Open Mainframe Project

IBM TechU
2021-10-25 - 2021-10-28
Join Open Mainframe Project at IBM’s Tech U, a virtual training event happening on October 25-28. TechU is the The premier virtual training event for deep technical content on IBM IT Infrastructure products and solutions.
Open Mainframe Project will have two sessions on-demand:
Back to the Future with COBOL – John Mertic, the Linux Foundation, and Misty Decker, Micro Focus
COBOL is the lifeblood of mainframe applications that power the global econony. It is reliable, proven and the foundation of most mission critical financial services at the world’s biggest banks. Yet few people realize or acknowledge the profound impact the COBOL language has had over its 60-year history.
In this discussion, we’ll 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.
How we used Zowe to create VIVA, an Alexa and Siri rival – Alex Kim and Len Santalucia, Vicom Infinity
I used Open Mainframe Project’s Zowe framework to create VIVA (Vicom Infinity Voice Assistant). We used API connectio to integrate many other system API’s the mainframe, but we wanted to use open source. This session will discuss moving from monolithic applications toward an API economy. That means leveraging microservices and DevOps practices, with a fully integrated and automated pipeline enabled by a hybrid cloud architecture plus best-of-breed, open source tooling and communities such as Zowe. I will offer a live demonstration of how VIVA works as an enterprise application use case.
Learn more about the conference or register here: https://www.ibm.com/training/events/vtechu2021.

Open Source Summit + Automotive Linux Summit Japan (Virtual)
2021-12-14 - 2021-12-15
Open Source Summit + Automotive Linux Summit Japan 2021 is a Virtual Experience, happening December 14-15 on the Japan Standard Time Zone (UTC+09:00). Open Mainframe Project will be represented by a few Zowe community members and ambssadors. The session has been changed to Pacific Standard Time.
As with past virtual experiences, know that we are taking thoughtful actions to create an immersive digital experience that provides you with interactive content and collaboration experiences. You will have the ability to network with other attendees, attend presentations with live Q&A, interact with sponsors real-time, and much more – all virtually, from anywhere. To register for the event, visit the main conference page: https://events.linuxfoundation.org/open-source-summit-japan/register/.
Tuesday, December 14 at 10:30- 11:20 pm PST: Women Explorers: What Does the Future of Mainframe Development Look Like?
Speakers: Richelle Anne Craw, Katelyn Nienaber & Jessielaine Punongbayan, Broadcom; Lauren Li & Billie Jean Simmons, IBM
Meet the women of the Zowe Explorer Squad. In this session, the panelists will share valuable insights on navigating the challenges of modernizing the mainframe developer experience. The session will cover topics such as collaborating in the Zowe Explorer project, building a positive culture across different companies, managing open source commitments with internal priorities, overcoming time zone barriers, embracing the team diversity, and feeling confident in making decisions about the future of the project. Add this to your schedule here.
Register for the event, here.

Zowe Office Hours
2022-02-16 09:00 - 10:00 (America/Los_Angeles)
Join the Zowe community on Wednesday, February 16 at 9-10 am PT/ 12-1 pm ET. Zowe App Framework / Web UI experts will be on-hand to respond to questions and concerns. Please see below for the details.
When: Wednesday, February 16, 2022, 12:00pm to 1:00pm (UTC-05:00) Eastern Time (ET)
Where: https://zoom.us/j/94312528890
The next office hours is scheduled for February 23 at 9-10 am PT/ 12-1 pm ET. More details to come.
Did you miss an Office Hours Session? Find prior session recordings and view the schedule here: https://www.zowe.org/vnext#office-hours

SHARE Dallas 2022
2022-03-27 - 2022-03-30
SHARE 2022 will take place on March 27-30 in person in Dallas and virtually. To register for the event or to learn more, visit https://www.share.org/Events/SHARE-Dallas-2022/Registration.
As always, Open Mainframe Project will have a presence at the event as many of our project leaders and ambassadors will be giving presentations. Please see below and add these sessions to your schedule.
Monday, March 28 (all times are in CST):
1-2 pm: Deploying and Securing Zowe from z/OS to zCX to Hybrid Cloud and Everything in Between – Joe Winchester, IBM
With the increasing uptake of container-based deployments and shift to open hybrid infrastructure, learn how you can deploy Zowe as containers using Kubernetes securely and with speed and agility to enable Zowe desktop and API services to work with z/OS resources. In this session, you will see a demo and learn about Zowe containerization strategy, architecture, security model as well as Zowe conformance criteria with respect to containers. This session will also traditional Zowe deployment and configuration on z/OS using keyrings, multi-factor-authentication, different security managers, USS setup, z/OSMF configuration, and all of the scenarios that we’ve seen customer deploy Zowe into. The talk will include hands-on demos where folks can ask questions and get the presenters to tweak and re-configure on the fly, and will show how to use SMP/E for maintenance, z/OSMF workflows, portable software instances, dockerhub images. Folks attending the talk will leave with a good knowledge of the best practices and common pitfalls and solutions as well as understand the direction for where Zowe is heading in a k8s and ReadHat Open Shift topology to help them plan their hybrid cloud strategy for Zowe based as well as other USS/Linux tooling.
3:30-4:30 pm: Zowe (Kotlin) SDK, A New Project to Connect Mainframes to the Modern Tech Stack – Uladzislau Kalesnikau and Ilya Abnitski, IBA Group
To remain the backbone of the enterprise computing environment, mainframes need to be connected to a modern tech stack and development tools. The Zowe framework provides many opportunities to bring open source to mainframes. This session will present Zowe Kotlin SDK developed by the IBA Group team to connect z/OSMF and Zowe. The project aims to provide greater flexibility for teams coding in Java or Python and enables them to use Intellij IDE for mainframes.
Tuesday, March 29 (all times are in CST):
8-9 am: Automating Complex Mainframe Workflows with Zowe CLI – Petr Plavjanik and Dan Kelosky, Broadcom
Wouldn’t life be easier if your workflows, even the most complex ones, were automated end-to-end? In this session, you will see how you can leverage existing automation assets and combine them together to create a fully automated process. We will achieve this using Zowe CLI, TypeScript, and Jenkins and improve an existing process based on REXX scripts and JCLs.
9:15-10:15 am: How Zowe Is Opening up the Mainframe to Current and Future Generations of Mainframers – Joe Winchester, IBM; Leanid Astakou, Rocket Software; Dan Kelosky, Broadcom
This talk shows how the open mainframe Zowe project is being used by customers to help modernize their mainframe development and IT tools and practices. We will cover the different components given by squad subject matter experts, with a focus on customer success stories and adoption. The presentation will show the extensibility of the Zowe components into traditional mainframe areas like CICS, MQ, IMS and Db2, as well as modern tooling usages using Jenkins, GitHub, Visual Studio Code and more. We will also show how through APIs vendors and customers have built their own Zowe extensions for their z/OS services. Since Zowe was last presented at Share we have introduced support for containers, with publishing onto docker hub, multi-factor-authentication, sysplex distributor high availability, and are preparing for Zowe version 2. This talk will cover these as well as discuss common customer questions and answers regarding security, usage of open source on z/OS, scalability, and Zowe’s future roadmap. Customers who are new to Zowe wanting to find out more, customers who are Zowe users wanting to be updated on futures, vendors wanting to build or update their Zowe extensions, and students wanting to learn more about education will all benefit from this presentation.
10:30-11:30 am: How to Enable System Management Integrations in Hybrid Cloud and DevOps Environment through Zowe Extensions – Domenico D’Alterio, IBM
Zowe™ technology delivers new ways to integrate IBM Z into the enterprise. Zowe helps to make the IBM Z platform easier to learn and use for next-generation IT staff and developers. Come and learn how IBM System Management offerings expand Zowe framework with specific extensions to have an easier way to integrate Automation of system, applications, processing and more in a hybrid cloud environment.. Come and learn about use cases that leverage REST API for Automation as well as CLI extensions of Zowe in an hybrid cloud environment.
2:15-3:15 pm: Zowe in a Container World – Tiefeng Jia, IBM
With the increasing uptake of container-based deployments and shift to open hybrid infrastructure, learn how you can deploy Zowe as containers using Kubernetes securely and with speed and agility to enable Zowe desktop and API services to work with z/OS resources. In this session, you will see a demo and learn about Zowe containerization strategy, architecture, security model as well as Zowe conformance criteria with respect to containers.
3:30-4:30 pm: Zowe V2 – What’s new with Zowe CLI? – Michael Bauer, Broadcom
Join this session to learn of the latest improvements made to the Zowe Command Line Interface. Collectively, these features provide for easier rollout and adoption of the technology across the enterprise. It is now easy to share configuration information across a user base or store it within an automation project. In addition, the CLI is now lightning quick! And the installation has been further simplified. If you are an existing user or just interested in leveraging modern tools to develop automation for z/OS, you won’t want to miss this session!
Wednesday, March 30 (all times in CST):
8-9 am: Modern DevOps on CICS from Ansible to Zowe – Joe Winchester, IBM; Ezriel Gross, Rocket Software; Stewart Francis, IBM
This talk covers how to do modern CICS DevOps using open source tooling such as Zowe and Ansible. This covers development environments such as Visual Studio Code using GitHub, CI/CD pipelines built using Jenkins, and testing tools such as galassa and COBOL Check. Many of these tools have vendor extensions and commercial support offerings from mainframe software companies, however this talk will very much take the open source first angle and show how to build end to end tooling to support agile development practices end to end. As well as CICS the talk will show this in the context of applications written in COBOL as well as Java, and transactions exploiting Db2 and MQ on z/OS. For the front end tooling the focus will be on Visual Studio code and the growing family of extensions such as the Zowe Explorer, as well as free tooling for language awareness, testing frameworks, debugging and more. The talk will also cover IntelliJ and Eclipse and the free and open source extensions available. This talk will benefit experienced CICS Developers wishing to learn about and transition away from ISPF or those using vendor tools wishing to see the open source free landscape, as well as new to the mainframe developers wishing to see how to exploit familiar development environments on top of CICS Transaction Server programs and transactions.
9:15-10:15: Mainframe Open Education – Fostering the Stewardship of Education Resources – Kelle Veverka, Broadcom; Viviane Sanches, IBM; Paul Newton, IBM
The creation, curation and consumption of Mainframe education happens all the time, but how do you bring existing efforts together in a way that benefits the Mainframe community, reduces critical skills gaps, and makes existing resources readily available? Mainframe Open Education, a project under the Open Mainframe Project (OMP), is bringing community members together from every corner, empowering them to embrace the stewardship of Mainframe open education resources that will help to cultivate Mainframe knowledge, onboard new talent, and provide a place where Mainframe experts share and consume knowledge. Join the conversation to learn more about this community partnership and how you can participate.
Check out the main schedule here.

