Skip to main content

Posts

Showing posts from September, 2025

New Courseware Release, September 2025

  Great news! We have released new content on MyInterskill. We have several new courses, badges and an IBM Professional Certificate. As always, your full subscription includes access to this new content. Look for it on MyInterskill the next time you are on. z/VM 7.4 Curriculum We have updated our  z/VM curriculum to version 7.4 . z/VM – Introduction to the z/VM Curriculum Video z/VM – Introduction and Concepts z/VM 7.4 z/VM – System Initialization and Shutdown z/VM 7.4 z/VM – Monitoring and Controlling z/VM Operations z/VM 7.4 z/VM – Managing Guest Operating Systems z/VM 7.4 z/VM – Managing CMS Files z/VM 7.4 z/VM – Identifying and Resolving z/VM Problems z/VM 7.4 IBM Mainframe Communications 3.1 We have updated our  IBM Mainframe Communications curriculum  to the latest z/OS 3.1 Comms – Network and Communications Concepts 3.1 (New rewritten) Comms – Monitoring and Controlling VTAM 3.1 Comms – Monitoring and Controlling TCP/IP 3.1 Comms – Mainframe Network Architectu...

Building a Culture of Learning: How to Make Mainframe Training Part of Daily Operations

  Mainframes remain the backbone of global enterprise IT, powering banking transactions, insurance systems, healthcare records, government services, and countless mission-critical operations. Yet while the platform continues to evolve with new integrations, automation, and hybrid cloud capabilities, the biggest risk to its future is not technological, it’s human. The challenge is well known: an aging workforce, a competitive market for new hires, and a rapidly changing skills landscape. For executives responsible for the resilience and performance of mainframe operations,  ensuring a skilled and future-ready workforce is now as critical as system uptime. The question is no longer  if  we train, but  how we integrate training into the very fabric of daily operations . Why a “Culture of Learning” Matters Too often, training is treated as an event: a course once a year, a workshop when a new technology rolls out, or a quick response to an audit finding. While these...

40 Hours a Year: A Strategic Benchmark for Mainframe Workforce Readiness and Future-proofing

  Mainframe platforms sit at the core of the world’s financial, government, healthcare, and retail infrastructure. They are stable by design—but the ecosystem around them evolves constantly: new security threats, modernization toolchains, DevOps practices for z/OS, hybrid cloud integration patterns, and waves of retirements that shift institutional knowledge. In that environment, a simple, measurable target of 40 hours of professional development per person, per year becomes more than a number. It’s a strategic benchmark that helps leaders operationalize workforce readiness, de-risk transformation, and future-proof critical operations. IBM offers perhaps the best-known proof point. Its Think40 program sets a clear expectation that  every  employee completes a minimum of 40 hours of training and professional development annually. Independent research from MIT Sloan’s Institute for Work and Employment Research documents Think40, noting that IBM’s average and median annual l...