Currently I have the great opportunity to work for the Administrative Data Processing Center at the Iowa State University.

The Administrative Data Processing (ADP) Center develops and supports information systems for clients within Iowa State University. Some examples of data the ADP Center manages, stores, and processes are admissions, financial aid, student, alumni, accounts, budget, personnel, and purchasing records.

Besides increasing my body volume from the donuts, cakes, and other treats that people bring, I work for the internal systems. For those that really want to know the details our mainframe runs the IBM OS/390 operating system. Most of the code we write is in COBOL. Thanks to strict standards and program reviews our online system have an extremely fast response time. Everything is automated as much as possible so that for example the core code of our programs are generated and the JCL that is required to run is mostly generated as well. Some of the older programs are still using VSAM files to store data but otherwise we mainly keep our data on DB2.

Some of the bigger projects that I am working on are the Project Management System, the Client Identity System, and ADIN System. I developed with the help of a co-worker and friend, Weiwen, the Project Management System. This system keeps track of all the projects that the ADP Center is working on. Things such as the project members, projected time, and actual time spend are recorded. This system also contains an extensive reporting feature to assist the administration as well as the analyst with their planning.

The most challenging work was the development of the Client Identity System. This system keeps track of all the different IDs that our clients and the employee of the ADP Center have. While the design and development of the system where relative simple the gathering of the data was extremely difficult. No system prior this one existed and the IDs where maintained separate from each other.

While the initial development on the Project Management System and Client Identity System are completed, I continue to maintain them as the system analyst and continuously expand and improve them.

Currently I design and develop the ADIN System. The ADIN System is the main menu on the mainframe. With this system access is granted or denied to other system.

Besides these projects I also have several smaller jobs such as modifying or creating a code generator. Assisting with the incorporation of OLR (OnLine Reference by DBA Software) help into newly developed systems. And occasionally I do bring donuts to work.