Hi guys, I’m trying to create a job which sorts an input file based on a condition.. but the ask is that condition varies every month(condition changes dynamically)
I’m using the INCLUDE MEMBER as solution for this but I can’t make it work. The member in my library should contain the sort card statements right?
The plan is to just change the para inside the sortcard dataset to make it dynamic..
Error: STATEMENT NOT ALLOWED IN AN INCLUDE GROUP
Hello, It's been almost a year since I got a job on a mainframe. I learned a lot in the first few months since I had no previous experience, and I'd like to learn more about Z/Os and DB2. Where can I find some courses that I could enroll into without spending a yearly salary on?
Hello All,
I have returned seeking help regarding my resume. a bout a year ago I made a post in this reddit looking for guidance on how to break into the world of mainframe. luckily enough of me all of you guys were very helpful and assisted in changing my life for the greater good! Since then I finally ended up getting hired with a big " FInacial SERVicing' company and unluckily my position was eliminated (was told it wasn't due to performance but the company just wiped out my position on a random Wednesday morning which sucks considering I relocated from California to Nebraska) Since then I've been applying all over states to find an opportunity and while I haven't secured a job I'm optimistic that I could find a role.
To those active in this reddit could you please review my resume and let me know of any alarming issues, questions or any other things you could possibly point out that may need to be changed? thanks!
I am fresher was figuring out to dive into IT, doesn’t have idea about mainframe my friend suggested me this, Need advice what’s to focus on to get job ready skills within short span possible, this is really important would help me a lot! Advice’s appreciated
See info below!
Job 1: Large banking client Job Title: Mainframe DB2 DBA Location: on-site 5 days a week in Jacksonville OR Plano, TX your choice!! We are looking for a minimum of 2 years and max of 4-5 years of experience!
Job 2: Fintech Company Job Title: Mainframe Application Analyst Location: Fishers, Indiana (very close to Indianapolis)
Comment if interested and I will send over the full Job Description!
Hello everyone,
I’m currently navigating my career path in the mainframe world and need some advice. I have a solid background in mainframe ops experience and enjoy learning new things. However, I’m now at a crossroads, trying to determine which specific mainframe role would suit me best.
I’m particularly interested in understanding the day-to-day responsibilities of different roles within the mainframe domain. Here’s a bit about my background and preferences:
• Preferences: I enjoy learning new tasks, coding I know JCL pretty well. Looking for role that doesn’t have frequently have too much oncall and escalations would be awesome. Just a normal rotation of it will be fine • Dislikes: Not a fan of client-facing tasks, and frequent meetings (just do not want a whole day of them) I knob there’s meetings in every role • Goals: Aim to become an SME in the mainframe field. Currently work in support setting and tired of everything being on fire.
I do not mind learning something extremely technical but also would like it to be some what in a peaceful team or environment.
I have tried to research everyone’s role on the mainframe with ibm manuals but trying to view it from an insiders view just to see if I would enjoy one or the other.
What does a typical day look like? What challenges do you face, and what aspects do you find most rewarding?
I would like to get the 13 volumes of the ABCs of zOS programming as well as the intro to the new mainframe zOS basics but if I tried to order physical copies it would cost a fortune I imagine. I know I can use the IBM documentation but I want to be able to sit somewhere and read them without being limited to the online PDFs at my computer. I’ve read that a kindle isn’t compatible with Apple Books and google play.
Does anybody have suggestions?
A colleague of mine works for a financial instiution that uses Connex for z/OS to process their card transactions. He asked me to reach out to the z/OS community to find out any others using this product and can engage in a dialogue. Thanks
As the title implies, I'm wondering if anyone has book recommendations on mainframes. I'm particularly interested in the general history and development of mainframes rather than the specifics of their modern-day usage in careers. I'm a computer science student at university, so I don't mind technical details.
I am also curious if anyone has youtube videos or websites that are great about the history and development of mainframes as well.
Thanks!
I have an application with 20 jobs. When job nr. 10 detects a certain condition, the job net (application) should not continue. Maybe this would be possible if the jobs exits with a rc of 8, but this would be treated as a failed job and I don't want that. Is it possible to end the application "silently"?
If you haven't heard of it, there is a mainframe discord community that is very active. It can be found at:
As of this post there are 2,000 participants. They do all kinds of different events. I recommend everyone check it out. (edit: Changed the link to a non expiring one).
IBM Z114 X02
I posted a variation of this question on a couple of weeks ago, but no one had any ideas.
I had a previous laptop with Ubuntu 18-something and successfully compiled and ran x3270 () in order to connect to our university's mainframe (sigh).
My old laptop died. I have a new laptop with Kubuntu 22.04.4. (The university's VPN will not work with the more recent Kubuntu 24.) I have compiled x3270 (version v4.3ga8). I can get connected to the university mainframe's initial screen, which is not a login. It's a choice to go into the "production" or "development" version of the program. I should choose "production", and I can do that. It sends me to the login screen, correctly. So it seems like I am getting connected to the mainframe server.
On the login screen, I get an "X Wait" message at the bottom of the x3270 terminal window. I cannot type anything or seem to get past this screen. From what I have read, this message means that the emulator is waiting for communication from the mainframe, but perhaps it's waiting in error?
University IT has compiled the Windows version of x3270. They had the problem unless they used "Model Number 2". When I put in this setting, it didn't change anything.
IT has basically said they have no idea what the problem is. They are not really interested in helping, since linux users are not a big population on campus.
Any ideas?
