AS400 operator

[Pantlegz]

So I interviewed for a position the other day that I was told was supposed to be a network tech but it's apparently just an AS400 operator. Basically al the guy interviewing me knew about it was what I knew, it was a mini-mainframe and I would be doing 'updates and maintenance'.

Any ideas on what the average salary for this sort of position(google wasn't much help here)? Also i was told in school most companies are moving away from AS400's and since I focused mostly on networking in school it wouldn't make much sense focusing on a dying technology.

I really have no idea how I did in the interview, it was VERY informal and they guy interviewing me had no idea about the position and their current AS400 guy that is supposed be retiring in the next few years wasn't there when I interviewed.

 

[Emulex]

i dont think anyone uses os/400 anymore. i used that 20 years ago lol.

today they use AIX which is a very popular ibm flavor of unix that runs on powerpc and AS400. hell im pretty sure i've seen folks boot linux on as400

 

[dfnkt]

We are still using an AS/400 (IBM Mainframe), actually have a few of them. We have been heavily involved over the last few years transitioning all of our data from them over to something cheaper (think $275K/yr per machine, for the AS/400).

Companies that used these things put EVERYTHING on them, all customer/employee master information.

Salaries, addresses, phone numbers, transactions, just every piece of data that they created got stored there. It's a lot of work tackling the functions it handles one at a time and converting it to something else.

 

[imagoon]

iSeries (as/400 / system i) is alive and well. We just bought a new one 8 months ago. I do the basic maintenance like software patches and having it do disk maintenance but my skill with the system is pretty limited.

We run os/400 v5r4 actually.

System is incredibly powerful for what it does, it is just not the most user friendly system out there.

 

[smirk]

So I've been an AS/400 (System i) developer for 16 years now. It has a market but the market is steadily contracting. Although it has been adopting more industry standard technologies, it is still largely proprietary, and many of the skills you will learn won't be transferrable.

Unless you really need the job, or unless the i is only a small part of the job, I would look elsewhere for employment.

 

[Emulex]

the new nehalem-EX multi-cpu (>2) will probably give that ancient box a run for its money

i remember having a wall (seriously) of books for the o/s. Hard drives required two men to replace due to size - and the tape backup (reel to reel) actually worked!

 

[ViviTheMage]

We use AS400 at my work still, and I don't think they have any thoughts of moving to anything else right now.

 

[Emulex]

of course you spend millions on a platform that works. i had to migrate an os/400 accounting system to netware back in 1990 - wasn't a problem at all and the new technology and software was even faster.

new machines the cost is software - the as400 you've paid for that - you are just getting hosed on hardware support costs.

anyone got an as/400 laying around that they put linux on

 

[B00giE]

I would stay far away from that position unless you're in dire need of a job at the moment. None of the skills you acquire as an operator will do you much good in any other IT position (other than being able to say you worked in IT) and you'll spend most of your time hitting the F5 key waiting for whatever job it is you're watching waiting to complete.

I don't know if you'll be responsible for printing reports and such, but the life of a computer operator is pretty monotonous and not at all challenging. Installing Cumulative updates from IBM once a month is what the recruiter was most likely referring to, and it's about as hard as putting a CD in and watching it run.

I did this job for about 7 years and it was probably the most boring time of my life. Getting out of that and into a sysadmin position in a Microsoft shop was the best thing that ever happened to me on a career level and you couldn't pay enough me to ever type WRKJOBQ again.

 

[imagoon]

Primary reason I like the one we have is that it is very easy to do compliance with. It keeps detailed records of file changes and the like. Windows can do it also but it typically requires extra software. We also have the advantage that when the SOX / HIPAA folk run through they see: iSeries and pretty much stamp it as 'pass.' We also run JDEdwards so...

 

[Tsavo]

AS/400 operator? What else will they have you doing? Sorting punch cards? Cataloging 8 inch floppies? Dusting off 286's?

 

[imagoon]

AS/400 operator? What else will they have you doing? Sorting punch cards? Cataloging 8 inch floppies? Dusting off 286's?

