Z DevOps Talks

Welcome back.  Our latest episode has us sitting down with (in a manner of speaking) Roland Koo.  Roland is a Program Director in Offering Management and Strategy for Enterprise Products and Compilers on Z and he joins us from The Great White North – Canada.  If you’ve never had the pleasure of meeting Roland well here is your chance! In our second installment of what we are referring to as our “Lockdown Series”, we chat with Roland on some of the new developments with compilers on Z.  Here is a list of some of the things we cover:

And that’s not even the complete list!

While you’re here, be sure to check out the COBOL Migration Portal. There you can learn about all the great benefits of migrating to the latest version of COBOL and also learn best practices from the experts. And if you want to put a face to the voice, Roland has a featured video on the main page too.

We certainly had a lot of fun (with a few technical difficulties) with this episode, and we hope you come back for more.  For now leave you with a little spoiler…our good friend Bruce Armstrong is back for our next episode. He’ll be updating on what’s new with Zowe™.

So stay tuned!

On this episode we were able to sit down with our final guest before the lockdown/quarantine went into full effect. In Episode 10 we were able to chat with Andrew Tram, based out of RTP, NC, US. Andrew is an IBM Developer for z/OS Advisory Software and DevOps Release Engineer.

Andrew has spent much of his career with IBM and has been with the mainframe from the start. He has a very technical background, and that gives him a really great perspective when it comes to our continuous delivery releases. In this episode he talks about our release schedule, the overall process, and so much more.

We covered such topics as:

Just as a reminder, we’re on all your favorite podcasting platforms now! Enjoy on the go now:

And finally, in case you hadn’t seen the news, the State of New Jersey still has their “Tech Talent Call to Serve” page up. Consider dropping your name if you think you can help. Who knows maybe you could save a few lives! Link here. Also consider joining the COBOL conversation over at the Open Mainframe Project forum.

Say safe out there folks! And remember to practice good social distancing and take the proper hygiene precautions.

Welcome back for another episode of Z DevOps Talks. We know things are a bit hectic now and most people are probably stuck indoors. So maybe take a listen to our latest episode to help break up the monotony! In our latest episode, we talk with Matt Cousens, a Developer Advocate for IBM Z and LinuxONE. Matt flew into the RTP campus for a (post-quarantine) Developer Advocate event. And while he was here, he carved some time out of his schedule to discuss the work he and other Developer Advocates are doing in IBM Z and LinuxONE.

You’re probably wondering what a Developer Advocate does. Well we certainly discuss this during the episode, but to give you a bit of background on Developer Advocates; they are our globally federated IBM developers, the ones actively working with and alongside our clients. Our Developer Advocates are responsible for developing our Code Patterns, actively working on more than 100 open source projects, and a curating our library of knowledge resources.

The Code Patterns deserve some special attention though. As a library of complete solutions to problems that developers face every day, these patterns leverage multiple technologies, products, or services to solve issues that our developer advocates have recognized as common use cases across multiple industries. You can check out our library here.

Our Developer Advocates are collaborators too! Maybe you need to better understand where blockchain technology fits in your company’s transactions. Maybe you are moving towards an Omnichannel customer support structure and you want to build a chat bot to interact with your customers. Whatever it is, Developer Advocates exist to help clients understand and take advantage of cutting edge, open technologies and to accelerate that next great project.

Transcript of this episode available here.

In our latest episode, we had the chance to sit down with one of our newer developers, Kaleb Porter. At only 23, Kaleb is making quite the name for himself. He is an avid open-source contributor and was once quoted saying, “Python is perfection.”

Kaleb has only been with IBM for two years, but in that time, he’s poured his heart and soul into the Z mainframe. With one patent already under his belt, he’s only getting started. Kaleb sure does like to stay busy too; he’s an avid writer on Medium. There he writes about his time in Z, and some of the really amazing things you can do with the most recent offering he is working on: Z Open Automation Utilities.

What is Z Open Automation Utilities (ZOA Utilities)?

ZOA Utilities supports the execution of automation tasks on z/OS via Java, Python, and Shell commands. Previously, developers programming in their native tongue (Python or Java in this case) would in some cases have to enter the ISPF 3270 terminal, use Job Control Language (JCL) to submit a job, and then return to the work they were doing in their IDE or Shell. It can be very challenging to get work done if you don’t have somebody around who is knowledgeable in JCL. Now, in a matter of seconds newer Z developers can continue to deliver value to the enterprise at the speed of Z. So, that’s the (very abridged) background.