Zowe Q2 Webinar
2022-06-22 08:30 - 09:30
Whether you are a Zowe User, Contributor, Extender, or simply interested in what’s happening with Zowe – please join us for our next Zowe Quarterly Update Webinar on June 22 at 8:30 am PT (11:30 am ET).
Register here: https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_gJ6M2U5jQMmw42t7LnZOnw
Focus Topic: Zowe Consumers Talk about Zowe!
Abstract: Join our roundtable of Zowe customers as they share why they choose Zowe, their experience with the Zowe installation, their greatest Zowe challenge and their plans for the future.

Zowe Quarterly Webinar (September 2022- Virtual)
2022-09-28 08:30 - 09:30
Whether you are a Zowe User, Contributor, Extender or simply interested in what’s happening with Zowe – please join us for the next Zowe Quarterly Update Webinar on Wed Sep 28 at 8:30 am PT/11:30 am ET. Register here: https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_PlNijM8ATSOO_Ux3JkPAFw
Title: Introduction to Zowe Chat
Abstract: Join us for the very first look at Zowe Chat! We’ll provide an overview of the latest incubator project, introduce you to the Squad (Team), describe the extensibility of the platform and show you what it looks like!
Speakers: Rose Sakach and Mark Ackert (Broadcom) and Domenico D’Alterio (IBM)
Register here.

Zowe Q4 Webinar
2022-12-14 08:30 - 09:30
Whether you are a Zowe User, Contributor, Extender or simply interested in what’s happening with Zowe – please join us for the next Zowe Quarterly Update Webinar on Wednesday, December 14 at 8:30 am PT/ 11:30 am ET. Register here.
Featured Squad: Zowe Explorer for IntelliJ

Featured Topic: Check out the Zowe Explorer for IntelliJ

Similar to the Explorer for Visual Studio Code, Zowe has introduced a new EXPLORER for IntelliJ users. Join this session to learn more about it, see what it looks like, how to download it and what’s planned for the future.
Speakers include:

Rose Sakach, Broadcom
Uladzislau Kalesnikau, IBA Group
Valiantsin Krus, IBA Group
Mike DuBois, Broadcom

Register here: https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_-nA2TOvETn-vAzeZgsHlcw.

