A Mainframer's Musings

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...

Over the last 3 or so years, especially after the pandemic began, I get a lot of queries from my LinkedIn connections as well as fellow junior colleagues about shaping their careers within the context of being a mainframe application developer or a senior developer. They look to me for some guidance as I have, over a couple of decades of my software career, had gone through different changes, challenges, and transformations. This triggered my idea to write a blog to address these repeated (yet very essential) questions.  I Intend to initially answer in each of my blog posts to answer questions like: 1. What is (qualifies as) mainframe modernization? 2. What to learn for mainframe modernization? 3. How to divert my career into mainframe modernization? 4. What skills to develop to become an architect? 5. What technologies should I learn? 6. What resources are available for learning? 7. Should I do cloud certification? Which one to choose? 8. Do I need to learn DevOps...