Open Mainframe Project

IBM Z Day (Special Edition - Virtual)
2022-04-05
IBM, a Platinum member of Open Mainframe Project, is planning a special edition IBM Z Day, which will take place on April 5, 2022!

Connect, learn, and be inspired by what’s brewing in the labs, hear from community members as they share experiences, discover new and exciting innovation, learn how to accelerate your digital transformation and modernization journey, and hear what’s on the minds of thought leaders. Check out the keynote presenters, including Meredith Stowell, a member of the Open Mainframe Project Governing Board, and Ross Mauri, a longtime Open Mainframe supporter and collaborator:

The event is free and will be virtual. Learn more and register on the main event site here: https://ibmzday.bemyapp.com/se

COBOL Programming Course Q2 Webinar
2022-05-25 09:00 - 10:00 (America/Los_Angeles)
COBOL skills have been debated long and hard…. so, let’s get to some facts. Join us to hear from Dr. Cameron Seay, a mainframe educator that has adopted the Open Mainframe Project’s COBOL Programming Course into his curriculum. You don’t want to miss this opportunity to learn the latest happening with COBOL education. Register for the webinar on Wednesday, May 25 at 9 am PT (12 pm ET): https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_XcbRi0WlTO2l9a_vCufqKw.
There is something in it for everyone – students, educators, clients, life-long learners – See you at the session!

OpenSUSE Conference (Nuremberg, Germany)
2022-06-02 - 2022-06-04
The openSUSE Conference 2022 is schedule to take place June 2 to June 4. The openSUSE Conference is the annual openSUSE community event that brings people from around the world together to meet and collaborate. The organized talks, workshops, and BoF sessions provide a framework around more casual meet ups and hack sessions. Learn more about the conference or register for the event, here.
Sarah Julia Kriesch, an Open Mainframe Project Ambassador and contributor to the Linux Distributions Working Group, will present at the conference with a talk titled, “Collaboration Instead of Competition.”
Default community distributions are running in the same issues for special architectures. Every Linux distribution has got mostly separate maintainers and hardware distributors are handling these communities really often disconnected. That has been identified also for the architecture s390x. Therefore, openSUSE, Fedora, Debian, SUSE, Canonical (Ubuntu) and Red Hat have established together with IBM a Linux Distributions Working Group for a better collaboration together and with the goal to achieve better support. In this presentation, you should receive an overview of a good collaboration between Linux distributions and what you can achieve together with such a Working Group.

SUSECON 22 (Digital)
2022-06-07 - 2022-06-09
SUSECON is coming to a screen near you on June 7-9! SUSECON, which is an event created by Open Mainframe Project member SUSE, is all about sharing the latest technical advances, best practices, customer experiences, and visions for the future.
True to the “open” culture, SUSE invites all customers, partners, engineers, developers, community members, and business leaders to submit a session proposal for you to share your expertise.
Submit your session idea here – deadline to submit is April 6. Submitters will be notified of their submission acceptance in mid-April.
Learn more on the main event website here: https://www.susecon.com/.

Enterprise Computing Community (ECC) Conference
2022-06-12 - 2022-06-14
The annual ECC 2022 Conference will take place on June 12-14 at Marist College. Open Mainframe Project will be on-site at the event as a sponsor as well as presenting a few sessions.
The 14th annual Enterprise Computing Community Conference will be hosted by Marist College with collaboration and support from our esteemed academic and industry partners and sponsors. If you would like to present or register for the event – please see below.
Submit a speaking proposal here (deadline May 13): https://ecc.marist.edu/web/conference2022/call-for-papers
Register to attend in person here: https://forms.office.com/pages/responsepage.aspx?id=nq-hFIyyJ0uyQyXDPbb_-gjf6yjzqYxMra96hXEaFkFUQVdRMERERjFCTTROTVdYUllWRTZIVVlHRS4u.
Learn more about the event on the main conference site here: https://ecc.marist.edu/.

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.

Open Source Finance Forum (London)
2022-07-13
Open Source in Finance Forum, which is part of FINTECH Week London, will take place on July 13, 2022 at the Etc.Venues – 133 Houndsditch.
Open Source in Finance Forum is the only conference dedicated to driving collaboration and innovation in financial services through open source software and standards. The event bring together experts across financial services, technology, and open source to engage our community in stimulating and thought-provoking conversations about how to best (and safely) leverage open source software to solve industry challenges.
Register here: https://events.linuxfoundation.org/open-source-finance-forum-london/register/
Use the Open Mainframe discount code for 20% off: OSFF22MAINF20
Visit the main conference page here for more information: https://events.linuxfoundation.org/open-source-finance-forum-london/

Diversity You Cannot See: A Special Event on Neurodiversity in the Mainframe Workplace
2022-07-27 09:00 - 10:00
Did you know today an estimated 40% of people deal with autistic, attention deficit, anxiety, and/or dyslexic disorders? Combined, these mental differences account for the bulk of what sociologists refer to as “neurodiversity,” or natural variations in everyone’s brain, particularly those who have outlying characteristics, such as autism.

