The Open Mainframe

COBOL has a long and illustrious history; after all, not many other languages have been in use since 1959 and are still going strong! But far from being a relic, COBOL continues to evolve and is finally getting the credit it deserves. The Open Mainframe Project’s COBOL Working Group, which launched in 2020 as a response to increasing interest in COBOL (and misinformation about it), aims to promote and support the continued use of the COBOL language globally. One of its first missions: To identify the COBOL market, challenges, concerns and how companies are addressing these issues. 

As a first step, The COBOL Working Group is partnering with The Linux Foundation Research team and the Linux Foundation Training & Certification team on a new COBOL research study. The research will seek to explore how organizations’ usage of COBOL has evolved, what use cases, strategies and attitudes are prevalent now and what the future holds for the language.

What do AlmaLinux, Debian, Fedora, openSUSE, Red Hat, Rocky Linux, SUSE and Ubuntu have in common? They are all Linux distributions, sure, but wait–there’s more! Now, thanks to Open Mainframe Project’s Linux Distributions Working Group, they all work closely together toward a common goal: To oversee the health and maintenance of the s390x port of various Linux distributions to ensure that the s390x remains a supported mainframe architecture for them all. The working group will collaborate on major concerns and achievements that the distributions share with respect to the s390x mainframe architecture and work together to support new contributors and make sure they have everything they need to continue building on, supporting and maintaining this important infrastructure.

Last month at Open Mainframe Summit, Open Mainframe Project announced the availability of a z15 Mainframe system dedicated for training next-generation talent and developing new open software technologies to further strengthen the integration of mainframe and cloud. Donated by Broadcom Mainframe Software Division, the z15 will be available for use by all Open Mainframe Projects and the open source community at large beginning in 2023. Broadcom’s donation provides a critical, new resource to foster greater collaboration and the development of new tool sets across the mainframe community.

Rick Perret (Broadcom), Yvette LaMar (IBM Z), and Reg Harbeck (IBM Z) join hosts Alan Shimel and John Mertic to discuss what this means to the Open Mainframe community, the education landscape, and the skills gap.

The term “modernization” is being used to mean different things causing confusion in the market. Some define “modernization” as moving away from mainframes and COBOL and others define “modernization” as updating existing systems in place. Modernization, especially application and process modernization, is absolutely essential to the future of the mainframe ecosystem. Open Mainframe Project wants to provide leadership in ensuring that addressing aging applications is done in a way with a broad view of the options, rather than following fashion or tradition. The first step is launching a new Mainframe Modernization Working Group. In today’s episode, hosts Alan Shimel and John Mertic will speak with key industry and Open Mainframe Project leaders who are stepping up to join this effort including: Misty Decker (Micro Focus), Len Santalucia (Vicom Infinity) and Peter McCaffrey.

Diversity in the workplace is essential – even more so in the technology sector – but Workforce Management estimates that 68% of business leaders still report a lack of diversity in their tech workforce.

An inclusive work environment offers opportunity for growth and achievement to a broader range of works. This is an important step towards creating more resilient communities and a more equitable world. In this panel discussion, hosts Alan Shimel and John Mertic are joined by three mainframe thought leaders: Jeanne Glass (VirtualZ Computing), Derek Britton (Micro Focus) and Sharra Owens-Schwartz (Rocket Software) who will share their experience, personal perspectives and how they are pushing diversity, equity and inclusion in the workplace.

On Sept. 21-22, Philadelphia will be overrun with mainframers from all walks of life – students, hobbyists, seasoned professionals, new engineers, developers and even educators.They’ll be meeting up at Convene (Commerce Square) for the first-ever in-person Open Mainframe Summit. This year, Open Mainframe Summit will highlight security as it relates to all aspects of mainframes and beyond. The event will also be streamed online for virtual attendees. Hosts Mitch Ashley and John Mertic are joined by Elizabeth K. Joseph (IBM), Jakub Balhar (Broadcom) and Stacey Miller (SUSE) to preview the upcoming event!

“Let’s talk Zowe LTS V2!” Despite the massive migration to the cloud, development on mainframe systems continues to power many of today’s mission-critical systems. Zowe offers modern interfaces through which developers can interact with IBM z/OS in a way that is similar to what they’d experience on cloud platforms–from securely managing, controlling, scripting and developing on the mainframe. LTS. Zowe LTS V2, release in May, contains a number of important updates for users and developers, released May 3, 2022, contains a number of important updates for users and developers. Alan Shimel and John Mertic are joined by Rose Sakach (Broadcom), Jakub Balhar (Broadcom) and Bruce Armstrong (IBM) to cover these updates, outline the changes and talk about the new features.

Today, Alan Shimel and John Mertic are joined by Len Santalucia (Open Mainframe Project Governing Board Chair) and we will get an overview of Mentorship and speak with two mentee graduates Hartanto Ario Widjaya and Divya Goswami who are still involved with their projects.

To celebrate Women’s History Month, TechStrong TV and Open Mainframe Project are highlighting several powerful women who help lead the project. In fact, currently more than 35% of women hold leadership positions in Open Mainframe Project. These influential women are exceptional at their job and lead their teams, projects and communities firmly and with grace. Do they feel as though they’ve hit a glass ceiling? Maybe but they’re in the process of smashing it. Joining host John Mertic of the Linux Foundation are today's panelists: Deb Giles, (Senior Event Manager at Open Mainframe Project and the Linux Foundation), Misty Decker (member of the COBOL Working Group and Director of Worldwide AMC Product Marketing at Micro Focus) and Stacey Miller (Co-Chair of the Open Mainframe Project Marketing Committee and Product Marketing Manager at SUSE) will discuss their thoughts and experiences with diversity, inclusion and advocacy as it relates to their roles.

Open Mainframe Project’s Zowe is an integrated and extensible open source framework for z/OS. Zowe offers modern interfaces to interact with z/OS and allows you to work with z/OS in a way that is similar to what you experience on cloud platforms today. In fact, Zowe recently won the “Best DevOps for Mainframe Solution” category in the DevOps Dozen awards. In this episode, Alan Shimel and John Mertic will discuss updates and milestones with several Zowe leaders including Michael Bauer (Broadcom), Joe Winchester (IBM) and Billie Jean Simmons (IBM).