Paolo Enrique Garcia Ramos

Accelerating mainframe skills via the global community

Paolo is a self-described techie who would just as soon read an IBM Redbook as the latest bestseller, but his mainframe education extends far beyond the latest technical books and documentation. Like many of his peers, he actively engages with the global mainframe community on a regular basis to share his knowledge and learn from others. “When you’re in communities of people who think alike and who are working on the same things as you,” he explains, “there is a lot of knowledge that you can build around.”

Peer support is a big reason why Paolo is an IBM Z® advocate today. As an advocate, he contributes technical expertise, shares insights and exchanges ideas with the global mainframe community. Paulo’s contributions help many of his peers to gain a deeper understanding of the advantages of the IBM Z platform. He also learns new ideas and approaches by connecting regularly with global community peers. For newcomers in the IBM Z community, Paolo provides guidance and points them to the latest technical content and education that’s out there today in the IBM Z and LinuxONE Community and the IBM Mainframe Skills Depot. His advice? “Educate yourself. Search for badges and certifications. Then, continually grow by learning and feeding your curiosity with all the information out there.”

Finding inspiration in leading edge mainframe innovation and capabilities

Paulo continues to be inspired every day by the industry-first technology innovations and capabilities IBM Z offers. “My source of inspiration,” he says, “is to work and build systems that are highly available, resilient, secure, and cloud-ready to support the continuous operation of the business... [and] how I can contribute to the operational stability of the business.”

For Paolo, it's the mainframe’s availability, security, and resiliency that sets it apart from other computing platforms as “a highly available platform, a resilient one, highly secure for a hybrid cloud environment, to continuously support the operational businesses of the world.”

Paolo is excited for the future and where he sees significant opportunity for mainframes. “With mainframes,” he says, “you can do anything with technical details that you can’t with other platforms. I see in the future a world-class, mainframe cloud infrastructure providing service to modern core business applications as part of the vital technology backbone of the enterprise.”

Adapting to the hybrid cloud future

Like many companies, the bank where Paolo works is banking on the hybrid cloud for its future IT operations and IBM Z has a big role to play in that future. Interbank has begun implementing a hybrid cloud environment, and the IBM Z’s cloud-ready features, such as IBM z/OS container extensions, have helped the company build a more resilient, secure, and reliable cloud. “We need a tough platform like IBM Z to be cloud-ready for our business” Paolo says. “I think IBM Z is part of the hybrid cloud that is growing in more businesses.”

Paolo also sees significant opportunity for career growth in his own future. Down the road, he can envision himself being a senior technology strategist providing vision, roadmaps, and advisory guidance for mainframe information technology and technical matters that are aligned to business strategy. It’s a future where he also sees an opportunity to help those just starting down the mainframe career path by teaching and counseling new professionals in mainframe technology topics. As Paolo and many of his fellow mainframe colleagues will agree, the best way to give back to their community is to pay it forward.