Next-Generation Mainframers Community Blog

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During the summer, I started on an incredible journey of learning and growing into the professional world as an intern. Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Anitha Kona, and as a computer graduate student, I have always looked forward to using my theoretical knowledge in a practical setting. I am excited to share my incredible experience as a summer intern at Broadcom. Over the past few months, I had the privilege of diving into the world of computer technology, working with industry experts, learning more about the IT industry, and immersing myself in day-to-day operations. This post highlights my journey, the project I worked on, and the valuable ...
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Hello folks, My name is Brian, and I was fortunate enough to be able to intern at Broadcom this past summer as a software engineering intern. This will have been my second summer with Broadcom, and it was better than the last. I mostly worked on efforts to modernize access and usability of mainframe systems these past summers. Last summer I was working on an internal software development kit to be used by our product developers as they build out products. This summer I wanted to get closer to the product and my lovely managers allowed me to do just that! So for this past summer I worked on a workload automation project, developing and building ...
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My Transformative Journey: Leveraging Generative AI for Software Development Over the course of this summer, I embarked on a transformative journey as an Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning Engineering Contractor at Broadcom, working within the Mainframe Software Division (MSD). This invaluable experience provided me with a wealth of knowledge in various technical areas, insights into the inner workings of the company, a broader perspective on the industry, and a deeper understanding of the career path I am wholeheartedly pursuing. As a young aspiring engineer, the experience of being part of a connected and welcoming environment not only nurtured ...
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What could the mainframe industry possibly do with Generative AI? With this question, I began my journey into the world of mainframe modernization. Almost 2 months into my Summer Internship 2023 at Broadcom, the answer revealed itself – the possibilities are nothing short of extraordinary. As a matter of fact, they are no different from any other industry that incorporates Generative AI with a goal to create and own value for the business. From revolutionizing creative content to streamlining business processes, Generative AI has found its way into virtually every function. Treading on this path, I contributed to two projects centered around code generation. ...
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Much like one would use Task Manager to see what program is consuming resources on a personal computer, mainframes also require a tool that monitors its performance. However, unlike personal computers, it is a business critical use case. If something happens to them, then critical business operations will be disrupted. This post will explain the essentials of performance monitoring, the data that supports it, and why it matters from the perspective of an intern whose experience is the first exposure to the world of mainframe. Performance monitoring of mainframes is an important topic for keeping business operations running. SMF and the Data that ...
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About My Summer Project I landed an internship with the Broadcom Datacom team. The project that I worked on was to update the Automated Regression Test System that the development team uses. I focused on the requirements for SQL_Team and sought to make this space more consistent with the other areas. We accomplished this by converting the existing Java based tool to use an internal Python tool that simplifies the process of automating mainframe testing. In addition to this, we would also revamp some of the functions in the way that testing would work to make it more efficient, easier to configure and allow for multiple people to run regressions at the same ...
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Data at scale quickly becomes difficult to store or query efficiently. Hundreds of thousands of events are expected to come in every minute, which necessitates a Datastore which can handle the billions of rows of data. For our problem, we are trying to support two separate use cases, both of which are meant to work with similar data. One needs to see the historical record of values for a given column on a very consistent basis, while the other needs to fire off multiple queries in succession, each using multiple where clauses, group bys, and generally “slicing and dicing” the data. During my internship at Broadcom, my objective ...
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During the summer, I had an amazing opportunity to intern at Broadcom, Pittsburgh office. Before I dive into my internship experience, let me briefly introduce myself. I am currently pursuing a master's degree in Computer Science at the University of Texas, Dallas. My passion lies in developing software that enhances people's lives and contributes to improving the Internet for everyone. My internship kicked off with an onboarding process, after which I joined the Harbour Masters team. I had discussions with my mentor regarding the tasks we aimed to accomplish during the internship and the prioritization of objectives. Our primary focus was addressing the ...
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QA test automation can be tedious and frustrating to troubleshoot, but utilizing debugging tools can expedite the process and provide you with a meaningful starting point to solve issues with your scripts. There are pros and cons to various methods of debugging related to QA test automation. In this scenario, I was using PTG2 (PragueTestingGears2) — a framework written in python that simplifies the process of automating mainframe testing — to write a large set of test case scripts designed to validate signon/signoff processes performed by the ACF2™ CICS interface transaction: ACFM. These cases are all online, panel processes to ensure that ACF2™ CICS handles ...
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Dear Generation Z, Mainframes are old technology! Even the tech nerds of Gen Z might not know what a mainframe is, or they might think mainframes became irrelevant a long time ago. Well, Gen Z, if anyone tells you that mainframe is dead, you can tell them “that’s cap!” Banks still process millions of transactions on mainframes, airlines still schedule thousands of flights on mainframes, and governments still store critical data on mainframes, even in 2023. “So what?” I can hear you saying. “Sure, the global finance system, along with lots of governments and big businesses rely on mainframes, but what does that have to do with us?” Well, Gen Z, our venerable ...
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As the #1 Integrated Software Vendor (ISV) for mainframe, Broadcom continues to invest substantially. Broadcom’s investment spans software, hardware and building the next generation of technical leaders. You are likely already aware that we run the Vitality Program where we hire and train new talent, and deploy the team members at customer sites. We offer an all access pass to online education for Broadcom Mainframe customers and instructor led training to make it easy to grow skills. We also engage with universities to consult and teach (e.g. Tennessee State University) on their curriculum. We proudly educate students on the ...
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