IBM System Z System Programming Mastery Certification

Today I am very happy that i had cleared my IBM System Z System Programming Mastery Certification obtaining 74%.Its a very typical test which concentrates on z/OS (operating systems for IBM mainframes) programming.It had questions varying from basic
1.Introduction to z/OS programming to mainframe environment
2.Application Programming on z/OS
3.Online workloads for z/OS
4.Sytem Programming on z/OS

While learning for this exam we get to learn  lot of things(something new) about the history of mainframes and its application, basic architecture of z/OS, learning the TSO/E environment and ISPF environment through which we can access the mainframes for programming, working with various datasets (sequential,partitioned and VSAM datasets),learning JCL for creating jobs,Transaction management and Database management, Web Sphere Application server, IMS, DB2 and designing and developing application on all of these.Though the access to the mainframes is a restricted access that involves user credentials. You can obtain these user credentials from IBM by participating any IBM technical contests. I have obtained my credentials by participating in IBM technical contest in IIT-Kharagpur. Its very good working with z/OS and can also access the UNIX shell through these credentials and write many applications.

You can have further look on the mainframe environment on Master the Mainframe contest.
Here are some of the basic screens of z/OS Mainframe environment.

 

 (Basic screens for Z/OS) 

Though mainframe is a old technology, writing these exams would help you learn various concepts of OS programming, application programming, writing database queries, online workload management of such vast technology and learn about IMS and DB2.
I prefer all the folks to try out this certification IBM System Z System Programming Mastery.