SHARE (Atlanta + Live Stream)
2023-03-05 - 2023-03-08
SHARE Atlanta, taking place on March 5-8, 2023 at the Hyatt Regency Atlanta, brings together subject-mater experts and enterprise IT professionals to impart lessons, explore new release capabilities and dive deep into the most pressing issues facing confronting the enterprise IT industry today. Learn more about the conference or to register, click here.
Open Mainframe Project will be on-site in full force again with several ambassadors giving talks about Zowe and COBOL. Please see below and add these sessions to your schedule (all sessions are in Eastern Daylight Time).
Sunday, March 5:
3:45-4:45 pm: Can Zowe act as an enabler of innovations? Sure it can! – Jan Prihoda, Product Owner at Broadcom
Are you interested in innovating and wondering how you can leverage Zowe? I would like to share my experience with Zowe as an idea generator. In the first part I will share my journey developing Ansible collections and show how development in one area can be utilised in other areas. Next I will discuss my experience with Zowe deskop app development and share contributions based on feedback from a customer. And finally, Zowe can be taken as an inspiration for unrelated development, and I will tell you how.
Monday, March 6:
9:15-10:15 am: Zowe the First Five Years – Rose Sakach, DevOps Product Manager, Mainframe Division at Broadcom; Peter Fandel, Director of Software Development at Rocket Software; Bruce Armstrong, IBM Z Product Manager at IBM; and Michael DuBois, Senior Manager for Product Management at Broadcom
From concept to core technology for mainframe automation, more customers are leveraging Zowe for a wide-range of use cases. In this session, our panel will share insights into how Zowe has matured, how Organizations have earned approval to fast-track their implementation for enterprise use.
10:30-11:30 am: Zowe Version 2 Updates and Beyond – Domenico D’Alterio, Senior Product Manager at IBM; Bruce Armstrong from IBM; and Joe Winchester, Senior Technical Staff Member at IBM
Zowe allows you to protect your investment in z/OS and build the future of the mainframe in an open, simple and familiar way. Zowe 1.0 entered in maintenance mode, Zowe 2.0 became the “active” Long Term Release (LTS) of Zowe from the open community. It is based on 2+ years feedback on Zowe 1.0 from enterprise customers and the z/OS mainframe community at large. In this presentation you will learn about the enhancements that are available as part of Zowe 2.0 and following releases as well as you will learn what you need to know to migrate from Zowe 1.0 to Zowe 2.0.
1:15-2:15 pm: Using the Right Tool for the Job – When to Use z/OSMF, Ansible and, Zowe– Luisa Martinez, Software Engineer; Barbara Leinberger, Modernization Specialist; and Frank John DeGilio
Your modernization toolbox should employ as many varied tools as the toolbox you have on your workbench at home. One tool alone will never be the answer. In recent times, many people are finding themselves confused about when to use z/OSMF, Ansible and Zowe. In this session, we will be taking a closer look at the problems each tool aims to solve and their approach to solving them to allow you to make informed decisions on the tools to use when.
Tuesday, March 7:
9:15-10:15 am: End to End Software Delivery: From Inception to Production – Michael Bauer, Product Manager at Broadcom
Modern DevOps practices are critical to delivering business value quickly and safely. In this session, we will cover the journey of an enhancement request to a mainframe application. We will: ? Apply agile management tooling to prioritize work ? Leverage Enterprise Git Servers for source control and collaboration ? Code using modern editors like Visual Studio Code ? Validate and Package changes using process-controlled CI/CD pipelines ? Protect the software supply chain by leveraging attestations ? Deploy the verified package to production environments
10:30-11:30 am: How Open Source Modernized the Mainframe – John Mertic, Executive Director at Open Mainframe Project
The open source movement has rapidly become the way code is being developed for today’s smart and agile businesses. This session will cover how an “open mainframe” is the perfect solution for deploying open source on an enterprise computing platform. Attendees will learn how the open source community has gathered around the mainframe platform and how open source projects such as Zowe, COBOL, a new working group focused on Mainframe Modernization and more are the starting point for open development.
10:30-11:30 am: Tour Top Zowe Client Use Cases from medium.com/zowe! – Dan Kelosky, Principal Software Engineer at Broadcom and Michael Bauer, Product Manager at Broadcom
In this session we will walk through some common user scenarios for Zowe clients as outlined in our most popular blogs! Instead of reading the content, we will demo and explain the steps outlined in our top blogs with live Q&A.
1:15-2:15 pm: Back to the Future with COBOL – John Mertic, Executive Director at Open Mainframe Project
COBOL is the lifeblood of mainframe applications that power the global econony. It is reliable, proven and the foundation of most mission critical financial services at the world’s biggest banks. Yet few people realize or acknowledge the profound impact the COBOL language has had over its 60-year history. In this panel, we’ll 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.
Wednesday, March 8:
4-5 pm: Diagnosing Transient Performance Issues by Analyzing SMF 98 and 100 Records in Zowe – Daniel Wiegand, Senior Product Manager; and Daniel Rosa, Senior Software Engineer at IBM
z/OS transactional workloads contain interactions between IBM z/OS components, middleware, Independent Software Vendor (ISV) products, client applications and shared resources. Sometimes these interactions and resources can cause transient short term performance issues. In the worst cases, these transient issues can repeat, worsen, and result in broader service degradation, critical situations, and even outages. When things go wrong, Subject Matter Experts spend significant time (e.g. days, weeks, or months depending on the issue) looking for clues needed to define the root cause. SMF 98 and 100 records can be generated on synchronized, 5-second intervals with micro-summary, exceptionalism enriched data. Subject Matter Experts can analyze this data to identify and correlate short interval anomalies with only 15 minutes of data, reducing the time required to diagnose complex critical situations, service degradation, and outages. In addition, Subject Matter Experts can proactively identify repeating transient workload resilience risks, providing an opportunity to diagnose the root cause and address it before a crit-sit or outage occurs.
Learn more about the conference at its main event website here.

Zowe Q1 Webinar
2023-03-15 08:30 - 09:30
Whether you are a Zowe User, Contributor, Extender or simply interested in what’s happening with Zowe – please join us for the Zowe Q1 Update Webinar on Wednesday, March 15 Sep 28 at 8:30 am PT/11:30 am ET. Register here.
Title: The Zowe App Store
Abstract: Learn how to use and even contribute to a Zowe package registry while gaining insights on App Store plans for Zowe client and Zowe server extensions.

Speaker: Sean Grady, Senior Software Architect at Rocket Software

ASAP University 2023 (Cincinnati, Ohio)
2023-05-21 - 2023-05-24
ASAP University, which takes place on May 21-24 in Cincinnati, Ohio, is the premier, user-driven training and education program for the Workload Autoation suite of products. ASAP University is a user community dedicated to the education and training of workload automation professionals and to influencing the strategic direction and technical functionality of Workload Automation.
On Tuesday, May 23 at 9-9:45 am, Domenico D’Alterio, Open Mainframe Project Ambassador, Member of the Zowe ZAC and Principal Product Manager at IBM, will give a presentation, “Let’s Dance: Zowe.”
Learn more about the conference or register on the main ASAP University website.

Zowe Quarterly Update Webinar
2023-06-19 06:00 - 07:30
Whether you are a Zowe User, Contributor, Extender or simply interested in what’s happening with Zowe , please join the Zowe Community on Monday, June 19 at 6 am PT/9 am ET for the Zowe Q2 Update Webinar featuring the Zowe 2.9 System Demo!

Details:
When: Monday June 19, 2023 at 6 am PT/9am ET (we’ve reserved 90 minutes for this meeting)
Where: https://zoom.us/j/92382491133 (no registration required)
What: Zowe 2.9 System Demo

Featuring:

Zowe API Mediation Layer: Support for OpenID Connect (OIDC), API Catalog UI Enhancements, fixes
Zowe CLI: x-LPAR COPY command, fixes
Zowe App Framework / Web UI: Massive desktop / multi-app performance improvements, fixes
Zowe Explorer (VS Code): Cancel Jobs for job nodes, Data set creation templates, Custom Credential Manager for K8s, fixes
General: New to you
General: Upcoming Events

Find more details in the Open Mainframe Project calendar: https://lists.openmainframeproject.org/g/zowe-dev/viewevent?eventid=1946648&calstart=2023-06-19

Note: YOU MUST create your own calendar entry and reserve this time

SHARE New Orleans
2023-08-13 - 2023-08-18
SHARE New Orleans takes place on August 13-18 at the Hyatt Regency. Open Mainframe Project will be represented at the conference with several sessions.
Monday, August 14:
9:45 – 10:45 am: Creating a Thriving Multi-Generational Workforce.” Dr. Gloria Chance, CEO and Founder of The Mousai Group, will moderate a panel discussion exploring how multigenerational mainframers are bridging the age gap within their organizations including:

