “Needing That Network Guy”, was published on the Destination z Web site. And the Virtual CICS user group meeting on 15 January had a presentation from IBM’s Nick Garrod and Ted Caffarelli entitled, “CICS V5.1 – Portfolio Update”.
On 5 February, the Virtual IMS user group enjoyed a presentation from SQData’s Scott Quillicy entitled, “Best practices: maximizing the use of your IMS data through replication”. My blog entitled. “What’s Skeuomorphism and Why Should I Care?” was published on the Destination z Web site. And at the very end of February, I heard that I had been recognized by IBM as a 2013 IBM Champion – that’s the fifth year in succession.
5 March saw a great presentation by Fundi Software’s Reuben Andrews to the Virtual CICS user group entitled “No more Cold Start surprises – how Deployment Analysis in IBM CICS Configuration Manager for z/OS saves your bacon”. My blog entitled, “What is the ‘Third Platform?’” was published on the Destination z Web site.
My blog “Linux All the Way Down” was published on the Destination z Web site in April. And on 9 April, the Virtual IMS user group heard a presentation from James Martin of Fundi Software entitled “IMS Configuration Manager: streamlining the transition to dynamic resource definition”.
In May, my blog “The Internet of Things” was published on the Destination z Web site. And on 14 May, at the Virtual CICS user group meeting, HostBridge Technology’s Director of Technical Services, James Alexander, gave a presentation entitled, “Integrating Life-Comm, Life/70, or other CICS resident insurance and annuity applications with distributed applications utilizing the ACORD standard”.
There was a great presentation to the Virtual IMS user group on 11 June entitled, “Taking IMS to New Heights – What the Future Holds for IMS” by Betty Patterson, IMS Chief Architect with IBM. Also in June, my blog entitled, “Biological computers” was published on the Destination z Web site.
The Virtual CICS user group meeting on 11 July was packed with people enjoying a terrific presentation from IBM’s CICS and CICS Tools Technical Specialist, Satish Tanna, entitled, “Extracting optimum performance out of CICS”. The session was introduced by Ted Caffarelli, CICS Tools Product Line Manager with IBM. In addition, July saw my blog entitled, “IMS 13 Aims to Reach New Heights”, published on the Destination z Web site.
In August, my article entitled, “Strategies for Migrating Your Mainframe to IPv6” was published in Enterprise Tech Journal. And my blog entitled, “The Ongoing Evolution of Cognitive Computing”, was published on the Destination z Web site. The meeting of the Virtual IMS user group on 6 August enjoyed a presentation from Rocket Software’s Wayne Morton entitled, “Putting IMS/DB in Business Analytics / Intelligence”.
In September, my blog “Security Threats Require Constant Vigilance Even on the Mainframe” appeared on the Destination z Web site. Also in September, my blog, Lync and Yammer, appeared here on the IT Central Station Web site. And on 10 September, the Virtual CICS user group meeting was enthralled by a presentation entitled, “Creating Modern CICS Web Applications by Exploiting Open Source Javascript Libraries” from Stephen Mitchell, Managing Director of Matter of Fact Software Limited.
BMC Software’s Glenn Witt gave a good presentation to the 8 October meeting of the Virtual IMS user group entitled, “Tuning Your Mainframe IMS Batch Processing”. In the same month, my blog, “Looking forward to IOD 2013”, appeared on the IOD 2013 Web site. And my blog, “An Absolute Beginner’s Guide to Big Data”, was published on the Destination z Web site.
In November, my blog, “What is Bring Your Own Identity?”, was published on the Destination z Web site. My blogs, “What’s been happening at IOD?” and “IOD 2013: What you missed!”, were published on the IOD 2013 Web site. Also, on 12 November, the Virtual CICS user group meeting was packed to hear a presentation entitled, “Programming with CICS TS Channels and Containers” from CreativeDataMovers’ Mary Abdill.
The 3 December meeting of the Virtual IMS user group enjoyed a presentation entitled, “IMS in the Connected World – Why You Should Pay Attention!” from Dusty Rivers, Principal Technical Architect with GT Software. And my final blog of the year, “Fat Clients Ride Again”, appeared on the Destination z Web site.
I continued to blog at Mainframe Update (mainframeupdate.blogspot.com) and Mainframe World (it.toolbox.com/blogs/mainframe-world/). And I continued to tweet at twitter.com/t_eddolls, twitter.com/virtualims, and twitter.com/virtualcics. And on Facebook you can find me at fb.com/itech-ed, fb.com/VirtualIMS, and fb.com/VirtualCICS. And I have groups on LinkedIn for Virtual IMS (www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=379256) and Virtual CICS (www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=3847862). And I’m on Google plus (gplus.to/teddolls).
And don’t forget, the Arcati Mainframe Yearbook 2014, will be published very shortly. And look out for this year’s meetings of the Virtual IMS and Virtual CICS user groups.
Trevor Eddolls
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