In this episode of the “I Am a Mainframer” podcast, Steven Dickens welcomes Jose Castano, VP of System Sales at IBM. Their conversation explores Jose’s career journey, those who have influenced and guided him along the way, and how his experience has given him a unique perspective into the mainframe space. Listen to learn how Jose’s extensive experience is his biggest differentiator.
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TRANSCRIPT
Voiceover
This is the “I Am A Mainframer” podcast, brought to you by the Linux Foundations Open Mainframe Project. Episodes explore the careers of mainframe professionals and offer insights into the industry and technology. Now your host, senior analyst and vice president of sales and business development at Futurum Research, Steven Dickens.
Steven Dickens:
Hello, and welcome to the “I Am A Mainframer” podcast. I’m joined today by Jose Castano. Great to be in person.
Jose Castano:
Great to be here, great.
Steven Dickens:
Back to not doing this down as Zoom.
Jose Castano:
And here we are at SHARE!
Steven Dickens:
I know, good to be in the sunshine. Nice to come down from Rhinebeck, New York and actually have some sun. It’s great to be here.
Jose Castano:
And I was in a room yesterday. It was full of people, think about it, right? And it’s a different vibe.
Steven Dickens:
It is. It really is a different vibe. Just going on the show floor here, chatting to people. Everybody’s really excited to be back.
Jose Castano:
And actually I’m funnier in person than I am on Zoom or Webex.
Steven Dickens:
Well we’ll see.
Jose Castano:
It’s more natural.
Steven Dickens:
We’re going to see on the camera. So concept of the show, “I Am A Mainframer,” we like to go and speak to some of the execs and understand kind of where their career moved forward. But before we do that, tell us a little bit about what you do for IBM.
Jose Castano:
Sure. So right now I’m responsible worldwide mainframe sales. And that includes also a very important part of our sales, which is LinuxONE. It’s a very important part of our portfolio. And I have responsibility for sales in every market, every geo, every country that you could think of, right, That we’re in.
Steven Dickens:
Fantastic. So as I say, we’d like to get a view of your career. We’ve known each other for years now, so I know this, but for our listeners and the viewers, give us a view of kind of where you started. I know you’ve been at IBM a long time, but just give us a view of that sort of career track.
Jose Castano:
Oh, the only part I remember of my career is when you started Steven. So I got to really back up. I got to really back up from there. Yeah. So I started back in as an intern at IBM. I was doing, I remember I was refurbishing returned PCs from Japan. I still remember that I was working at the World Headquarters. And then from there-
Steven Dickens:
I didn’t know that’s where you started.
Jose Castano:
That was fun taking apart PCs and scavenging the memory and stuff like that. So that’s where I still started, right? And then I quickly went into development. So I was actually an NVS programmer for about 15 years. I was in the guts of what we call back then MVS, which you know, was z/OS, right?
So I worked on CPLEX code. I worked on tape code. I worked on APPC, for those of you that remember APPC I worked on that as well LU 6.2 and that was good. That really gave me a nice technical base.
And then from there I went into pre-sales, right? Technical support. And I went into parallel CPLEX. We used to call it the parallel CPLEX center and where we were there is helping clients deploy, implement parallel CPLEX. And that’s where it really got rounded because that’s where I started to get exposure to the whole system, the whole Z system.
And that’s Db2 and CICs and MQ and IMS and all the products around it. So that’s where I really became… I went from being an OS hardware guy to being really a systems guy, right?
A systems person focusing on the whole solution stack. And that’s a key, that’s really a key in terms of my success, which is… I look at the whole system as a solution and not as a piece of hardware, piece of software, right?
And then from there, it was a natural… Actually I went back a little bit. I worked on strategy and architecture for three or four years.
And then Ray Jones, who was the VP of Z Software for a while, right? He came on and he was looking for a technical seller, a leader. And I was just in the right place at the right time.
I said, “Ray, you know my background, you know me, I know the whole stack, consider me.” So he hired me as a director for Z systems, software, technical sales, worldwide. And from there, then my current job popped up as well. So pretty well around it.
Steven Dickens:
And I think got interested in… Yeah, and I was going to say, that’s the thing that comes with… I’ve known him for years, but that’s the thing that I think you bring as a perspective to your role that’s different to maybe some of the other people in the organization.