Acknowledge the age gap in the industry
Discuss the realities of multigenerational workplaces
Explore what it is like to be older/younger/mid-career as the demographics of your workforce shift
Examine the challenges/opportunities that exist
Discuss ways for all to thrive

9:45 am – 4:15 pm: Zowe Day
For a list of all Zowe Day speakers and sessions, click here.
7-8 pm: Making Our Strong Community Stronger Reception (Empire Room)
Making Our Strong Community Stronger (MSCS) was born in 2020 as mainframe leaders, community members and partners came together to accelerate diversity, equity, inclusion (DEI) initiatives and create environments that foster belonging. DEI isn’t a one-time initiative; it’s a lifetime of educating and listening to everyone in the company to improve – and no matter what your role is, everyone can contribute.
Tuesday, August 15:
9:15-10:15 am: Deploying Zowe CLI Configuration Throughout Your Organization – Eugene Johnston, Broadcom
Most companies try new technology, like Zowe CLI, in a pilot program. Once you are convinced of the value of Zowe CLI, you are challenged with deploying that technology throughout your organization. In this session you will hear how Zowe CLI team configuration was designed to improve sharing your configuration with everyone on your team. We will identify different approaches that are available to address different deployment situations. We will describe techniques for creating the most flexible and effective configurations. We will discuss best practices. And, we will show useful techniques to diagnose problems that you may inadvertently place into your configuration.
10:30-11:30 am: Improve Mainframe Integration with Zowe Explorer – Brijesh Anghan, Roayl Cyber Inc.
The Zowe project has revolutionized the way we interact with mainframe systems, making it easier than ever before to develop, deploy, and manage applications on the mainframe. One of the latest developments in the Zowe project is the integration of Zowe with the Visual Studio Code (VS Code) editor, providing a seamless and modern interface for developing mainframe applications. At the heart of this integration is the Zowe Explorer extension for VS Code, which provides a set of tools and features for working with mainframe systems. With Zowe Explorer, developers can browse mainframe datasets and files, edit JCL files, submit batch jobs, and view system logs, all from within the familiar VS Code interface. This greatly simplifies the development process, allowing developers to use their preferred tools and workflows when working with mainframe systems. The Zowe Explorer extension also includes support for DevOps tools and practices, allowing developers to build, test, and deploy mainframe applications using familiar DevOps workflows. For example, Zowe Explorer includes support for Git, allowing developers to easily manage mainframe code alongside code from other platforms. Zowe Explorer also includes support for Jenkins, allowing developers to automate build and deployment processes and streamline the development cycle. In addition to its development features, Zowe Explorer also provides tools for managing and monitoring mainframe systems. With Zowe Explorer, administrators can view system metrics, manage mainframe resources, and perform system-level tasks such as IPLs and shutdowns, all from within the VS Code interface. Zowe Explorer enables developers and administrators to be more productive and efficient than ever before. Whether you are a seasoned mainframe professional or a developer just starting out in the mainframe world, the Zowe Explorer extension for VS Code is sure to be a valuable tool in your toolkit.
4-5 pm: Is the Mainframe Ready for Open Source? Joe Winchster, IBM; Joe Bostian, IBM; Steven Perva, Ensono; Donna Hudi, Phoenix Software; Vaughan Marshall, Broadcom; Jeff Cherrington, Rocket Software
The mainframe is a secure, reliable, trusted computing platform. Open Source Software is often viewed as hobbyists coming up with free ephemeral stuff that may or may not work, may or may not be secure, and is supported through on-line public forums. How can these worlds collide and co-exist, or can they ? This panel discusses all of the issues surrounding this exciting area that to some is driving the platform forward, and to others is driving it off a cliff.
Wednesday, August 16:
8-9 am: Using IBM Z System Automation API with Zowe and Kafka in a Modern DevOps Environment – Michael Alexander Carl Seeburger, IBM
Learn about exciting new Z System Automation capabilities supporting IBM Z and DevOps for enhanced operations management: – The ability to access your automation environment via the new IBM Z Systems Automation Operations (REST) API; – Zowe CLI and its plugins for System Automation and Netview to support Admins, Operators and Developer on z/OS; – Publish System Automation event messages via SA Info Broker to Kafka and visualize in Service Management Unite dashboards.
5:15-6:15 pm: 5 for f: Top 5 Use Cases for Zowe over last 5 years – Rose Sakach, Broadcom, and Michael Bauer, Broadcom
Since 2020, the Arcati Mainframe yearbook has predicted exponential increases in Zowe adoptions. By the end of 2023 close to 70% of mainframe organizations – i.e. more and more of you – will be doing something with Zowe. In this session, we’ll showcase the most popular Zowe use cases. Whether you are a Systems Programmer, DBA, Security Administrator, DevOps Architect or Developer you will gain an understanding of the value of Zowe as we demo and explain 5 common Zowe use cases to help priortize and expedite your adoption journey.
Thursday, August 17:
8-9 am: Accelerate Your Mainframe Modernization using Zowe-Conformant REST APIs – Elliot Jalley, Broadcom and Miroslav Strnad
Mainframe modernization is being driven by a number of factors, not least the requirement to move fast while retaining the absolute focus on security. Embracing open-first technology is key. Opening the platform to ensure the mainframe remains vibrant into the future. This session focuses on the growing number of mainframe infrastructure REST APIs that provide standardized, programmatic access to mainframe resources. Join me to learn how Zowe-conformant APIs play a vital role in a risk-managed, in-place moderniztion strategy that leads to faster delivery, higher quality and increased efficiency, all without compromising on security and compliance.
10:30-11:30: Leveraging Zowe to Enable SCM Actions from Service Now – Thomas McQuitty, Broadcom
Learn how Mainframe SCMs can be driven via ServiceNow for actions such as software change approvals using the ServiceNow MID Server. This walk-through will show you the behind-the-scenes configuration, the technical prerequisites and the role Zowe plays. We will also save time to discuss additional possibilities.
1:15-2:15 pm: zNextGen: COBOL and the Modern Mainframe – Sudharsana Srinivasan, IBM, and Caitlin Mooney, JP Morgan Chase, Jade Melody Walker
Open Mainframe Project: COBOL Programming Course – Importance of COBOL – How COBOL can be used to train new developers – How CI/CD and debug/testing features are being added to the course
1:15-2:15 pm: Diagnosing Transient Performance Issues by Analyzing SMF 98 and 100 Records in Zowe – Daneil Weigand, IBM, and Daniel Rosa, IBM
z/OS transactional workloads contain interactions between IBM z/OS components, middleware, Independent Software Vendor (ISV) products, client applications and shared resources. Sometimes these interactions and resources can cause transient short term performance issues. In the worst cases, these transient issues can repeat, worsen, and result in broader service degradation, critical situations, and even outages. When things go wrong, Subject Matter Experts spend significant time (e.g. days, weeks, or months depending on the issue) looking for clues needed to define the root cause. SMF 98 and 100 records can be generated on synchronized, 5-second intervals with micro-summary, exceptionalism enriched data. Subject Matter Experts can analyze this data to identify and correlate short interval anomalies with only 15 minutes of data, reducing the time required to diagnose complex critical situations, service degradation, and outages. In addition, Subject Matter Experts can proactively identify repeating transient workload resilience risks, providing an opportunity to diagnose the root cause and address it before a crit-sit or outage occurs.
2:45-3:45 pm: Customer Use Cases and Success Stories with Zowe – Joe Winchester, IBM, Murali P. Panchalingam, IBM and Rose Sakach, Broadcom
Many customers have been successful using Zowe to transition their companies to mainframe modernization in-place, blending existing pracitces with modern toolchains. Learn first hand their stories at DevOps, education, automation, optional support and other areas where Zowe has helped accelerate digital transformation.
4-5 pm: Zowe Chat: Extending the Access, Personas and Use Cases for z/OS based REST Services – Domenic D’Alterio, IBM

