Is Infrastructure knowledge necessary?

Most of us, who were trained in mainframe and got into development, must have studied a small introduction to mainframe infrastructure. Usually, that knowledge is neither extensive nor exhaustive to perform any significant infrastructure activity.

 However, over the years, while you start performing architecture-related works, there will be a need to collaborate with the infrastructure team(s) to either create a solution or try out a proof of concept or technology. This collaboration is inevitable especially if you have chosen a path of mainframe modernization. Hence a little bit of knowledge and further reading on infrastructure always helps. This will aid you to use some jargons and terminologies that are closer to the infrastructure person and will help you to build a better collaboration with them.



The next question then would be how much is "a little bit of knowledge". It is usually subjective, but I will list some of the following indicative knowledge that can be acquired.
  • DB2 DBA and administration activities (DDLs, Table partition, Table maintenance, etc)
  • CICS/IMS administration activities (defining resources in CICS/IMS, TCP/IP configuration, etc)
  • MQ administration activities (defining queues, triggering configurations, etc)
  • Processes and activities related to code migration to different regions
  • Configurations needed for any modernization tool (like z/OS connect, DVM, etc)
  • Message exchange standards (like JSON, SOA) and configurations needed for them

The important thing is you need to know these things exist and have a reference to this handy. The infrastructure team would of course be doing these configurations. However, you will continuously collaborate with them when you are trying these things newly until your POC or POT works and becomes implementable in production. You may extend this above list to other sets of vendor products depending on the configuration of your mainframe and the list of subsystems and external interfaces that are present.

 Remember, any additional knowledge we possess will help us immensely in building our soft skills and communication ability with different stakeholders and teams when we grow into an architect role. The infrastructure team will be one such stakeholder. Imagine the other stakeholders that are part of your projects and explore further expanding what else could be acquired. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

What skills to develop to become an architect?

Image
The answer to this question as any seasoned architect will give you is "it depends". I can confirm that it's not cliché but reality. There are several types of "architects" in the market each having their own value, purpose and need. They may be Technology specific architects, Enterprise Architect, Business Domain architects, Lifecycle specific architects, Data Architect, Infrastructure architects, etc. to name a few. According to me, some key qualities that an architect would need are: Be the most adaptable and flexible person who can churn out solutions and alternatives within a given scope and constraints.  Be the first to break any bad news about things that may not work (technically) with reasoning.  Provide inputs to the organization's academy or learning department to add new skill courses needed by the employees for progress. In short, give information & indications to decision-makers on architecture and t...
Read more

What resources are available for learning?

Image
I believe most of you already know the answer to this. I will list some of the resources that are helpful for me to learn anything new or refresh concepts I used long ago to do Mainframe Modernization activities.  1. IBM DevOps for Enterprise -  This is your one-stop learning shop for all things modernization related to IBM products on z. Check on the Training, Resources, Downloads, and Documentation information available on this site.  You can download and try the free version of some products. 2. Interskill -  This is one of the official training partners of IBM and most of the corporates using IBM Z would have a training partnership with Interskill. Most services companies have also integrated their learning systems to embed courses from Interskill.  3. Google -  It is the best source of search and find for a specific topic to learn or understand. 4. Udemy - This has become my new favourite to learn any new technology or concept. Many courses are desi...
Read more

Do I really have career growth if I continue in mainframe projects?

Image
Unfortunately, I won't be able to directly give a binary “yes or no” answer to this question. Depending on your project, career, organization and domain situation, you must answer this question yourself. However, I will list down a few key factors that influence the answer and helps in decision making: The stretch of "core functionality” of the organization that is present the mainframe. 10-year roadmap of the organization The practise (extent and intent) of using the latest features and upgrades available in the mainframe as a culture within the organization. Investments (projects) to enhance or simplify maintenance of existing applications. Opportunity to work with different applications and modernization efforts. Popularity of using the mainframe within the industry or domain you are aligned with. Your own perception to present yourself as a mainframe person to your network. Most of these points above summarize the thoughts reflected in my previous blogs in th...
Read more