Mainframe, MVS and zOS Discussion

Hi,

I'm an Application Developer. Had been that most of my career. I have been in management roles also. Though I'd like to become a System programmer in Mainframes. I work from offshore location and my current company won't encourage this role and they won't offer a role even if I qualify. This will be my own journey, where do I start please advise. And what should I start learning as a begineer.

Any SysProg out there who would like to speak his heart out, please?

You may need to look for another company that will support your interest in being a system programmer. If you can, start looking at how your system is put together -- review SYS1.PARMLIB, SYS1.PROCLIB, and associated data sets. Please note that many sites restrict access to these libraries so you may trigger a security violation if you just go into to browse them, so check with your site support group first.

Pull up the z/OS documentation for your release of z/OS and start reading. Pay particular attention to z/OS MVS Initialization and Tuning Reference as well as z/OS MVS Initialization and Tuning Guide -- these manuals are essential to any system programmer. Investigate z/OSMF as IBM has stated that this is the direction they are pushing system programming towards. The z/OS Introduction and Release Guide and z/OS Planning for Installation manuals would be logical next steps to read.