June 08, 2005

Mainframe hackers in short supply

Cory Doctorow of Boing Boing writes that the mainframe business shows no sign of declining, despite the low cost and high power of commodity PC hardware. The problem? "All the old mainframe jocks are dying or retiring, leaving mainframe-dependents businesses without enough techs."

    Companies need to better understand how to compensate for diminishing mainframe skills. Systems that offer heterogeneous management across mixed environments can eliminate the complexities traditionally associated with managing the mainframe. That makes it possible to work across both mainframe and distributed environments, regardless of one's database knowledge.
    But time is slipping away. We are at a critical junction, as mainframe talent is quickly disappearing. Converting data from these systems requires a significant amount of time and a substantial monetary commitment. Often, such conversion is just not a viable option.

This poses an interesting issue because regulatory guidelines have also stayed away from the mainframe arena primarily because they don't understand it. Most regulators/examiners are trained by the auditors or other specialist consultants. If the bright young consultants are coming out of school having never used an AS/400 they will not teach the examiners who will in turn not write requirements for these systems.

It's not until we see this as a high risk area (read: a few high profile mainframes get hacked) that you will see much in regulating or securing mainframes. I'm sure by saying this I'm causing all the RACF [PDF] security junkies to have a hernia but it's true.

Posted by volubis at June 8, 2005 01:24 PM