System iNetwork

February 2005

February 27, 2005 2:32 PM

Notes from a far country - Jobs

The job market seems to be picking up here in the UK. How can I tell? I subscribe to 2 weekly computing papers that have free subscriptions for those working in IT. In fact one of these papers has for the past few years refused my application for a free subscription but has just recently started sending me copies. These are largely paid for by job adverts from employment agencies and employers.

In the late 1990s there must have been 100+ pages of jobs in each of these magazines. After the year 2000 the number of job pages dropped dramatically down to just 1 or 2 pages and the editorial reduced as well. This week there are 12 and 17 pages, not a huge number but a significant increase on the past. With the editorial we are now up to 70-80 pages.

And iSeries jobs? Nothing. Plenty of employers wanting various Microsoft skills, some SAP, management, security (you did not see that a few years ago), Oracle, networking etc. but nothing mentioning iSeries, nor mainframe for that matter.

In one paper there is a summary showing rates for both contract and permanent staff, by skill area. This is interesting in that the skill areas mentioned are: Apache, JDBC, Linux, Lotus Notes, Flash, Office, Sybase, and VoIP - what a strange selection of skills. The rates, especially contract rates, do seem to be increasing.

Also of interest, and this seems to be a recurrent theme, is that employers are concerned about a lack of skills. One survey reported that two-thirds overestimated their skills. Yet I wonder how many employers encourage their staff to improve or expand their skills.

Then you also read reports of the large number of work permits being given for people to work in IT. It is worrying when we have a large pool of labour that is unable to satisfy the demand from employers. Perhaps there are too many developers cruising along on their existing skill sets and not making any effort to retrain.

Posted by on February 27, 2005 at 2:32 PM

February 16, 2005 1:55 PM

5250 is dead!

Or is it?

I had a short discussion by email with our editor, Dale Agger, about some potential articles for the future. Because of my circumstances, I have neither experience of, nor access to, modern systems. Therefore I do not have skills with iSeries Navigator, nor WDSc.

However I do have lots of skill with the older technologies and 5250 type interfaces are still useful. SQL is SQL is SQL, whether you are using the more modern interfaces or Interactive SQL and QM Query. Additionally, with these tools, you get to see the SQL code as you develop it and key it in yourself.

My concern with some of the more visual tools is that you do not see, and hence fail to appreciate, what is happening behind the scenes.

I could be an old fossil not seeing the benefits of hiding the detail away but if I take MS Access as an example: I can create databases and forms that do the basics and some of the intermediate stuff. But when I was having some problems, it was only when I went and viewed some of the SQL that I got to see what was going on.

To take a second example, where I work we use a PC server based contact management system. I was having problems getting the system to write a report that I wanted. With this I was able to direct translate my AS/400 SQL skills (i.e. key in appropriate 'select' statements) on the underlying database and see what the problem was – in this case it was an appalling database design that I would give a 'fail' to in any course on database design.

So, am I an old fossil or is there still room for approaching the iSeries using the 5250 interfaces? I would be interested to hear your views.

Posted by on February 16, 2005 at 1:55 PM | Comments (4)

February 11, 2005 5:14 AM

A visit from John Reid

Our fledling users group here in Billings, Montana got a wonderful visit from John Reid with IBM yesterday. Sorry John, I've already forgotten your new title, but I do remember it was really long and impressive :)

I don't know if John's job description with IBM includes attending users groups and getting them fired up about the i5, but that is certainly what he did yesterday. If I was running a large company with many different servers of many different flavors, I'd certainly look at the i5 for consolidation. But even for us smaller companies that don't have 7 digits budgets, I was impressed with what the low end 5xx series has to offer.

I came away from John's presentation knowing I need to take a serious look at getting even the few "other" servers we have consolidated on our future i5. It may even be realistic now to get rid of the 1, yes 1, Windows Server we have that we still reboot a couple of times a week to get email working. I want to consolidate not just to say we did it, but because I buy into the power of 1: one backup, one server for maintenance, one HA solution.

Who knows, maybe the future of the AS/400, iSeries, i5 and whatever they rename our beloved box to next year isn't as dreary as I sometimes believe!

Thanks John!

Posted by on February 11, 2005 at 5:14 AM | Comments (1)