In the fall semester of 2011, IBM ran its seventh annual Master the Mainframe
Contest for high school, college and university students across the U.S.
and Canada (excluding Quebec).
Why compete in a Mainframe Contest?
Prizes!
The prizes up for grabs in the 2011 Master The Mainframe Contest included:
- Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 Android-based tablet computers
- $100 pre-paid debit cards
- Trips to the mainframe lab in Poughkeepsie, NY
- Custom Master the Mainframe T-shirts
Experience!
Today's mainframes are growing in popularity and require a new generation
of mainframe experts. This contest is designed to equip students with basic
skills to make them more competitive for jobs in the enterprise computing
industry. Participation in the Master the Mainframe contest could give
you the edge you need.
Contestants are encouraged to check out and apply for the jobs posted on
the new System z job board at Systemzjobs.com.
Fame!
You can see information on last year's winners at the 2010 Master the Mainframe
Wall of Fame. You can also read some nice press on last year's winners in these articles:
When is the contest?
Student registration: 06 September 2011
Contest ran: 03 October - 28 December 2011
Who can compete?
To compete, students must have an educator at their institution enrolled in the IBM Academic Initiative. Students, ask your educator to follow the instructions on the Educators tab; enrollment takes only about 10 minutes. By enrolling, your educator will gain access to IBM products and resources at no charge.
What is a mainframe, anyway?
On 22 July 2010, IBM introduced its most powerful, scalable and energy-efficient mainframe server ever, the IBM zEnterprise System, which can manage 100,000 virtualized servers as a single system. It also
contains 96 of the world's fastest, most powerful microprocessors running
at 5.2Ghz, capable of executing more than 50 billion instructions per second.
Cool? Cool.
To find out a little bit more about what makes a mainframe system unique,
check out these resources:
- Mainframes and Clouds (Irving Wladawsky-Berger's blog)
- Reconsider the mainframe (Smart Enterprise)
- IBM's zEnterprise architecture makes mainframe cool again, also efficient (Engadget)
- The value of the mainframe today (z/OS Basic Skills Information Center)
- Mainframes in our midst: You use one every day (z/OS Basic Skills Information Center)