You’ve been through product management, you’ve been through development. You’ve seen all parts of the stack, whether that’s hardware, whether that’s software, whether that’s pre-sales, whether that’s development, you’ve seen all of that.
And you bring that perspective to what you do. So maybe leading to a question, what do you think that gives you as a unique perspective?
Jose Castano:
Yeah. So one of the things right from the beginning, right? And this is something advice that I give to everyone is basically, you can be narrow in the beginning of your career, right?
And this seems obvious, but it’s not obvious, which is I’ve been in Z for 30 years, 30 plus years. I won’t say how many years, right? And people always ask me, “You’ve been in one place for like 30 years? Isn’t that boring? Right? Isn’t that career limiting?”
But I’ve done pretty much everything that there is to do in Z. Like you said, product management, architecture, strategy, right? Tech sales.
The only thing I haven’t done, because I don’t have that vision that you do sometimes, which is the marketing part, right? Trying to visualize something, right? But that’s the only piece. And that to me is really fulfilling.
Look, I Am A Mainframer, I have to love my job to be in my job and mainframe is my passion. Right? I think it’s fundamental to the world’s economy. And I’ve always said that, it’s not something that I’ve said only in my current job.
And so I’ve been able to stay in one place in my passion, but I’ve done everything to there is to do. And there’s more to do. Don’t stop. I’m not stopping here. Don’t get me wrong.
That’s key, right? And that’s my differentiator, which is, as you said, when somebody comes to me, when product management comes to me today and talks to me, I was a product manager.
Steven Dickens:
So you understand that?
Jose Castano:
I understand what their pressures are. I understand where their gaps are and I can talk to that, right? And I can put it in my terms and in their terms. And that bridge is really helpful in terms of communication.
Steven Dickens:
We get a lot of younger listeners and younger viewers of the show. And I think that’s a really key point, that you can go deep and build a career on one technology. As I say you’ve managed to build a 30 plus year. I won’t quiz you on how many years it is. I’ll let you off with that one.
But you’ve been able to build that career over those multiple pieces. And that’s great career advice, definitely for some of the people who listen to the show. So what would you be… You’ve got the opportunity, you’ve got the time machine. You can go back to that 22 year old Jose finishing college. What would that advice be? Where would you be? Sort of directing them.
Jose Castano:
Yeah. So look, there’s a few things I would change if I had to go back, right?
Steven Dickens:
You wouldn’t hire me twice.
Jose Castano:
Right, I wouldn’t hire you twice.
Steven Dickens:
You got Grey hair-
Jose Castano:
Let’s not talk about that one. Okay. We won’t go there, but it’s really… I’m happy, I mean, I had sort of a vision right from the beginning that I wanted to broaden right within the brand, because I was phenomenally passionate about it, but what I…
Advice what I would’ve done differently, right? One of the things that I tell, even my son, right? Who’s actually a professional with salesforce.com, right? Is basically network, right.? Build your network. That’s fundamental in today’s world more than it was even mine, right?
When I hired into IBM, it was job for life, right? And the network wasn’t as critical as it is today. Right? And it’s not about job for life also. It’s about network within the company, because that actually makes decisions and influence a lot easier, right.?
When I call on somebody that I know and I just said this weekend I had a customer situation. I called one of the leaders in North America and I said, “Hey, I got this situation. I need your help.” He knows me. He knows about me. It was easy.
Steven Dickens:
Because you’ve got that connection and-
Jose Castano:
I got that connection. He knows of who I am. And he knows what I’m about. I’m not going to waste his time. I’m not going to call him on a weekend, right? So network internally is so key and a lot of us don’t spend enough time doing that. Right? If you look at the most successful executives, they do that, right? They reach out, it’s not only their small staff.
Steven Dickens:
You can do that at every level. I’m assuming, you don’t have to be an executive. You could be doing that as a first stage hire. You could be doing that as a mid-career professional. You could be doing that as a senior leader.
Jose Castano:
Absolutely. So I was slow to do that, right? Because it’s just history and the way that came into the company and so forth, I would accelerate that, right? The externally. Right? I mean, one of the things you taught me, Steven, I appreciate that is social presence, right?
That’s one thing we’re all busy in our jobs. I mean, we’re connected 24 by seven. Right. And trying to take that 10 minutes here and 10 minutes there, and remember one time you’re telling me, “Jose, all you need is 10 minutes in the morning, 10 minutes in the afternoon.” Right?