They still sell them new you know...

 

[Emulex]

everything you can do on the as/400 you can do on windows now. with nehalem-ex you will see 8-node 8-core and larger single systems with dope amounts of ram to rock out (db2/oracle/sql server) - the program runs the same on any architecture - compile it - the sql server is really the big nasty monster that has to scale.

as/400 folks get pissed off when an (expensive) windows machine can reliably handle the workload which pretty much a 180 of what an as/400 operator is

 

[smirk]

everything you can do on the as/400 you can do on windows now. with nehalem-ex you will see 8-node 8-core and larger single systems with dope amounts of ram to rock out (db2/oracle/sql server) - the program runs the same on any architecture - compile it - the sql server is really the big nasty monster that has to scale.

as/400 folks get pissed off when an (expensive) windows machine can reliably handle the workload which pretty much a 180 of what an as/400 operator is

It's a little different than that. System i machines cost a ton, no doubt about it. But you are getting *extremely* high quality parts. These aren't drive controllers, hard drives, memory, etc. that you could pick up from Fry's. The system is rock solid, hardware and software. There are no viruses, pretty much no threat from viruses. I've only seen them crash a couple times in my career, and that was due to the hard drives completely filling up and IT ignoring the warning messages, not because the OS blue screened due to a bad driver or something.

I'm not saying it's better or worse than an (expensive) Windows machine. Certainly there are shops which have abandoned the i in favor of a PC- or *nix-based solution. But for what it does, it does it extremely well.

 

[DivideBYZero]

Some of the POWER6 iSeries will spank the shit out of most of the other options mentioned in here.

Does AS/400 have a history? Yes. Is it out of date? No.

 

[Emulex]

yeah power6 is so fast it can start fires

 

[DisgruntledVirus]

They still sell them new you know...

We are in the process of upgrading to the iSeries currently. Although, rumor is that the this will be the last time for AS400 and we will be moving to a new platform for the next refresh cycle.

I don't think we will move away from AS400 for a while though.

 

[DisgruntledVirus]

everything you can do on the as/400 you can do on windows now. with nehalem-ex you will see 8-node 8-core and larger single systems with dope amounts of ram to rock out (db2/oracle/sql server) - the program runs the same on any architecture - compile it - the sql server is really the big nasty monster that has to scale.

as/400 folks get pissed off when an (expensive) windows machine can reliably handle the workload which pretty much a 180 of what an as/400 operator is

Unfortunately, it's not as simple as just recompiling the code for a new platform.

For my company, everything we do was based in AS400 type systems. All of our customer records (which are extensive to say the least) are stored in AS400 systems. Most of our applications pull data from the AS400 systems. They are tied to the very core of our company.

To facilitate a move from AS400 to Windows/*nix would require an overhaul of most of the applications we use on a daily basis. It would be a VERY expensive proposition, and in a great economy it's a tough pill to sell let alone get management to swallow. Ever try selling management on some "new" thing that "works better" even though there are no issues with the current one (from their perspective)? Good luck.

Also, the beauty of the AS400 systems are in their simplicity. Windows/*nix systems go down all the time and have lots of issues (driver updates, etc). AS400's are much more robust systems.

 

[imagoon]

We are in the process of upgrading to the iSeries currently. Although, rumor is that the this will be the last time for AS400 and we will be moving to a new platform for the next refresh cycle.

I don't think we will move away from AS400 for a while though.

They always say that until they get the estimate to upgrade the ERP system.

The biggest power of the iSeries is that the software for 1970s still runs 100% native even though the architecture has changed and even the processor went from RISC to CISC.

 

[smirk]

The biggest power of the iSeries is that the software for 1970s still runs 100% native even though the architecture has changed and even the processor went from RISC to CISC.

Just to nitpick, it went from CISC to RISC (I know you knew that, just typed it backwards).

 

[DivideBYZero]

Just to nitpick, it went from CISC to RISC (I know you knew that, just typed it backwards).

EPIC LURKER SIGHTING!