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Interview: Systems Manager

It is common in adverts for computing jobs to require that the candidate have a knowledge of various computer operating systems and programs. Common terms used in the job advert in this unit are shown in the table below.

The Systems Manager in this interview is in charge of the Technical Services Division of a large British brewery. He looks after existing computer systems, and is responsible for the development of new systems. One particular system mentioned in the interview involves service engineers recording details of repairs on portable computers, and later copying them to a central computer system to enable a stock control system to be maintained.

Sophisticated, purpose-made computer programs are now usually purchased from professional programming companies, after careful checking and testing, rather than being created in-house.

The cost of these programs is small compared to the system installation and maintenance costs. The system discussed in this unit is a mixture of old and new systems that must work together. There are contingency plans for maintaining the systems through various kinds of disasters and crisis situations. The Systems Manager thinks that faster communications is more important to the company than bigger data storage. He also believes that despite faster information transfer using computers, paper will also be used.

Large mainframe computers are often run by a data processing department which has a number of sections including:

1 collecting the data to be processed

2 storing the data into batches that are processed together

3 inputting the data

4 maintaining and operating the mainframe computer

5 returning the output to the users.

3 Answer the following two questions:

1 What is theSystems Manager job?

2 What is cheaper: the cost of the programs or the cost of the system installation and maintenance?