Zowe Chat provides access to z/OS based services from a chat tool, enabling team collaboration in problem solving and more through the collaborative tool already in use in your enterprise. Come and learn about this new Zowe component, so how it is extensible and how it can help in your daily job.
Friday, August 18
9:15-10:15 am: I get my CICS on Route Zowe – Joe Winchester, IBM, and Murali P. Panchalingam, IBM
This talk shows how Zowe Visual Studio plugins and Zowe Command Line Interface open source extensions can be used for development, operations, and automated deployment tasks to create a modern and powerful experience that works for new, and experienced, CICS mainframers alike.

Zowe Day @ SHARE New Orleans
2023-08-14
SHARE New Orleans takes place on August 13-18 at the Hyatt Regency. Open Mainframe Project will be represented at the conference with several sessions. including Zowe Day.
Zowe Day will take place on Monday, August 14.
9:45 – 10:45 am: Zowe Day Part 1: Zowe Hot Topics: Installation & Administration
Bring your installation questions, suggestions and challenges to this session! Our Zowe experts will share tips & tricks for installing and administering Zowe z/OS components (API Mediation Layer, Desktop, & ZSS) and introduce you to Zen: the mainframe installation wizard for Zowe.
Speakers:

Sean Grady, Rocket Software
Jan Prihoda, Broadcom
Joe Winchester, IBM

11 am – 12 pm: Zowe Day Part 2: Zowe V2 Technical Highlights: API-ML, CLI, Web UI, Explorers, SDKs, Chat and Event Streaming
Join this session if you want to know what’s new with Zowe V2 and a peek at Zowe V3. The Zowe Community Squad leads summarize features, functions, capabilities and important changes delivered in all of the Zowe V2 LTS release components as well as new components introduced as Technical Previews and GA extensions.
Speakers:

Sean Grady, Rocket Software
Elliot Jalley, Broadcom
Mark Ackert, Broadcom
Uladzislau Kalesnikau, IBA
Adam Wolfe, Broadcom

1:45 – 2:45 pm: Zowe Day Part 3: An Overview of Zowe’s Zero Trust Architecture with Technical Tips for Configuring Zowe Security
Zowe Security Deep Dive. Looking to better understand Zowe security? Don’t miss this session. We’ll review it from two angles. First, how the Zowe Community produces Zowe as secure open source software and second, how Zowe consumers configure Zowe components for high availability (HA), access & authentication that align with their internal security policies.
Speakers:

Mark Ackert, Broadcom
Sean Grady, Rocket Software
Joe Winchester, IBM

3:15 – 4:15 pm: Zowe Day Part 4: Built-On-Zowe: Extenders Showcase Their Apps
With over 75 Zowe conformant extensions, you are bound to be using a product, solution or practical application enabled by one of them! Attend this session to see demonstrations and meet the vendors who develop them.
Speakers:

Domenico D’Alterio, IBM
Michael DuBois, Broadcom
Jeff Cherrington, Rocket Software

Learn more or register on the main SHARE website.

Zowe Q3 Webinar (Virtual)
2023-09-27 08:30 - 09:30
What’s new with Zowe Explorer?
Whether you are a Zowe User, Contributor, Extender or simply interested in what’s happening with Zowe – please join us for the next Zowe Quarterly Update Webinar on Wednesday, September 27 at 8:30 am PT/11:30 am ET. Register here: https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_11n1KcA6Rp2f6XdVhI6HsQ
Zowe Community Leads Fernando Rijo Cedeno, Software Engineer at Broadcom and Open Mainframe Project Ambassador, and Timothy Johnson, Software Engineer at Broadcom and Open Mainframe Project Ambassador, will share a comprehensive overview and demonstration of the V2 LTS features and functions in Zowe’s Explorer for Visual Studio Code.
Register for the webinar here. If you can’t make it live, register to receive a link to watch on-demand.

Zowe Quarterly Webinar
2024-01-17 08:30 - 09:30
Join Open Mainframe Project’s Zowe community on Wednesday, January 17 at 8:30 am PT/11:30 am ET for our first quarterly webinar of the year! Whether you are a Zowe User, Contributor, Extender or simply interested in what’s happening with Zowe, we invite you to attend the webinar to learn more. Mark Ackert will give an overview of Zowe Event Management.
Register here.