Kaleb actually has a few pretty neat use cases that he’s documented; and they can be found on his Medium page. We were really fortunate to be able to sit down with Kaleb and learn what the world of Z is like through the eyes of a newer developer. And if you want to learn a little more about ZOA Utilities, we are providing a few links to peruse over morning coffee (or afternoon “Tea, Earl Grey, hot.”):

Visit ibm.developer.com to read the full transcript.

Welcome back folks. In our latest episode of Z DevOps Talks, we bring you yet another special episode from sunny California. This time we spend some time with IBM Silicon Valley Labs’ Gary Mazo. Gary took some time out of his busy schedule to teach us a thing or two about some of the great things coming out of SVL, namely ADDI or Application Discovery and Delivery Intelligence.

Gary is a veteran IBM-er and ADDI team member. He is an international patent holder, and long-time software developer serving on many teams, including most recently with ADDI. In case you aren’t familiar, ADDI is an analytical platform used for modernizing enterprise applications (you check out this short video for more info).

ADDI allows you to analyze enterprise applications and determine commonly used business terms and rules. You can analyze programs, conduct impact analyses, and even use it to better understand control & data flows. Gary says if it’s a data provider on Z, we can cross-correlate and provide end users with some really powerful reporting and documentation. Well, Gary says more than that, but you’ll have to listen to the rest of the episode!

Fancy kicking the tires? Well great, you can find ADDI on our Z Trials Program too. Core scenarios include: Root-Cause Analysis, Business Rule Discovery, and Static Analysis too!

A big thanks to Gary for coming to talk to us this episode. He’s a real passionate guy, and you can really hear that come through!

For more ADDI news you can listen in on an interview between Sherri Hanna and ADDI Architect Rami Katan.

And, as always, for full podcast transcripts go to developer.ibm.com.

“La vache! Ansible and z/OS? …Oui!”

In this very special episode of Z DevOps Talks, 50% of the team was fortunate enough to spend some time, on location, at our Silicon Valley Lab with notre ami and Distinguished Engineer Kyle Charlet. Monseigneur Charlet has been furiously working on Ansible for use with z/OS. Frankly, we were surprised to able to spend even an hour with him, but we’re sure glad we got the chance! This is an extra special episode because our focus was 100% entirely on the work that is being done by the SVL team to support Ansible for z/OS. We hope you enjoy listening about the new developments coming from Kyle and his team. You’ll soon find out that they are just getting started.

If you’d like to learn more, or join the community, check out the following:

And if you are interested in becoming a sponsor user, we’d love to hear from you. You can either reply directly to this post and we’ll contact you. Or Kyle say’s shoot him an email today.

Enjoy the show and we’ll be speaking to you all again soon enough.

Merci bien!

Note: Episode transcripts are available at developer.ibm.com.

Hey, welcome back to the show, thanks for joining us! In Episode 5: The Mainframe Strikes Back, we tricked Bruce Armstrong into joining us for an episode. Bruce is an IBM veteran, Offering Manager, and serves on the leadership of the Open Mainframe Project’s Zowe™ Project. Bruce lived up to all the hype; he’s a wealth of knowledge when it comes to Zowe™, the mainframe in general, and the Open Mainframe Project. Here are some of the topics we covered:

Care to learn how you too can join the Zowe™ revolution? Bruce recommends the following resources:

In our latest episode of Z DevOps Talks, we welcomed Suman Gopinath. Until recently, Suman was one of our Lead Architects for Z DevOps, but…that’s all changed. We’ve just learned this past week that Suman has been named one of our newest Senior Technical Staff Members (STSM). This is a huge accomplishment and big step in Suman’s career and we couldn’t be happier for her. Congratulations Suman!

And if you are interested in a career in IBM development or just want to learn more, check this page out. Did you know Suman is a Redbooks author? Check it out here. Pretty cool, right?

For this fourth episode we discussed:

If you are just joining us, we encourage you to check our archives and listen to the rest of our catalogue.

Thanks for coming back, we hope you enjoy!

Z DevOps Talks is pleased to bring you our latest episode of Season 1. This time we talk with our very own fearless leader, Sanjay Chandru – Director of Enterprise (aka Z) DevOps. Get your pen and paper out, because you’re going to want to take notes for this one.

Listen in as we discover how Sanjay and the rest of the team are making Enterprise DevOps and Cloud-Native development a breeze! Sanjay, a 20+ year IBM veteran, prolific writer, and proselytizer, regales us with the goings on within Z:

As promised folks, we present this season’s Episode 2 featuring the man, the myth, the legend; Jon Sayles. Jon is equal parts most interesting man in the world, fountain of knowledge, and extoller of IBM’s Developer for z/OS.

In this episode, Jon shared with us his thoughts on topics including: