The Open Mainframe

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).

With more than 20 projects and working groups, the Open Mainframe Project, has a track record of being the focal point for mainframe and IT innovation for a more flexible, scalable and secure enterprise solution. In today’s panel discussion, Alan Shimel and John Mertic to discuss 2022 predictions with leaders for three of Open Mainframe’s most mature and popular projects, Kip Twitchell (IBM), Peter Fanel (Rocket Software) and Suharsana Srinivasan (IBM).

Continuous delivery is about reducing the risk and transaction cost of taking changes from version control to production. To achieve this, developers need to implement a series of patterns and practices to create fast feedback loops and work in small batches. This leads to more stable and higher-quality products and services at lower costs. In this panel, John Mertic and Alan Shimmel will discuss mainframe lifecycle management and the challenges and opportunities for it DevOps practices and continuous delivery with Broadcom’s Rose Sakach, Global Product Manager and Vaughn Marshall, Senior Principal Product Manager.

Joining hosts John Mertic and Alan Shimel for this segment will be Alan Clark, CTO of Emerging Technologies at SUSE, and Coreen Wilson, Product Marketing Lead for Z Systems at Rocket Software, to discuss why they are Platinum sponsors of the event, what sessions they’re excited for and what they hope to achieve.

Why did we stop teaching mainframe skills? In this session, hosts Alan Shimel and John Mertic discuss mainframe education with Dr. Cameron Seay, Professor at East Carolina University, Lauren Valenti, Head of Mainframe Education and Customer Engagement at Broadcom, and Tye Glenz, 2021 Open Mainframe Project Mainframe Open Education Mentee. We’ll learn more about why mainframe skills are important, where to go to get these skills, how academic institutions can add this to their curriculum, and a first-hand experience from a student.

Join our hosts Alan Shimel and John Mertic (Linux Foundation), for a roundtable discussion about the importance of Zowe, its Conformance Program and what the future looks like for the project. Speakers include Zowe community and Conformance Program members: Alex Kim, Vicom Infinity – Rose Sakach, Broadcom – Ulf Heinrich, Software Engineering – Ed Jaffe, Phoenix Software.

Open Mainframe Project has become the focal point for open source on the mainframe. In this panel, we’re joined by Open Mainframe Project members April Hickel (Vice President, Product Management BMC), Rick Perret (AR and Client Voice Program, Broadcom), Meredith Stowell (VP of IBM Z Ecosystem, IBM), John Mertic (Director of Program Management, Linux Foundation), and Peter Fandel (Sr Dir Prod Management for Mainframe Modernization, Rocket Software). We’ll discuss how open source communities are driving opportunities and how being a member of the ecosystem has benefited them.

COBOL is the lifeblood of mainframe applications that power the global economy. It is proven, reliable, and the foundation of most mission critical financial services at the world’s biggest banks. Hosts Alan Shimel and John Mertic are joined by Cameron Seay from East Carolina Univ. and Suharshan Srinivasan of IBM. Together they will take a look at the COBOL’s history, the sudden demand for it, the academic landscape, and the efforts of Open Mainframe Project and other organizations to create resources for COBOL and showcase its value to a broader audience.