SHARE (Orlando, Florida)
2024-03-03 - 2024-03-07
SHARE, an independent volunteer-run information technology association that provides education, professional networking and industry influence, invites you to join them in Orlando on March 3-7, 2024. SHARE is an associate member of the Open Mainframe Project and Open Mainframe ambassadors will be on-site. Check out these Open Mainframe Project -related sessions and register here.
**All sessions are listed in Eastern Standard Time (EST) and will take place at the Rosen Centre Hotel.
Monday, March 4:
9:15 – 10:15 am: Customer Success Stories with the Open Mainframe Project Zowe – Joe Winchester and Ross Cruickshank, IBM, and Murali P Panchalingam
This talk covers a number of success customer stories and use cases adoptiong Zowe technology, focusing on Education and training of New to Z staff, DevOps and automation scripting, Db2 modernization through Zowe Desktop extensions and VS Code development, as well as custom SDK dashboards to build situational apps for in-house productivy. Each scenario is backed up by quotes and videos from the customers together with sample code and tips and information for others in their Zowe journey, whether getting started or wanting to learn from the success of others.
1:15-2:15 pm: The “ABC’s” of Building Dashboards Using Zowe APIs – Rose Sakach and Toine Micheielse, Broadcom
Ready to build a mainframe app using APIs? Then don’t miss this session. We’ll walk through each step of creating a simple dashboard using Zowe APIs, Python, a data store, and Kibana. Walk away with a handy checklist containing all the details – no notebook required!
2:45-3:45 pm: IBM Z System Automation 4.3 – Exploit Zowe and REST APIs to Enable Next Gen Operators – Gunnar Freitag, IBM
Learn about exciting new Z Automation capabilities of the new SA z/OS 4.3 release supporting IBM Z and DevOps for enhanced operations management. Learn about – On-demand automated resources to dynamically adapt to changing business requirements – The new ability to access your automation environment via REST calls and a wide variety of added enhancements making your life easier. Come and learn about user scenarios and improvements delivered recently.
4-5 pm: Learn How Zowe Explorer Empowers Both New and Experienced Mainframers – Joe Winchester, Billie Simmons, Ross Cruickshank, IBM
The Zowe Explorer Visual Studio Code plugin is being adopted as “the new face of Z” across the specturm of mainframe experience from education courses “IBM Z Explore, COBOL training” through to experienced system programmers and assembler developers using it as their preferred IDE and mainframe “all-in-one” productivity workbench. This talk covers the different scenarios and use cases that enable everyone to explorer the mainframe with Zowe as their navigator.
Tuesday, March 5:
7:15 – 7:45 am: BOF: Mainframe Open Education Project – William Cash, Hunter JOhnson and J.J. Lovett, Broadcom
Working session to build upon research conducted by the Core Team Members regarding roles and responsibilities, the most desired education topics for NextGen mainframes, evolving education to meet and suit the needs of new mainframers. We are looking to maintain engagement to drive year-round learning and education for the entire ecosystem through various avenues.
10:30 – 11:30 am: Enterprise Deployment and Configuration of Zowe – Joe Winchester and Ross Cruickshank, IBM, and Murali P Panchalingam
As Zowe grows in maturity and adoption, more customers are deploying it at scale, in production environments, and relying on it for more critical infrastructure workloads. This talk covers the use cases and patterns to assist with Enterprise roll-out, covering everything from initial install and configuration of the first POC, through to securing with client certificates, MFA, high availability within an LPAR or cross syplex, rolling out updates, central configuration of connection details.
1-2 pm: PSP: Next-Gen Mainframe DevX with IntelliJ IDEA, Jenkins, and GitHub – Uladzislau Kalesnikau (Software Engineer, IBA Group
In this presentation, we focus on enhancing the Developer Experience (DevX) for mainframe systems by developing mainframe source code within the IntelliJ IDEA IDE environment, managed as GitHub projects. Specifically, we will delve into the build stage of the IBA Group DevOps suite, which is based on Zowe products. Our discussion will include an in-depth look at the testing options available in this setup, as well as Jenkins’ role in automating and optimizing workflows. We will also test how easily we can expand our solution by adding more parts, and how well it can function in different settings. This will involve using CICS and working with various programming languages like COBOL, HLASM, Java, and Python.
Looking ahead, we’ll examine the potential impact of the Language Server Protocol (LSP) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) on enhancing mainframe development in upcoming versions. This presentation is crucial for mainframe developers looking to enhance their DevX and modernize their development practices using IntelliJ IDEA.
Wednesday, March 6:
5:30-6:30 pm: ZEN – The “Easy Button” for Zowe Installation – Jan Prihoda, Broadcom
ZEN helps you speed the deployment of Zowe through a wizard-driven configuration guide. Easily exploit rich features such as variable value validation, real-time security validation, assistance with certificate management, and configuration file validation with just a few clicks. Come and see for yourself what ZEN can do from the comfort of your desktop!
Check out the complete schedule for SHARE and register here.

COBOL Programming Course Q1 Webinar
2024-03-19 08:00 - 09:00
Join us for the COBOL Programming Course Q1 webinar on March 19 at 8 am PST. Zowe Explorer Squad Lead Adam Wolfe, Open Mainframe Project Ambassador and Product Owner at Broadcom Mainframe Software, joins the COBOL Programming Course team to discuss all things Zowe.
Zowe and COBOL are two of the most popular projects of the Open Mainframe project! Tune in to listen to the team discussing about the upcoming Zowe v3 release, the impact to the COBOL course, and more!
Register here: https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_q9d5mzezSguu5FGOa1EBiw

Zowe Webinar: Squads, Training Programs & Badges
2024-03-28 07:00 - 08:00
Join the Open Mainframe Project Community on Thursday. March 28 at 7 am PDT/10 am EDT for a free webinar about Zowe. Jakub Balhar, Principal Product Owner at Broadcom and Zowe TSC Chair, will provide an overview of Zowe and its different squads, and Darren Surch, CEO of Interskill Learning and Open Mainframe Project Ambassador, will provide details and a demo of Zowe training courses and badges. He’ll even share news about upcoming advanced training opportunities coming soon! Register here: https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_u1H9h_v9QQWtzq4IOC_CJg.
Jakub Balhar, Darren Surch
Additional Details:
The 2024 Arcati Mainframe Report, surveys mainframe organizations each year to see what technologies are being used and which ones are going out of favor. This year, 89% of respondents indicated that Zowe was either running now, or soon will be by the end of the year.
As more organizations leverage Zowe for their mainframe modernization, we invite you to join the Open Mainframe Project community on Thursday, March 28 at 7 am PDT for a webinar that will showcase how you can get involved in Zowe, an open source software framework for the mainframe that strengthens integration with modern enterprise applications, and training programs.
With the help of the Zowe community, Interskill provides a free online “Fundamentals for Zowe” course to build your Zowe skills and get you started on your Zowe journey! There’s even a brag-worthy Open Mainframe Project digital badge to show your Zowe skills to the world! If you are already somewhere along the route, the best way to learn is from Zowe docs and the discussions in Zowe channels on Slack.
Register here.

ASAP University 2024 TWS Education+Training
2024-05-19 - 2024-05-22
ASAP U Conference 2024 takes place on May 19-22 in Miami, Florida. ASAP U Conferences bring together many Workload Automation experts from all over the world to collaborate, network, learn, inspire, and much more. With 30+ sessions, labs and certification exams to choose from and attend, you can aways expect to walk away with more knowledge and inspiration to implement into your work environment. Register here.

Open Mainframe Project Ambassador and Zowe contributor Domenico D’Alterio, Principle Product Manager at IBM, will be on-site at the conference with a Zowe session. Stay tuned here for more details about his session and the rest of the agenda.
This event is managed by ASAP, which aims to provide the Workload Automation user community with a forum to learn, explore, and achieve results for their company as well as themselves. ASAP is committed to be the user voice behind workload automation issues to help drive the development of product enhancements. This organization is a place where our members can reach out and get real life examples and solutions to every day automation needs. For more details about the event, visit the main conference website.

Zowe Quarterly Webinar
2024-05-29 08:30 - 09:30
Join the Zowe community on Wednesday, May 29 at 8:30-9:30 am PT/11:30-12:30 pm ET for the next quarterly update! Register here.
With Zowe v3 on the release horizon, Team Config for Zowe CLI and Zowe Explorer for VS Code becomes more relevant than ever. The Zowe Community introduced Team Config to take the burden of learning, understanding, and implementing connectivity away from every user – which is what v1 profiles required.
Join this session for a comprehensive review of Team Config, what it looks like, how best to leverage it, and (for those of you still using v1 profiles) best practices for converting Zowe CLI v1 profiles to Team Config to ensure you and your team are ready for Zowe v3!
Speaker: Adan Wolfe, Product Owner at Broadcom and Open Mainframe Project Ambassador
Register here.

