The Mainframe New Hire Experience ECC Conference

1. The Mainframe New Hire ExperienceECC Conference June 2014

2. AGENDA • Introduction • Verizon Overview • In search of the 21st Century System Programmer • Experience of the New Hire • Q&A

3. ABOUT VERIZON Using technology to address big challenges • The best, most reliable networks in the industry • The largest U.S. wireless company with the largest 4G LTE network • The largest and fastest all-fiber network in the U.S. • One of the largest, most reliable and secure global networks • 2013 revenues of $115.8 billion • #16 on the Fortune 500 (2013) • More than 178,300 employees worldwide Verizon Innovation Center in Waltham, Mass.

4. Providing a rewarding culture and great careers • Long list of awards for Verizon’s workplace excellence include: • ConnectEDU survey of 2014 - Verizon Ranks in Top 25 for Best Places to work for Recent Grads • Black Enterprise magazine – “40 Best Companies for Diversity” • Training magazine– ranked #1 for best training program • Working Mother magazine – ranked #9 for “Best Companies for Multicultural Women” • Latina Style magazine – ranked #3 for best companies for Latinas to work • G.I.Jobs.com - #15 on “Top Military Friendly Employers”

5. In Search of the 21St Century System Programmer

6. MAINFRAMES TODAY … THE REALITY • Contrary to popular belief, the mainframe continues to grow • All of the top 25 world banks run their businesses on mainframes • 23 of the top 25 global retailers run their mission-critical applications on a mainframe and rely heavily on enterprise systems-skilled employees • 9 out of the top 10 global life/health insurance providers process their high-volume transactions on a mainframe • 60% of all data available on the Internet is stored on mainframes • There are more CICS transactions processed than Web pages served • Verizon Business units combined is about 240K MIPS

7. Background • Involved with IBM Academic Initiative since 2006 • Verizon faces a future skills challenge in the mainframe area • We are actively addressing this challenge Jobs: Operations, Scheduling, Hardware, DB2, Storage Services, Middleware, Operating Systems, Network

8. The Plan • Infusion of new talent • Take advantage of the contacts at Universities • Internships • Expose future IT professionals to the mainframe platform • Establish hiring in specific sites for new college hires • Operational Data Centers • Strong Manager & Senior technician presence • Socialization • Establish a career path • Executive & Technical Mentoring • Training • Building leaders as well as technicians

9. Experience of the New Hire

10. Introducing the New Hires Kevin Huntley Education: BS in IT; Master of Business Administration (Information Systems) College: Undergrad - North Carolina A&T State University; Grad - Ashford University Relevant Courses: Introduction the Mainframe (undergrad), IBM DB2 Concepts, SYSPLEX and SMSPLEX, Linux on Z, etc. Previous Work/Internships: Leadership Development Program, Quality Assurance (E-commerce) & Maintenance Testing for VZW website Klesti Muco Education: BS in Computer and Electrical Engineering, Minor in Computer Science College: Undergrad - Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey Relevant Courses: Operating Systems, Network Centric Programming, Digital System/Logic Design, Data Structures, Software Engineering, Data Analysis Previous Work/Internships: ICAS Corp. Desktop Technician, SAGA API for parallel and distributed computing. Yarynez Sandoval Education: BS in Management of Information and Communication Systems College: Undergrad - Fordham University; Grad - Stevens Institute of Technology Relevant Courses: Network essentials, Information Systems, Database Processing Previous Work/Internships: Intercampus Transportation Supervisor, Law Intern

11. Newbie with no Mainframe Courses • Constant use of abbreviations in normal speech sounds like an alien language. (eg. LPAR, CEC, CICS, etc)…”What’s CICS? Isn’t that a breakfast cereal or something?” • JCL doesn’t work like Java or C++ at all. • ISPF and TSO terminal emulator looks like an ancient and unwieldy piece of equipment. • Are you sure we need to “take a dump”…? (Upon entering ISPF/TSO): • “Whoa, I just stumbled into an 80’s sci-fi movie.” • “Why is everything in UPPERCASE?” • “I’m clicking on stuff but nothing is happening”. • “I thought the F5 through F12 keys were just there for decoration…” • “Where’s the scrollbar on this thing?”

12. Marist Courses MOOC over the summer Mastering the Mainframe GlobalKnowledge Courses Interskill Training Verhoef Training “What on Earth is a Mainframe?” by David Stephens IBM Redbooks/whitepapers Whiteboard sessions with experienced system engineers SHARE Conferences zNextGen Glossary of z/OS terms and abbreviations Learning Experience at Verizon On-the-job Training Datacenter/Site Visits Orangeburg Data Center, NY Freehold Data Center, NJ Tampa Data Center, FL Fairland Data Center, VA Basking Ridge Site Visit, NJ

13. On the other hand, Newbie with Mainframe Courses… • Submit this Job? No problem • You want these datasets allocated? You got it • I made the necessary JCL changes for you…you can resubmit and it should return 0 • I can track the status of that job for you in SDSF • Let me check SAR for that GDG

14. CollegeMainframe Course Taken “Introduction to Mainframe Computing Class” • Logging on to a real Mainframe • Intro to JCL/Rexx Coding • ISPF/TSO usage and functionality • Virtualized Severs on an IFL • Creating/Allocating Datasets • Submitting Jobs and tracking their status • Learning both the Physical and Logical Architecture behind the Mainframe The main focus of assignments is “hands-on”. A course such as this will undoubtedly help with understanding the basic environment that a mainframe runs in, and will make the transition to being an effective systems programmer much easier.

15. Why We Chose the Mainframe Opportunity: An aging workforce but the mainframe will still be around for years to come. Skill Portability: What we learn as Systems Programmers can be ported to a wide range of other career paths. Technological Improvement: Recent technological breakthroughs are making the mainframe more and more appealing. This has also helped bridge the gap between mainframes and distributed systems, so a transition from either side would be easier. Total Cost of Ownership Model: Paying for what you use and shared resources go hand in hand. This model makes a good deal of sense in the long run.

16. Questions?