Re: Need for people to support operating environment was Re: COBOL - still a place fo

Pete Dashwood wrote:
> Interesting post Clark.
>
> Although you make some good points I'm still not persuaded that mainframes
> don't require special attention that PCs don't.
>

Perhaps this tale may be of interest. It relates to how there is a very
different attitude exhibited by some PC techies compared to the
traditional mainframe attitude. A friend was one of two managers
working to support Windows servers in two sister companies. My friend
would always download and install Windows updates on a separate test
machine before checking the update for functionality and rolling the
change out to the rest of the company. His colleague, in the sister
company, responsible for 500+ users habitually installed updates
without first checking on a test machine. The result, on one occasion,
was a disaster when the update failed with the users being unable to
log on.

Now, one reason that mainframes (and probably not the only reason)
require special attention is because of the more professional belt and
braces approach used to prevent disasters, similar to the above, in
machines that are clearly perceived as being critical to the
continuation of the business. I certainly wouldn't say that a mainframe
is any more complex than a PC or server nor any more difficult to
operate. The fact that the HERCULES system allows the emulation of a
mainframe on a desktop PC one with a modicum of knowledge is proof that
complexity is not the issue.