SHARE Kansas City 2024
2024-08-04 - 2024-08-08
SHARE is an independent volunteer-run information technology association that provides education, professional networking and industry influence. SHARE Kansas City 2024 will be held from August 4-8, 2024, offering access to the latest enterprise IT news, key focus areas, prominent industry leaders, and product highlights on emerging technologies.SHARE is an associate member of the Open Mainframe Project and Open Mainframe ambassadors will be on-site. Check out these Open Mainframe Project -related sessions and register here. All technical sessions will take place at the Loews Kansas City Hotel. All times are in Central Time.
Sunday, August 4:
5:00-6:00 PM: Putting Inclusivity, Belonging and Allyship in Action: The Power of Mutual Mentoring – Dr. Gloria Chance (The Mousai Group) and Megan Rupert (Broadcom)
Mentoring is a dual relationship with a mentor passing on knowledge, skills, and values to a mentee. The give/take connection between mentor and mentee can seem very one-sided. After all, we all know mentees benefit as the recipients. (Psychology Today).
Mutual mentoring, also referred to as peer mentoring, is a collaborative mentoring relationship, where two individuals actively learn and support each other’s professional and personal growth. In this style of mentoring, both participants take on the role of the mentor and mentee, which creates an interactive learning environment.
Join us as we demo how to execute the mutual mentoring experience where you will:
● Learn how mutual mentoring can be a form of allyship.
● Experience and expand emotional intelligence and active listening.
● Explore questions that spark important dialog.
This skill will enhance the foundation of what’s important to developing innovative teams and relationships that drive peak performance and creative thinking.
Monday, August 5:
9:15 – 10:15 am: It’s a Jungle Gym: Today’s Mainframe Workforce Roles & Careers – J.J. Lovett, David Bond, SHIVA SABERI, Sean Rooney (Broadcom)
Today’s modern mainframe career path looks more like a jungle gym with moves in any direction offering roles with tremendous growth opportunities. Why do you choose to be a mainframer? Which role do you choose first? How do you plot a path to success in the today’s mainframe community? You may be surprised at how much opportunity exists within the Mainframe workforce. Join us for a panel of mainframers including both new and tenured, to explore the possibilities.
2:30 PM – 3:30 PM: Top 10 Administrative Tips for Achieving & Retaining a Healthy, High-Performing Zowe – Jan Prihoda (Broadcom) and Joseph Winchester (IBM)
Join the Zowe Community SMEs for tips & tricks on administration and troubleshooting Zowe. This session will provide attendees with the necessary tools and techniques for monitoring the health, performance and usage of the Core Zowe server components. (API Mediation Layer, ZSS, ZIS, Desktop)
2:30-3:30 PM: In the Spotlight:In the Spotlight: OpenTelemetry for the Mainframe – Ruediger Schulze (IBM) and Aaron Young (Broadcom)
OpenTelemetry is crucial for modern observability. With an effective observability, businesses gain better insight into their often-complex distributed applications and can respond faster to revenue impacting issues. OpenTelemetry provides the technical ingredients to extract and transform signals from arbitrary sources for flexible distribution to any backend. The collaboration of OpenTelemetry project and the Open Mainframe Project has led to the creation a new Special Interest Group (SIG) “OpenTelemetry on Mainframe” at the begin of this year. This group aims to enable OpenTelemetry for the mainframe and simplify the telemetry export and consumption on mainframes. Join us to learn about OpenTelemetry, its enhancements for the mainframe driven by the SIG, and see how its open-source components can be used for mainframe applications.
3:45 PM – 4:45 PM: Optimizing Zowe’s API Mediation Layer for Complex Enterprise Workloads – Andrej Chmelo, Joseph Winchester (IBM) and Steve Able
Designed for experienced users, this session dives deep into advanced configuration techniques for the Zowe API Mediation Layer. Discover how to optimize your setup for high availability, security, and performance. Attendees will leave with expert knowledge on implementing typical and complex enterprise configurations.
3:45 pm – 4:45 PM: (*Secondary track): Integrating Mainframe Testing with VS Code and IntelliJ IDEA – Alex Burak and Uladzislau Kalesnikau (IBA Group)
Mainframe software testing plays a crucial role in the modern DevOps pipeline. A key principle is automating testing and doing it early in the development cycle – and doing it repeatedly. The aim is to catch and fix bugs quickly, minimize redoing work, and guarantee quality before building and delivering new code to production. During the session, we’ll show you how Galasa works with Zowe, VS Code and IntelliJ as a part of CI/CD pipeline.
7-8:30 PM: Making Our Strong Community Strong Reception
We’re crafting a speed mentoring experience that will provide a chance to quickly meet others for a human experience where both individuals gain support and perspective via dual mentoring.
Tuesday, August 6:
9:15 AM – 10:15 AM: Learn How Zowe Explorer Is Empowering Both New and Experienced Mainframers – Joseph Winchester (IBM),Billie Simmons (IBM), Murali Panchalingam (IBM UK) and Emma Skovgård
Zowe Explorer has become the “New face of Z” not just for students and folks new to the patform doing mainframe learning courses, but has become a useful tool for experienced system programmers and developers to be productive with a powerful tool interfacing with the IBM Z platform. This talk will cover the Zowe Explorer plugin for VS Code, showing how to work with data sets, Unix System Services, JES, as well as issue TSO and MVS console commands. In addition we’ll showcase the CICS extension that allows developers to build COBOL and Java applications all from within the VS Code environment. We’ll also talk about recent developments in version 3 around authentication to support more protocols like x509 client certificate auth.
9:15 AM – 10:15 AM: (*Secondary track): Continuous End-to-End Testing for Mainframe Applications – Alex Burak and Uladzislau Kalesnikau (IBA Group)
In the past, mainframe system testing was limited to legacy tools and required specialized knowledge. Today, with the adoption of of open source tools and projects (OMP & Zowe) any team can easily integrate test and build stage into their CI/CD pipeline. Come join us for a discussion and we will showcase practical scenarios, including unit testing with test4z and Cobol Check, functional testing with Galasa, and deployment management with Automan for z/OS test environments. Finally, we’ll share our plans, the development of IntelliJ plugins for test4z
10:30 AM – 11:30 AM: Let’s Talk Zowe! End Users Share Their Stories – Joseph Winchester (IBM),Domenico D’Alterio (IBM) and John Mertic (The Linux Foundation)
From mainframe education to DevOps & self-service automation and beyond. Join your peers and learn how organizations like yours are leveraging Zowe to address their critical business needs
10:30 AM – 11:30 AM: (*Secondary track): Building & Delivering Secure Software: An Overview of Zowe’s Zero Trust Architecture – Mark Ackert,Rose Sakach (Broadcom)
In today’s environment, implementing Zero Trust Architecture (ZTA) is an essential step for any organization that wants to ensure the security of its digital assets. ZTA is a security strategy that focuses on verifying user identity and access rights before granting access to resources. Join this session to learn more about the strategy, where you can start with the implementation, how Zowe implements ZTA and its different components in that strategy.
1:15 PM – 2:15 PM: (*Panel): Collaboration Learning: Crowdsourcing Mainframe Education – John Mertic (The Linux Foundation), Michael Bauer (Broadcom), J.J. Lovett (Broadcom), Keelia Estrada-Moeller (Broadcom)
Open Mainframe Project has education opportunities that has helped more than 200 students, new developers and engineers looking for a refresher. Whether it is the hands-on COBOL Programming Course, Mainframe Open Education focusing on ‘open sourcing’ mainframe learning roadmaps and community knowledge transfer, or the Mentorship program, there is something for everyone. Join us to learn (pun intended!) about the educational opportunities offered through the Open Mainframe Project and how you can get involved either as a student or a teacher/mentor.
2:15 PM – 3:15 PM: DevSecOps and Shift-Left Security Strategy within Zowe – Donna Hudi (Phoenix Software International), Andrej chmelo and Dan Kelosky
Short for development, security and operations, DevSecOps automates the integration of security at every phase of the software development lifecycle, from initial design through integration, testing, deployment and software delivery. The core principles and practices of DevSecOps revolve around the idea of ‘shifting security left,’ meaning that security considerations are introduced as early as possible in the software development lifecycle (SDLC). This proactive stance ensures that security is not an afterthought but an integral part of the entire process. Join us to learn how the DevSecOps and shift-left security strategy are implemented within Zowe.
3:30 PM – 4:30 PM: Take Your Mainframe Career to a New Level by Contributing to Zowe! – Dan Kelosky and Frank Giordano
This session will explore advancing your technical skills by contributing to Zowe. From modern to low level languages and frameworks such as: Node.js, TypeScript, JavaScript, Angular, Java, Spring Boot, HLASM, and Metal C, we’ll cover the bulk of Zowe’s underlying technologies and discuss how the project onboards new Community members. We will conclude by highlighting a recent contribution: the Zowe Java Client SDK
Wednesday, August 7:
8:45 AM – 9:45 AM: Leverage Zowe Extensions to Integrate zAIOps in Hybrid Cloud Applications – Joseph Winchester (IBM) and Domenico D’Alterio (IBM)
Zowe technology delivers new ways to integrate IBM Z system management into the enterprise processes and applications, protecting the investment made on IBM Z. Zowe helps to make the IBM Z platform easier to learn and use for next-generation IT staff and developers. Come and learn how IBM System Management offerings like IBM Z System Automation, IBM Z NetView and IBM Z Workload Scheduler, expand Zowe framework with specific extensions to have an easier way to integrate Automation of system, applications, processing and more in a hybrid cloud environment. A demo of the ZOWE CLI extensions available for the products listed above will be performed during the session, to show the value add in the data center management of them. Come and learn about use cases that leverage REST API for Automation as well as CLI extensions of Zowe in an hybrid cloud environment.
10:00 AM – 11:00 AM: (*Secondary track): How Zowe Modernizes the Interaction with Legendary Products – Domenico D’Alterio (IBM)
Zowe technology delivers new ways to integrate IBM Z system management into the enterprise processes and applications, protecting the investment made on IBM Z. Zowe helps to make the IBM Z platform easier to learn and use for next-generation IT staff and developers. Come and learn how IBM System Management offerings like IBM Z System Automation, IBM Z NetView and IBM Z Workload Scheduler, expand Zowe framework with specific extensions to have an easier way to integrate Automation of system, applications, processing and more in a hybrid cloud environment. A demo of the ZOWE CLI extensions available for the products listed above will be performed during the session, to show the value add in the data center management of them. Come and learn about use cases that leverage REST API for Automation as well as CLI extensions of Zowe in an hybrid cloud environment.
Thursday, August 8:
8:45 AM – 9:45 AM: Zowe and Galasa Together – Joseph Winchester (IBM) and Gerald Mitchell (IBM)
Open mainframe projects Zowe and Galasa just make sense together. Come see all the ways Zowe just vibes with its new friend
10:00 AM – 11:00 AM: The Emergence of Boot Camps and Apprenticeships on the Mainframe Education Landscape – Dr. Cameron Seay, IBM Z Academic Thought Leader and Adjunct Professor at Tennessee State University and East Carolina University.
For the past 10-15 years the industry has expressed growing concern over finding new talent for the platform. Focused attempts to generate interest at major colleges to teach mainframe have yielded limited results (though the Historically Black Colleges seem to keep teaching mainframe). Industry appears to have all but given up on recruiting new mainframers from colleges, and are turning to non-curricular methods of finding and training students. Prominent among these are boot camps and apprenticeships. This session will share our experiences with both and lessons learned from these experiences. Further, we will offer recommendations for future actions on the parts of industry, academia, and students to expose the incredible opportunities this platform provides.
12:30 – 1:30 pm: CBTTape – Open Source for z/OS – Greatest Hits – Lionel Dyck
The CBTTape has been around since the last quarter of the last century of the last millennium and currently has over 1,000 separate files with each consisting of from one to dozens of unique tools. What kind of tools? Everything from exploiting PDSE member generations to RACF Administration to Catalog management to Dynamic Steplib, z/OS E-Mail (with attachments), Text to HTML/PDF/RTF conversion, Dynamic ISPF Menus, many ISPF Edit macros, and more. And it is all open-source and available for immediate download and use – of course you would never just use it without reviewing the source and doing your own due diligence in testing.
3:00-4:00 pm: Bit Bucket X ’44’ – Ed Jaffe and Donna Hudi (Phoenix Software), Lionel Dyck, Mike Shorkend, Tom Conley
Take a whirlwind tour of z/OS features and topics too small to have a session of their own, but too important and interesting to overlook. You can take these insights into the worlds of z/OS Systems Programming, Hardware, Storage Management, and all things mainframe from our expert practitioners and put them straight to use back home. The Bit Bucket has been a tradition at SHARE since 1991. Topics are always a surprise, at times even to the presenters, but never disappoint. To view past Bit Bucket presentations, visit the SHARE website at: https://www.share.org/Events/Past-Events/Proceedings.
Check out the complete schedule for SHARE and register here.

