Security administrator
The person who manages mainframe security day to day: user IDs, access requests, security rules and audits.
Also written RACF administrator, security admin, mainframe security analyst
A security administrator looks after the security manager, usually RACF, on the mainframe. They decide, within the organisation's rules, who can log on and what each person and program may access.
Much of the daily work is requests. A new starter needs a user ID and the right groups. A team needs access to a new set of datasets. A user has left and their ID must be revoked. Each request is checked against policy and approved before it is done. Administrators also write the profiles that protect new applications, and set up IDs for started tasks and batch.
The other half is control and evidence. They review who has powerful attributes, check for profiles in warning mode, run reports on access to sensitive data, and answer auditors' questions with facts from RACF and SMF.
The role is separate from system programming on purpose. The people who build the system should not also control all of its security. Developers deal with security administrators whenever they need new access, and a clear request, saying exactly which resource and which level of access is needed, gets the fastest answer.
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Right here, at ZedBank. You take a junior job at a simulated bank and learn each part of the work by doing it, with Zed beside you. There's nothing to install.
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- RACFThe security manager for z/OS, which decides who may sign on, read a dataset, or run a transaction.
- RACF user attributesSettings on a RACF user ID that give it special powers, such as managing security or auditing, or limit it, such as being revoked.
- PERMITThe command that grants or removes a user or group's access to a protected resource.
- Dataset profileA security rule describing which datasets it covers and who is allowed to do what to them.
- RACF auditingRecording security events, such as failed access and changes to profiles, so they can be reviewed later.
- System programmerThe person who installs, configures, tunes and upgrades the operating system and its subsystems.