Mainframe Management

Mainframes are still widely in use and have well established and mature practices. Mainframes from the central component of many services and its performance will, therefore, set a  baseline for service for service performance and user or customer expectations, although they may never know that they are using the mainframe.

The ways in which mainframe management teams are organized are quite diverse. In some organisations, Mainframe Management is a single, highly specialized team that manages all aspects of daily operations through to system engineering. In other organisation, the activities are performed by several teams or departments, with engineering and third-level support being provided by one team and daily operations being combined with the rest of IT operations (and very probably managed through the Operations Bridge).

Typically, the following activities are likely to be undertaken:

• Mainframe Operating system maintenance and support
• Third-level support for any mainframe-related incidents/problems
• Writing Job scripts
• System Programming
• Interfacing to hardware(H/W) support; arranging maintenance, agreeing on slots, identifying H/W failure, liaison with H/W engineering.
• Provision of information and assistance to Capacity Management to help achieve optimum throughput, utilization, and performance from the mainframe.