Jim Elliott
Consultant at GlassHouse Systems Inc.
Jim works as a consultant at GlassHouse Systems Inc. supporting their mainframe (IBM Z and IBM LinuxONE) customers across Canada, Jamaica, and the USA.
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He first developed an interest in mainframes as a high school student in Toronto. The IBM Canada complex was down the road from his school and IBM provided the students an IBM 1130 and access to a S/360-75 at the IBM Toronto Lab. After high school he attended the British Columbia Institute of Technology in Vancouver from 1971 to 1973 studying "Data Processing" on an IBM S/360-30. As a student he worked on mainframes at the Defence Research Board of Canada and at Columbia Computing Services.
After graduation in 1973 he joined IBM and spent most of his career in technical roles and from 1992 had been the Product Manager for the mainframe operating systems in Canada. From May 1998 to December 2001 he was a mainframe Product Manager for IBM Americas where he led the launch of Linux on the mainframe. From January 2002 to May 2007 he was the Linux and Open Source leader for IBM Canada and then moved to mainframe sales in May 2007. He took on his final role at IBM as Canadian mainframe technical sales leader in January 2015 and retired in January 2016.
He is a graduate of the BC Institute of Technology, has co-authored several IBM Redbooks, and is a speaker on information technology across the US and Canada. He has been attending SHARE since 1975 and was an IBM Representative to SHARE from 1998 through 2015. Jim has been the Virtualization Track Leader in the Linux/VM Program at SHARE since his retirement from IBM. He was the recipient of SHARE's John R. Ehrmann award in August 2024. He splits his time between Toronto, Ontario and Vittoria, Ontario.
Detailed timeline of my IT career:
Consultant at GlassHouse Systems Inc.
Click here for a high-res photo
He first developed an interest in mainframes as a high school student in Toronto. The IBM Canada complex was down the road from his school and IBM provided the students an IBM 1130 and access to a S/360-75 at the IBM Toronto Lab. After high school he attended the British Columbia Institute of Technology in Vancouver from 1971 to 1973 studying "Data Processing" on an IBM S/360-30. As a student he worked on mainframes at the Defence Research Board of Canada and at Columbia Computing Services.
After graduation in 1973 he joined IBM and spent most of his career in technical roles and from 1992 had been the Product Manager for the mainframe operating systems in Canada. From May 1998 to December 2001 he was a mainframe Product Manager for IBM Americas where he led the launch of Linux on the mainframe. From January 2002 to May 2007 he was the Linux and Open Source leader for IBM Canada and then moved to mainframe sales in May 2007. He took on his final role at IBM as Canadian mainframe technical sales leader in January 2015 and retired in January 2016.
He is a graduate of the BC Institute of Technology, has co-authored several IBM Redbooks, and is a speaker on information technology across the US and Canada. He has been attending SHARE since 1975 and was an IBM Representative to SHARE from 1998 through 2015. Jim has been the Virtualization Track Leader in the Linux/VM Program at SHARE since his retirement from IBM. He was the recipient of SHARE's John R. Ehrmann award in August 2024. He splits his time between Toronto, Ontario and Vittoria, Ontario.
Detailed timeline of my IT career:
- From June 1973 through August 1976 he was in computing centre operations and then as a VM/370, DOS/VS, and OS/VS2 systems programmer in the IBM Canada Computing Centre in Vancouver, BC.
- From August 1976 through November 1978 he was a branch systems engineering rep for the mainframe accounts in the retail sector in Vancouver.
- From November 1978 through December 1981 he was an application developer working at the IBM Toronto Lab developing IMS-based internal admin systems for IBM Americas/Far East.
- From December 1981 through August 1984 he was a systems analyst at the IBM Americas/Far East HQ in White Plains, NY implementing the IMS-based systems he developed.
- From September 1984 through June 1992 he was a technical specialist supporting VM/XA, VM/ESA, and VSE/ESA in the Canadian Systems Centre in Toronto.
- From 1991 through 1993 Jim also provided support for the OS/2 version 2 beta programs and was a Canadian lead for Team OS/2 through 1996.
- From June 1992 through May 1998 he was in addition the product manager for the VM/ESA, MVS/ESA, OS/390, and VSE/ESA operating systems for IBM Canada.
- From May 1998 through December 2001 he was the product manager for VM/ESA and VSE/ESA for IBM Americas in White Plains, NY. During this period he was responsible for launching Linux on IBM S/390 mainframes for IBM Americas.
- From January 2002 through May 2007 he was the Advocate for Linux, Open Source, and Virtualization across all IBM Systems products and in that role led IBM Canada's activities in this area. He continued as the product manager for the System z operating systems (z/OS, z/VM, z/VSE, and Linux on System z) for IBM Canada. In August 2002 he was awarded the title of "Sir Jim the Evangelist" by the VM community as a member of the Knights of VM.
- In May 2007 he moved back to the mainframe team as a Consulting Sales Specialist covering Western Canada. Later he added responsibility supporting the Canadian IBM Business Parters for all their mainframe customres. He continued as the product manager for the System z operating systems and as Linux Champion for IBM Canada.
- In November 2013 he added responsibility for System z customers in the Federal Public sector as the mainframe sales rep in addition to his product management role.
- In January 2015 moved into the consultant sales role for IBM mainframes supporting all the server reps and all mainframe customers in Canada and he retired on from IBM January 31, 2016.
- On February 1, 2016 Jim started working at GlassHouse Systems as their lead mainframe technical specialist.