One bright spot for many mainframers, in what can be a very dull January, is the arrival of the Arcati Mainframe Yearbook. The 2023 edition of this well-respected publication is now available and completely free. Let’s take a look at some highlights from the new...
In these days of hybrid cloud working with some applications working best in a cloud environment and some that work best on the mainframe, there’s going to come a time when mainframers and cloud people are going to be sitting in the same room and the way computing is...
Mainframes are renowned for their ability to store large amounts of data and being able to access that data. IMS, for example, has, for many years, been able to store huge amounts of data and access the records in that data very quickly. It’s what made IMS so popular...
The 2024 Arcati Mainframe Yearbook is underway! This publication has de facto reference work for IT professionals working with z/OS (and its forerunner) systems since 2005. The Yearbook’s highlights include a comprehensive annual user survey and an...
The stages in a mainframe breach are familiar to most mainframers these days. Firstly, the bad actors need to gain access to the mainframe. That is as simple as going to the web and buying a user id and password combo for as little as $120. But even worse if the...
Artificial intelligence (AI) is becoming more common place, and many people have used things like ChatGPT, a popular generative AI (GenAI) that can answer questions, write essays and poems, or summarize a book. However, like most things, AI can also be turned to the...
In my last article about ransomware, I mentioned how important it was for chief financial officers (CFOs) to ensure that the IT in their organizations was as secure as possible—particularly now that attacks can come from artificial intelligence (AI) bots that could be...
Even the news channels don’t make a big deal about cyberattacks these days. It’s happening all the time. It’s incredible how many people don’t recognize that there is a war going on right now between hackers and organizations with any kind of IT hardware. And when I...
Mainframers who thought the mainframe was too difficult a platform to hack are few and far between these days. However, mainframes can be hacked, and they are being hacked.In terms of security, what spells, incantations, and practices should organizations employ to...
Anyone, whether working on mainframes or not, can reflect on where in their career they are and what kind of help—i.e., training, mentoring, or coaching—will move them forward their career (and their work-life balance) successfully. But first, consider the differences...
