Software Engineer
In my final semester at NIU, I attended my first ever tech conference. This conference, primarily backed by corporate titans like IBM and Broadcom, aims to be a venue for mainframe vendors to advertise, network, and gain insight from other key figures in their respective spaces.
Overall, it was a great experience, and I learned a lot about the people in a very overlooked and underrated sector of tech. I'll highlight the key parts of my experience.
One of SHARE's most intriguing aspects was the network of people that attended. Everyone knew everyone, and the door to enter conversations was always open. It was a unique atmosphere, one that resembled a more rural setting.
What was also interesting was the diversity of conversation. Currently, IBM's mainframe is in a curious position, and its place in the market of enterprise computing is up in the air. While mainframe aficionados will proclaim the mainframe's perfection as a platform, many common businesses aren't on board. Something is amiss for the platform, and not everyone is in agreement on what that is.
Broadcom is an impressive corporation. They make incredible hardware and software, and have an extensive set of accomplishments. No one is disputing this. However, I have one severe critique: Big Iron Bits.
Broadcom was a massive presence at SHARE, and they chose the conference as the venue for their "amazing series finale." The Big Iron Bits crew's presence was a recurring topic of conversation among attendees, not always for the right reasons. To stay constructive:
That said, Broadcom's impression was not all bad. They were one of two companies to host an after-conference dinner at a local high-end bar. I met with many representatives, marketing managers, and software engineers from the company. Broadcom has a talented group of people on their side. They were a good crowd though clearly more vested in their own company's endeavors than in discussing mainframe concepts broadly.
I'll note a personal frustration with Broadcom: they currently safeguard the only true JCL LSP in their "code4z" platform, something I've wanted access to for months. Separately, other vendors were vocal about their disdain for Broadcom products, whether out of jealousy or genuine critique.
Broadcom's presence was appreciated by myself and other attendees, although controversial in nature due to the 'Big Iron Bits' crowd as well as vendor perspective on their products.
The RACF (cybersecurity) crowd at SHARE were some of the most grounded individuals at the conference. These people were some of the few not clouded by corporate positioning, and could actually speak their mind in the few casual settings of the conference. This crowd was genuine, they deserve recognition. There are too many names to list, but collectively they solidified that mainframe was not a career path I wanted to pursue (they didn't steer me this way by intention).
It was not the conversations from corporate talking-heads that gave me the insight I needed to pursue my career more effectively. It was not the products, CEOs, or the job opportunities that I sought. It was the humanity; the people with real experiences, skills, and opinions. People who sought out truth in their respective fields were my targets, and the conversations I had with those people were priceless. There were conflicts of opinion, but conflict is way more preferable to avoidance when it comes to the marketplace of ideas.
I firmly believe that the mainframe will continue to be a bastion for enterprise computing for the next few decades. While the advantages of mainframe over enterprise x86 server clusters become less pronounced over time, there is simply a lack of data from other platforms to conclude that alternative solutions are equally reliable, efficient, and stable. However, there is severe dissonance between vendors of mainframe software. Too often I saw infighting between competing factions that prevents one simple fact from being internalized: the software side of mainframe is years behind its x86 counterparts. IBM has maintained a philosophy of hardware innovation while allowing its software ecosystem to stagnate, and this attitude trickles down to vendors of mainframe software. So, while the mainframe as a product is currently alive, it could fade into irrelevance assuming IBM does not course correct.
Geoffrey Decker, the professor that encouraged me and many other NIU students to attend the conference, has been one of the most supportive and encouraging professors I've had the privilege of learning under while at NIU. No other professor has put in the genuine effort to put students in a position to enter the workforce like he has. While I am not entering a mainframe position and don't plan on it in the future, he still supported me and my fellow peers. He respects the student body more than any other professor I've met. His retirement will be a loss for the school regardless of NIU's mainframe trajectory.