I’ve finished my z/OS pre apprenticeship through Franklin Apprenticeship. The next step is finding a company that will hire you as you go through an actual apprenticeship with Franklin for one year.
Has anyone had a successful experience with this? If not what were your next steps into getting into mainframe?
I’m really interested in getting into mainframe as a career however I do not have a tech background, any advice would be appreciated.
If let's say a bank does planned IPLs, do they pay VISA or a similar company to process its transactions while their LPARs are IPL'ing? If so, does anyone have a benchmark estimate of how much this would cost? I understand that workloads will move to other LPARs while planned IPL's are executed every week. Trying to wrap my head around value of being able to do shorter IPLs from a cost savings perspective. The banks (and other businesses) will not have outages during planned IPLs due to backup systems. Hope my question makes sense.
Hi Mainframe community,
What would be some typical interview questions for apprentice /entry level roles?
A while ago I about landing my realistic dream job at a local colo facility, Tierpoint. Now that I've had time to settle in and do some internal research, it looks like ZPX Cloud is a separate entity that partners with Tierpoint. However, I still think I can gain professional experience at this job that'd be relevant to mainframe positions elsewhere. I wanted to get your opinions on what specifically might make a future mainframe career recruiter interested in me. Would it be databases, disaster recovery, or something else? Would zExplore badges help too? Let me know!
I don't know if this is allowed, but we need some help for our customer in Pennsylvania.
If you know of any Mainframe Programmers looking to do some freelance work (40 hours/week), please send me a note. The kicker is that we do need JCL development experience on the older DOS/VSE system.
🛑 EDIT - The person can be 100% remote but they do need the resource to be physically located in the United States. Sorry for not clarifying earlier.
Thanks so much!
Our client is looking for a Mainframe Programmer/Analyst (DOS/VSE must have) for a 6 to 12 month contract role (it could become a full-time role if both parties are interested). The role is likely to start in next few weeks and can be completed remotely.
Job Details:
Our client is looking for an experienced Mainframe Programmer/Analyst to help support a new Warehouse Management implementation. The candidate must have strong DOS/VSE, JCL, COBOL, VSAM and application experience to be considered.
Primary Skills: DOS/VSE JCL COBOL VSAM
I've downloaded and started playing with Git for z/OS and I want to start using it to control our group and my own JCLLibs through git mostly to stop trying to remember "where I left that damn job at."
The problem I'm running into is when I pull down anything from our GitLab instance, it's ASCII instead of EBCDIC so if I go to look at it in OMVS or if I copy it over to MVS it's gibberish.
The only solution I've found is to iconv everything I pull down from GitLab from ISO8859-1 to IBM-1047. I keep reading about autoconversion and using a .gitattributes telling everything to go to EBCDIC but I cannot for the life of me get it to automatically convert to EBCDIC when I do a git pull.
Has anyone been working with git and gotten the conversion working?
Hi I am curious if anyone here uses DBB or related tools for building mainframe applications. If you have do you know what the pricing would be about? It’s not easy to find clear information on pricing, I kind of see that the pricing might even variable based on usage? Which doesn’t make sense for software that is ran locally.
Additionally has anyone found any short comings in the tool? To me it looks like it still requires a lot of manual set up for the JCL and scripting.
Really curious if people think the tool is worth investing in for improved productivity or if managing scripting yourself would be easier.
Hello, I'm new to the BMC scheduer and it's related tool JCL Verify. I have used Broadcom's CA7 tools and specifically JCLCHECK in the past.
Broadcom's JCLCHECK tool has an option called PDSRELATE ( ) which allows you to verify a list of related jobs and treat them as such. I am looking for a similar option in JCL Verify batch job.
Mostly i'm looking for the JCL checker to connect datasets, so if a dataset is created in one job and another job expects it to be there, it would give an ok return code. BMCs JTJPLAN - Schedule JCL Job Verification seems to do this, but i'm looking to use this against jobs not defined in the scheduler.
Some sample JCL would be helpful. Here is what i have below, i have read the documentation but can't seem to tease out what i'm missing.
//JCLVER EXEC CTJVER,JES=D,FE=Y,FA=Y,ME=N //SYSIN DD * LIB=D250XXX.JCLLIB MEM=JCL1 LIB=D250XXX.JCLLIB MEM=JCL2 /*
Thank You
Google Redmonk and IBM session: What is watsonx Code Assistant for Z and How to Use GenAI to Modernize Mainframe Apps.
This is a cool demo of how IBM is enabling customers to modernize and maintain their mainframe applications with generative AI using IBM watsonx Code Assistant for Z.
The tool enables refactoring of monolithic applications, and mixed-language debugging, providing a unified developer experience across Java and COBOL using modern IDEs such as Visual Studio Code. The platform really brings modern developer experiences to mainframe modernisation. The AI model, trained with human-written code pairs and synthetic test generators, ensures trustworthiness and integration without context shifting in the application modernization life cycle across Java and COBOL. IBM watsonx Code Assistant for Z can describe COBOL-based functions, enabling refactoring, before generating Java-based code to support the same function.
This was a RedMonk video, sponsored by IBM.
Hey all!
My current job title is System Operator II and I’m working with the AS400 system at a bank. I’m seeking employment at other companies and I’m trying to get a feel for what the salary range is.
Based in the United States, that is. Also, any tips or advice for interviewing/finding jobs that will value my AS400 experience?
Hey guys! I am looking to speak with professionals with experience in z environment and typically z/VM to understand the changing landscape of IT and their usefulness in this current landscape.
Please reachout to me on my chat and I'll be glad to speak at length! Thanks