Page 13 - TIME Newsletter 2018 in Review
P. 13
MAINFRAME
RETIREMENT
Mainframe computers for decades were the backbone As with all things related to technology, the only constant
of data automation. Starting with refrigerator-sized is change and at an increasingly rapid pace. It is a
machines that processed punch cards, mainframes tribute to the mainframe era that it provided so much
evolved to store data on magnetic tapes which varied functionality for the District for so many years.
themselves evolved from reels to cartridges. From After the Student Information System (SIS) on the
helping to put a man on the moon, to processing millions mainframe was replaced with Focus SIS in 2017, the
of tax returns, to managing our student information - last big hurdle to retirement was crossed. Thus began
mainframes have been a reliable tool for processing and a District wide effort to offload the remaining programs
maintaining large, complex data. and functionality from the mainframe. On September
The latest District mainframe, an IBM System z10, 30th, IT pulled the plug on the venerable machine in
entered service in December 2009, replacing an older favor of operating its applications on distributed modern
IBM z800. Our earliest mainframe service dated back servers that offer greater flexibility and ease of use for
two decades before that. Upgrades were frequent, our customers.
mostly undertaken to raise capacity.
Accompanying the phase-out of our stalwart mainframe,
Over the decades, our mainframe has been used for the District is transitioning a long-serving group of
diverse but critical District functions, including: Student mainframe programmers and analysts to working in new
Records, Payroll, Human Resources, Transportation, computing languages and environments. In what truly is
Accounting and Purchasing, Library Media, School Food the end of an era, earlier this year we bade farewell to
Service, Maintenance and more. our data center and mainframe’s longtime keeper, James
Gallon, who retired with the system change.
