simfaisal

Hi,
Is there good opportunity for Mainframe or Midrange System professionals in Melbourne.

I have 18 years experience in S/38, IBM AS/400 & IBM iSeries Systems along with Sybase, Powerbuilder, Client/Server Computing, C#, .NET, XML, webservices etc in-addition to Microsoft Dynamics AX ERP implementation.

Kindly for your input & suggestions.

Best regards
simfaisal

Buzzy--Bee

Have you tried contacting IBM? Many companies outsource this kind of work to them. They employ about 5000 people in Melbourne.

BB

simfaisal

That's a good information. I will contact IBM-Australia, and look into their website further.
Have a nice day BB
Best regards
simfaisal

freebo

People still use AS/400's?

S/38 Like, as in RPGIII Why stop there, I'm sure S/36 is still in use somewhere.

These days we have Unix for that kind of thing.

Just kidding, good luck

Plenty of Sybase out there...

simfaisal

Thanks a lot. I understand that you know the whole history as an IT professional. Well, I've worked on many platforms over the past 18 years. however I really admire iSeries in production (formally AS400) and its technological growth.

It's such a monster for total integration, efficieny and resilient business processing. you can find latest developments and competitive advantage on the following link.

http://www-03.ibm.com/systems/power/...e/i/about.html

Best regards
simfaisal

freebo

I was porting RPG Systems to Unix boxes using Unibol in the 90's. Still, the advantage of the S38, AS/400 etc is you don't need to be technical to run them I suppose.

I've never heard of the iSeries, does it have much of a user base?

Seriously, I'm just joking, I'm sure you'll do well if the platform is well adopted...

Go for your sybase skills, that is mainstream.

freebo

Actually I just thought about my post above & realized what I dickhead I was being, sorry.

Specifically I don't know about the market for your skills here, but as I said Sybase is well adopted. I can say that the market seems fairly small, but there is demand for niche skills, just fewer people and and fewer positions.

Good luck, sincerely and sorry for being a w****r!

simfaisal

Hi Freebo,
I really loved your comments, analyzed it throughly and it was very interesting. Thank you very much. After working for ages, I'm thinking, do I need to work for another employer or should I need to start something on my own? once we reached a certain point in our career, it's time to give our expertise back to the society. I'm thinking such a way, atleast a small startup IT solutions/consulting somewhere in melbourne or elsewhere.
So I hope threads like this would be of more helpful to get in touch with like minded individuals, their inputs & data collection.
Best regards
simfaisal

coolshadows

Isn't it called 'System i' now? (formerly i-Series, formerly AS/400).

simfaisal

Yes, you're correct. It's now 'System I', you could find details on the following link;

http://www-03.ibm.com/systems/i/

How about the trend there?

Best regards
simfaisal

BudBrain

Although I'm more (PHP/C#) web-development now, I have 10+ years of RPG/RPG-ILE development experience and still code/bug-fix occasionally.

The AS400 (i-series/seriesi/whatever) is a solid platform in all honesty and is still used by many medium-large corporations, partly due to all the legacy code out there but also because the system is so solid.

Unfortunately for IBM they didn't jump on the 'web' band-wagon quickly enough (imo) and despite multiple attempts at re-branding, the AS400 (which is what most people still call it) is deemed to be a bit 'old fashioned' these days.

That said, I know of a few large companies in the UK who use it (not sure about the RPG language though) plus a couple of development companies in Oz too.

I'd imagine it's the same situation in Oz as the UK - not that many places (vacancies specifically) around so you'll need to travel further but good money if you can find one.

Would be interested in what you find out simfaisal - I've searched a few times and my own posts on BritishExpats keep popping up

coolshadows

I don't think there are many AS/400 jobs in the Adelaide area. I moved over to .Net about 10 years ago, we'll before we moved out here. I have to say I haven't looked back.

I found the AS/400 (RPG an all) very old fashioned, though the company I was working for hadn't moved to the latest version. Most of the work moved to screen-scrape software as they felt the 'green screen' technology was off putting to new clients.

It would be interesting to compare the latest IBM Websphere to Visual Studio 2010, as well as DB/2 to SQL Server 2008.

Buzzy--Bee

Bit of a habit that. Who remembers OS/2?

BB

BudBrain

Haha - identical situation here!

IBM Websphere is very expensive for small/medium businesses but enables the legacy applications to interface with the web/web services - as do the screen-scraping tools (but have limitations).

The problem here is you still need to have your RPG developers understand the web/web-services which also requires a huge amount of re-training and additional cost (most RPG developers, in my experience, are not very computer literate/web minded).

Visual Studio can access/call RPG programs these days (as can PHP) via DB/2 calls but then you also have to write additional code. This is the route we've taken (C#) and I think it's the best option and works very well.

I've not really played with MSSQL but (in this instance) as most data is already held on DB/2 databases (AS/400) then there's been no need.

I was once hoping to find work in Oz that would allow me to use both skill-sets (RPG & C#/PHP) but it's almost impossible finding such positions. I think your best (future-proof) bet is to move to .NET

simfaisal

Hi,
The technology today is open and interconnected. I've been using DB2/400 on AS/400 and developed many robust client/server applications with Sybase Powerbuilder, and it was very successful. Also replaced many of our Green Screen applications with GUI client/server applications. Whenever there is something to be done very intensive on the front end (client side), I've suceeded developing stored procedures on the backend with RPG!. What a marvelous combination it was. Even IBMers visited our company, and surprised for such combined technology.

In-addition, Also I've been using .NET C# with AS400 for some webservices projects for many years. All sexy graphicals parts are done on the client side with .Net C#, and on the backend DB2 on AS400.

Also I recall a 3-tier scenario with AS400, Windows servers, and IIS for a webbased application running on IIS. All client users interact with web application on the Windows, and IIS takes the data from AS400 DB2 with great performance and security.

What I see is, if we know the art of many technologies, there will be no limitations.

Now, there is Cloud Computing, you don't need to have your own data center, just rent a box, and applications somewhere in any part of the world, keep running your ERP or applications. you need just an internet connection!
very cost effective, and hassle free.

Best regards
simfaisal