>Well, we support it for our students, plus the central Scholastic Alliance hub. It's what we do. Don't know what your employer does, but that's what we >do, and it's part of my job description. Do we offer every option? No, but we support 99% of what people want for the Scholastic Alliance. We supported >the recent Mainframe Programming contest, supporting lots of students in parts 1 & 2 as TSO users on the hub. Non-technical issues prevented us from >supporting part 3, which was separate z/OS systems for a couple hundred students.
>Interesting questions that all need answers, but ones we've been dealing with for many years. We offer students here Linux servers that they can >completely destroy. Different operating system, but the issues aren't that different. My comments were aimed at the point which suggested that IBM simply make z/OS available over the internet for anyone that wanted to use it. In your case, you're obviously supporting a finite set of students. For the IBM Academic Initiative the IBM site indicates that there were only 380 student accounts for 2004-2005. Even at the highest levels of use, this wouldn't compare to national or potentially world-wide access considerations. Also offering Linux servers is not the same thing as offering a comparable number of z/OS servers; its apples and oranges at a variety of levels. In addition, the point was made regarding people using the systems to develop fixes and software which is not related to introducing new users. In effect, if the purpose is to simply allow new user access to gain knowledge, then that represents one set of problems and standards that would need to be maintained. On the other hand, if it is expected that these systems provide the integrity and support necessary to allow the development of software and other ongoing activities then their level of support becomes correspondingly higher. I'm also not suggesting that it can't be done, but rather that it involves significantly more effort than simply providing a z/900 and several MVS images under VM. Please note that my comments are aimed at the concept of "MVS knowledge". If the only purpose is to provide a platform for programming, then that's an entirely different venture and is much more readily achievable. Adam ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