That social presence is really key. I mean, when I go talk to a CIO or CTO, they’re most likely looking at me up in LinkedIn, most likely, right? They’re going to say, “What’s this guy about? What’s he bringing? What’s the value.?” Right? And if you don’t have that social presence, that’s a strike against you going into that, right?
Steven Dickens:
You are already one step back before you’ve started to…
Jose Castano:
Yeah. So the social presence is about eminence. It’s about being respected into certain field and it’s also about reach as well. Because influence doesn’t only go internally, especially in a sales position, having that influence also externally of course helps progress deals, right? So that’s one of the fundamentals that I would accelerate.
Steven Dickens:
So we’re recording this at a weird time. I know April 5th is coming around. I can’t offer you…
Jose Castano:
What does he profess?
Steven Dickens:
It’s apparently some interesting day when something gets launched, but don’t know when this is going to broadcast but it’s an awkward time. But what I can ask you about is Telum, right? So tell us a little bit about Telum. You had answered at Hot Chips last year. It’s the new processor in what I think is probably going to be the next main frame. I can draw that line.
Jose Castano:
I think we said it in a pressure list.
Steven Dickens:
I think you said,
Jose Castano:
I think we did it.
Steven Dickens:
I think you said it.
Jose Castano:
It’s going to be the processor in the next… In the system coming up. And-
Steven Dickens:
Can we say what it is yet?
Jose Castano:
In the first half? We’re quite not there yet. Right? So
Steven Dickens:
I’ll let you just talk about Telum.
Jose Castano:
But you know, basically look, Dr. Christian Jacobi did a marvelous job at Hot Chips. We got a lot of attention, a lot of social hits and so forth on that, right?
And what he talked about is really what we’re what we’re coming out with the IBM z16. You’re going to start to see us use z16 more often. Matter of fact, on April 5th, we have the IBM z16 day, that’s what we’re calling it. So you’re going to start to see us to be more external about z16.
So I’m not going to be shy about saying IBM z16. That’s our zenext, okay? And the Telum really has some really innovative capabilities. The cash structure is very unique to really… We drive 10% performance gain, generation to generation. It’s not all about clock speed or clock speeds are going to be the same, I think, right? So we’re basically-
Steven Dickens:
You can neither confirm nor deny.
Jose Castano:
Yeah, I think. Right. But we somehow still managed to get 10% improvement, right? Or we’re… I think. And so the question is, how do we do that? It’s about the packaging, right? And our cash structure is so critical minimizing latency between communications within the process or outside the process to IO to memory and so forth is key.
So one of the innovative qualities that Dr. Christian Jacobi talked about is really our cash structure on how we’ve really flattened that and optimized it, right? And that’s part of the design point in terms of driving more capabilities, more capacity, more speed.
Well, one of the things he talked about which really excites me is the whole integrated AI accelerator, right? Telum comes in and it’s unique. It’s first in industry. I mean, everyone does PCI attached to acceleration, right? We’re doing it right on the chip. Again, what does that mean? Latency Steven, because if I talk, I just talk to you about latency. How do we drive speed? Right? Not through frequency. How do we drive it elsewhere? It’s about speed. It’s about reducing latency.
Steven Dickens:
It’s at that complete system level, rather than just focusing on lower parts. It’s the holistic view from the entire box-
Jose Castano:
Where our differentiation is from a Z systems point of view is really at the system level, bringing all those packages together, bringing all the subsystems together in a way that’s holistic but optimized. And since we have control of all the components, we can optimize as much as we need to as, as we can and physically be able to.
Steven Dickens:
Well, I think this leads on to my final question. I always ask-
Jose Castano:
I haven’t finished answering your Telum question.
Steven Dickens:
I knew that you’d have more to say.
Jose Castano:
Right? But if you look at Telum and the AI accelerator, right? Why is that so fundamental to Z systems, to IBM z16 and to our customer set. Our customers are doing mission critical transactions, day in and day out. They’re doing payments. They’re doing credit card processing. They’re doing deposits. They’re doing… You can think about it. They’re doing customer scoring, right? That’s very related and very close to the transaction.
