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Re: No future for DB2

From: DA Morgan <damorgan_at_psoug.org>
Date: Thu, 28 Jul 2005 00:39:47 -0700
Message-ID: <1122536353.139043@yasure>


Mark A wrote:

> "DA Morgan" <damorgan_at_psoug.org> wrote in message 
> news:1122533361.487428_at_yasure...
> 

>>rkusenet wrote:
>>
>>>This article is very bleak about future of DB2. How credible is the
>>>author. http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,1839681,00.asp
>>
>>Graph the calendar year vs. the average age of DB2 developers and DBAs.
>>Do the same for the other major commercial RDBMS products. You will have
>>your answer.
>>
>>It is not that DB2 is technically incapable of competing. Rather IBM
>>is presiding over an aging baby-boom workforce. Speaking only from my
>>experience in the US ... a large number of colleges and universities,
>>including mine, have active programs teaching SQL Server and Oracle.
>>I can not think of a single one teaching DB2.
>>
>>I left Fortran for a reason.
>>I left COBOL for the same reason.
>>Those working with DB2 should take a serious look at which is more
>>important ... product loyalty or paying the mortgage.
>>--
>>Daniel A. Morgan
> 
> 
> Even if your premise is correct (which I believe is greatly exaggerated), 
> your conclusions are backwards. If there are more DB2 DBA's retiring, then 
> there will be a shortage of DB2 talent and more job opportunities.
> 
> Given the ease of administration improvements in 10g (not to mention the 
> improvements that are no doubt coming in future Oracle releases), as 8i and 
> 9i installations migrate to 10g, that alone will create at least a 30% 
> theoretical reduction in the number of Oracle DBA's needed. I expect this 
> trend to continue as Oracle fends off MS SQL Server. 

Even if your statements are correct I don't believe it is going to happen that way.

Lets say I have DB2 in my facility ... I was at a major IBM shop in Portland Oregon three weeks ago that is precisely that.

And lets say the CTO isn't a software bigot but rather has his corporation's best interests at heart. The CTO has a choice ... hire young inexperienced talent and train them up to the level of those of us in our 50s and 60s on mainframes which means also teaching COBOL, CICS, MVS JCL, OS/390, z/OS, TSO, VSAM, IMS, REXX, ISPF, and CLISTS or get already trained talent straight out of a college program.

Lets say the CFO of the firm has a choice of maintaining big iron with attendant costs in infrastructure including power conditioning, air conditioning, etc. or can build a mainframe from 2 proc or 4 proc commodity hardware for a fraction of the cost and get the same computing power at a fraction of the cost. Look at the number of super computers now build from commodity hardware for example.

And lets say the Board of Directors is paying attention to the fact that reducing costs increases the value per share of the stock which is their fiduciary responsibility to the stockholders the direction is clear.

The number of DBAs required in the future is going down like the value of Sun Microsystems stock.

So yes there will be holes in the organization created. But I've yet to meet the CTO whose solution was to incur the cost of training on mainframe technologies. Heck most won't even pay money to train their existing staff and they too need it.

It is all about dollars.
The C-Level management is looking out for the bottom line. We need to be look out for our mortgage payments.

-- 
Daniel A. Morgan
http://www.psoug.org
damorgan_at_x.washington.edu
(replace x with u to respond)
Received on Thu Jul 28 2005 - 02:39:47 CDT

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