The Swami's Experience

The Swami began his Information Systems career in the early 1960s, while in the U S Navy. After military service, he worked for about two years for the RCA Service Company as a field engineering technician on missile tracking ships. This remote duty work permitted him to earn enough money for college during this time.

He attended the University of San Francisco from 1965 to 1969, graduating with a Batchelor of Science degree in Electronic Physics. During his university years, he worked as a teaching assistant in the computer center, teaching FORTRAN and assisting students with their laboratory exercises on the university's IBM 1130 system. He also worked as an application programmer for the university, where he developed an automated system for the School of Nursing which generated work experience schedules for nursing students, and a Human Resources and Payroll system for the Bursar's Office. This experience was his introduction to DOS/360, COBOL and ISAM.

Upon graduation, he accepted employment with the IBM Corporation, beginning his career as a Systems Engineer in the Oakland California branch office specializing in Government, Educational and Medical customers. During the beginning of this time, he created a Student Information System for Foothill/De Anza Colleges (in Los Altos and Cupertino, California). He was flabbergasted when attending a meeting in San Francisco in 1991 -- a programmer from Foothill/De Anza introduced himself and mentioned that this system was still in use at that time. He was involved in several other projects for Bay Area universities, colleges and public school districts as well.

In late 1972, he moved to the IBM San Francisco System Support Center, where he introduced the Virtual Storage concepts of DOS/VS Release 28 to IBM customers in northern California, Oregon, Washington, Alaska, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming and Nevada. POWER/VS and VSAM came along for the ride.

In 1975, an IBM account team needed the skills of the Swami to develop a new interface into a customer's home-grown computer communication system. Over the years, this trucking company had developed a system based on punched paper tape driven teletype machines, and the IBM team wanted to show the customer the benefits of IBM 3770 technology. Several hundred 3770 terminals eventually replaced the obsolescent teletype technology. After completing this project, he was involved in development of several different customer systems: water utility billing for the City and County of San Francisco, an implementation of CICS for utility customer information for San Jose Water Works, insurance master file redesign and conversion from DOS/VS to VM and VS1 at California Casualty Insurance (a property and casualty insurance carrier), ship container management for Matson Navigation Company, and a conversion from GE/Honeywell to IBM VM/VS1 with CICS and IMS/DB for Crowley Maritime.

In late 1979, an opportunity to leave the San Francisco Bay Area and accept a new set of challenges in the IBM VM and VSE System Center, which was being relocated to the Dallas, Texas area appeared on the horizon. He'd been with IBM for over a decade, held several jobs with the company, but this was the first family relocation -- "I've Been Moved" does not apply to all of IBM.

Beginning in 1980, in the Dallas System Center, the Swami supported VSE, VSAM, DL/I and CICS, specializing on performance related issues. During this time, he developed the basic presentations which later led to his nickname, "The Swami of VSAM."

In the mid-1980s, IBM established a performance benchmarking center in Dallas, and the Swami was the first technical staff member of that organization. He became involved extensively with CMG -- the worldwide organization of computer measurement and performance professionals, and served as a member of their editorial board in 1990 and 1991. When the benchmarking mission for VSE and smaller VM systems was transfered to the Washington System Center, the Swami returned to his technical support role. In 1993 the VSE technical support mission was transferred from Texas to Endicott, New York, and the Swami followed -- his skills and expertise helped build the new VSE System Center organization back in Endicott where DOS/360 was initially developed and supported so many years ago.

In late 2000, with over 31 years IBM experience, the Swami chose to retire from IBM employment. Many VSE customers saw less support from IBM, and he saw this as an opportunity to possibly help them in ways he could not while he was employed by IBM. At the end of January, 2001, the Swami logged off of the IBM corporate computer network for the last time and formatted the hard disk of his IBM workstation. It doesn't remember anything about VSAM any more, but "The Swami Does!"

In summary ... the Swami has had many years experience designing high performance file systems for IBM mainframe computers -- ISAM, VSAM, BDAM, SAM/QSAM, and DL/I.

• Over 30 years experience designing and implementing on-line systems -- CICS, IMS, and (in a few cases) home-grown systems.
• Performance monitoring and Capacity Planning -- the author of the most widely used toolset for Capacity Planning for the VSE/ESA environment, as well as a sought-after troubleshooter for performance problems.

You can put the Swami's experience to work for you!