Today, what many of our customers are doing because of the technology limitations, they’re offloading that capability to another platform, that usually works, right? I mean, we’ve been in the client server and you know, the x86 world for a long time distributed. That’s a great model. But when you have a transaction that’s tightly linked to a fraud check. Do you want to take 30 to 60 milliseconds to actually get an answer back?
Steven Dickens:
Do it at the point of impact, is your point?
Jose Castano:
Do it the point of impact, right? What many of our customers are doing is they’re going asynchronously to x86. They’re doing the score there, right? The AI model score there. They’re coming back. A lot of times those that point to point times out. So they’re not doing a 100% check, right? They can’t.
Steven Dickens:
Because they can’t…
Jose Castano:
They can’t.
Steven Dickens:
They call all of them because of that brand [inaudible 00:14:37]?
Jose Castano:
They sample. So with the ability that Telum promises, which is basically that latency removal on platform, potentially we can score a 100% of the transactions.
Steven Dickens:
And as I say, this leads on maybe onto my final question. I think what you’re saying, isn’t just a Telum statement. It’s a looking ahead statement. So if you can share with the listeners, where do you see that kind of three to five year vision? Where do you see the platform going? Because obviously we’re at a point now where we’re recording this a few weeks away from the next box, but I know you’ve had strategy roles in the past, where do you see a vision for the platform?
Jose Castano:
So if you look… Let’s take a look back before I look forward, right? The strength of the IBM z15 has been phenomenal, right? It’s one of the most successful programs to date and we’ve sold more capacity with a z15 than any program to date, why is that, right? It’s about the digital economy. It’s about digital transformation, right?
And one thing that I want to set the stage on, we’ve been part of the digital economy for years. So and what that does that mean? It means that we’ve also been transitioning with the hybrid cloud, because as companies and enterprise are transiting to hybrid cloud, they’re bringing Z alarm, right? Through things like, the old stuff we talked about a little while ago, z/OS Connect or Db2 Connect, or you can pick your favorite ones.
So we’ve been part of that, right? We used to call it Ebis, like 10 years ago, 15 years ago. The thing that we need to do and where we need to accelerate, and this is where the next three to five years is about is, we need to make mainframe shops more agile, right?
The whole thing about accessibility to assets, we’ve always had that. The nice thing about z/OS Connect, just to be more specific, it’s really about standardization, right? Db2 Connect was proprietary, RESTful API, right? JSON payloads.
But the thing that we are slow in and we need to help our clients accelerate is agility, right? And that’s one of the things I just… I read a transcript, an earnest transcript from JPMC, right? And Jamie Dimon was talking about his cloud movement and he recognized this, right?
From what I saw in the transcript, you can go read it’s public, right? That basically, that mainframe will be a core going forward. What kind of core it would be? But one of the things he said that kind of stuck to my mind is mainframe’s slow to respond, right? Mainframe’s slow to respond and we have the technology. We have the products, can we improve them? Sure.
But we have the technology to really drive agility, to really drive continuous integration, continuous development, DevSecOps, DevOps, whatever acronym you want to use on the platform.
So how do we get that persona or that perception that the Z is non-responsive because in a digital world, you have to be agile. Maybe not at the same speed as x86, because typically that’s a system of engagement type of, so there’s a lot more latitude there. Typically they’re stateless. So you can do it… Take a lot more risk there.
But even in the mainframe world, we need to become more agile. We need to become more responsive. If we’re not meeting the requirements, we will be relegated to the corner and that’s where we’re going.
Steven Dickens:
Jose, that’s a fantastic summary. I can’t think of a better way to finish. Thank you so much for coming and joining us on the show and we’ll see you next time.
Jose Castano:
Steven. Thanks very much.
Steven Dickens:
Thank you for tuning in to “I am a Mainframer.” Liked what you heard? Subscribe to get every episode or watch us online at openmainframeproject.org. Until next time, this is the, “I am a Mainframer” podcast. Insights for today’s mainframe professionals.
The “I Am A Mainframer” podcast explores the careers of those in the mainframe ecosystem. Hosted by Steven Dickens, Senior Analyst at Futurum Research, each episode is a conversation that highlights the modern mainframe, insight into the mainframe industry, and advice for those looking to learn more about the technology.
The podcast is sponsored by the Open Mainframe Project, a Linux Foundation project that aims to build community and adoption of Open Source on the mainframe by eliminating barriers to Open Source adoption on the mainframe, demonstrating the value of the mainframe.