Zowe Q1 2025 Webinar
2025-03-19 08:00 - 09:00
Join Open Mainframe Project’s Zowe community on Wednesday, March 19 at 8 am PT/11 am ET for our first quarterly webinar of the year! Whether you are a Zowe User, Contributor, Extender or simply interested in what’s happening with Zowe, we invite you to attend the webinar to learn more.
In this webinar, Jakub Balhar, Chair of the Zowe TSC and Open Mainframe Project Ambassador, will present an overview of the architectural changes coming to the API Mediation Layer and answer questions. Rose Sakach, Open Mainframe Project ambassador, will also present updates about Zowe.
Register here.

Zowe Q2 Webinar: Understanding Zowe Docs and using AI for Effective Navigation
2025-07-01 08:00 - 09:00
Whether you are installing, configuring, trouble-shooting, or just learning about Zowe, Zowe Docs will be your go-to guide. In this webinar on Tuesday, July 1 at 8 am PT/11 am ET, the members of the Zowe community will share tips and best practices for optimal navigation and take you through a live tour with example use cases. A step-by-step demo on how to open an issue real-time will help improve the documentation for everyone while instantly making you a contributor to the Zowe Community. We will conclude with a demonstration on how best to partner with AI to answer Zowe questions and find Zowe specifics. Register here.
Speakers: Ana Ceron, Andrew Jandacek, Jakub Balhar, Rose Sakach

CLI Meets AI: Introducing ZCrafter (Webinar)
2025-12-05 09:00 - 10:00
ZCrafter is a CLI tool that helps you work with COBOL, JCL, and mainframe systems using AI. You ask questions, analyze code for bugs, troubleshoot errors and get instant answers about mainframe development. Based on Open Mainframe Project’s Zowe, ZCrafter was created by NIU students in the IBM Z Student Ambassador Program.
Join us on Friday, December 5 at 9 am PT/12 pm ET for a presentation that will include an overview and live demo of ZCrafter. The creators will also be sharing their journey into mainframes, their experience with open source, trends in AI and technology and the future of mainframe. Register for the event here.
Speakers: NIU Students Victor Taiwo, Sang Pham, Oyewale Adeoye, and Paris Richards
