Job ID: CO-93245 (910590414)
Mainframe Lead with Decommissioning, CA 7, CICS, COBOL, JCL, VSAM, TSO, Proclib experience
Location: Denver CO (OIT)
Duration: 3 months
Qualifications
Type Category Qualification Description Competency Required
Skills Others CA 7 Scheduling Module Proficient (4-6 Years) Yes
Skills Others CICS Proficient (4-6 Years) Yes
Skills Others COBOL Proficient (4-6 Years) Yes
Skills Others JCL Proficient (4-6 Years) Yes
Skills Others Mainframe Knowledge Proficient (4-6 Years) Yes
Skills Others VSAM Proficient (4-6 Years) Yes
Required Skill Set:
Mainframe knowledge (*must have knowledge)
COBOL*
CICS
VSAM*
JCL*
CA 7 Scheduling Module*
TSO
Experience in various mainframe utilities to be able to complete the required documentation. Knowledge of Proclib and other mainframe utilities
Excellent writing skills
Analytical mind set
Ability to lead in a matrixed environment.
Mainframe Decommissioning
The mainframe is an expensive service for OIT, the agencies and workforce to support and maintain. Applications and processes are aging and the state has lost a number of skilled resources to retirement which were unable to be backfilled. Modernizing applications that utilize the mainframe currently so they are no longer dependent on the mainframe will reduce risk and expenses for the state.
The mainframe’s software and hardware environments were frozen after the successful OS upgrade in 2016. The reason for that is because release notes were not successful in preventing application outages post upgrade. This left some applications as not functional for a week or more while they were updated to function with the new OS. That incident caused OIT to pause additional upgrades to the environment for application stability.
The mainframe software could be upgraded but the risk to application environments is too great at this point to have that be a valid option.
Identification and migration of all mainframe applications, data transfers, processes(batch jobs, user submitted jobs) and data which need to migrate or be rewritten on another platform has begun. Each agency has the freedom of choosing the best platform solution based on their needs. That freedom makes it difficult to have all of the mainframe applications retired under the umbrella of one project.
Problem Statement/Summary of Need:
Analysis to date has identified 4 applications and 15 file transfer services remaining on the mainframe. The applications all have active projects to migrate their functionality. Of the 15 services, 8 have active projects, 1 migration is complete and 6 remain to be analyzed and migrated. In addition there are a number of seemingly independent jobs running that need to be analyzed and migrated or decommissioned.
A vendor will be retained to identify the services data flow, identify associated batch processes and what action those batch processes take, then based on that knowledge identify an approach to move those services and associated processes off of the mainframe and into either a cloud or on premise server environment. Lift and shift is not an acceptable solution as it adds more complexity than benefit.
Position Description: Sr. Mainframe Technical Resource/Lead (specializing in application and scheduling support)
Objective:
Investigate and document mainframe processes/applications sufficiently to migrate the workload to alternative architecture or decommission the processes.
Responsibilities:
Collaborating with OIT resources build documentation templates for the decommissioning and migration effort.
Collaborate with OIT and business resources investigating these mainframe processes determining whether they need to be decommissioned or migrated to alternative technology.
Review existing documentation
Research mainframe JCL, procs, source code to determine the requirements for migrating these processes off the mainframe or decommissioning these processes
Identify active mainframe workload.
Document those processes sufficiently that need to be migrated off the mainframe to alternative technology.
Document those processes sufficiently that need to be decommissioned.
Use of enterprise reporting tools to track and report progress and status.
Potentially assist in writing RFP
Deliverables (not limited to):
Documentation Template(s), approved by the Project Lead
Migration
Decommissioning
Meeting artifacts
System documentation for required migration activities meeting the requirements identified in the Problem Statement
System documentation for decommissioning activities meeting the requirements identified in the Problem Statement
Creation of User Stories, Product Backlog Items with articulated Acceptance Criteria
For data files and elements, establishing data dictionary and definition of all data transformation rules
Weekly Project Status reports
Project schedule
Other project documentation as required