Join us on Wednesday, July 27, 2022 at 9 am PT/ 12 pm ET for a special web event hosted by 30-year veteran Cynthia Coupé. Cynthia will share her experience as a neurodiversity expert and mother of an autistic daughter, as well as industry insights and perspectives from three other neurodivergent proponents: one working professional in the tech industry, a grad student “on the spectrum,” and one neurodiversity staffing executive. A Q&A “town hall” session will follow at the same time on July 28. Replays will be available after each live event. Register here: https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_Yk-pogSRQSu17WJUZ1Khyg.
Together, they’ll discuss how neurotypical people can better interact with this intelligent and unique population, where communication breakdowns usually happen, and what the future holds for this often misunderstood but increasingly important talent pool. They’ll also explore how societal awareness, appreciation, and participation with neurodivergent people can have a big impact on the way we work, learn, and commune with one another.
“Neurodiversity is the new normal,” Coupé says. “Even though it’s less stigmatized today, many people still don’t know how to navigate it, even though we all interact with it regularly (whether we realize it or not). To build safe spaces where everyone can grow, collaborate, and work in the way that plays to our strengths, this panel will lead the discussion on how we can better understand ourselves and each other.”
About the moderator: Cynthia Coupé is a self-diagnosed neurodivergent and Speech Language Pathologist (SLP) with over 30 years working in the field of neurodiversity. She is a TEDx speaker and the co-founder and CEO of Outreach Advocacy Resources and Services (OARS), Inc., a company dedicated to transforming the lives of neurodivergent clients by using their inherent strengths to better society. With her diverse background of serving individuals in the clinical, hospital, home, and school settings (including her own autistic and ADHD daughter), Cynthia has developed a unique perspective and aspires to be a lasting ambassador for this vulnerable but brilliant demographic.
About Making Our Strong Community Stronger: Making our Strong Community Stronger is the first-ever initiative on diversity, equity, and inclusion in the mainframe industry. Sponsored by BMC, Broadcom Mainframe Software, IBM, Open Mainframe Project, Rocket Software, TechChannel, and VirtualZ Computing.

SHARE Columbus 2022 (Columbus, Ohio + Virtual)
2022-08-21 - 2022-08-26
Join us for SHARE Columbus, August 21-26, 2022, for a week-long program of unmatched education, face-to-face networking opportunities, live technical sessions and receptions. Register for the conference here: https://www.share.org/Events/SHARE-Columbus-2022/Registration.
Several Open Mainframe Project Ambassadors will be on-site to represent various projects including COBOL, Zowe and more. Check out the schedule here:
Monday, August 22: Zowe Day
Zowe Day offers 4 information-packed educational sessions designed to be consumable regardless of experience level or role. Attend just one or as many as you like – this is a great opportunity to meet and learn from the experts! Join our vibrant community and help shape the future of Zowe.
9:45 -10:45 am

Zowe Day Part 1: Overview of Zowe, Today and Beyond – Rose Sakach (Broadcom) and Bruce Armstrong (IBM) Session 1 kicks off the day with a general Zowe overview and is recommended for all, but a must for those new to Zowe.

11 am – 12 pm

Zowe Day Part 2: How Zowe Helps DevOps – Joe Winchester (IBM) and Michael Bauer (Broadcom) If your organization is interested in enabling mainframe DevOps – don’t miss Session 2 where the focus on Zowe Command Line Interface (CLI) Use Cases will demonstrate its applicability.

1:45 – 2:45 pm

Zowe Day Part 3: Deploy and Configure Zowe – Security Updates – Joe Winchester (IBM) and Rose Sakach (Broadcom) System Administrators responsible for the install and configuration of Zowe will want to reserve a seat for Session 3 where the experts will offer step-by-step best practices with guidance on security options and additional recommendations for consideration.

3:15 – 4:15 pm

Zowe Day Part 4: How to extend Zowe – Michael Bauer (Broadcom) We will conclude the day with a focus on the development community interested in extending Zowe. Session 4 will showcase the programmable interfaces and their associated Zowe Conformance programs.

Monday, August 22:
11 – 12 am

Women of COBOL Panel Discussion – Misty Decker (Micro Focus) With the launch of the new Women of COBOL video series on Tech Channel, we’re looking to feature women for their technical knowledge and expand visibility to the amazing work these women are doing. In this panel discussion, we’ll meet some Women of COBOL and learn about their personal journey and the technical areas they are experts in.

Tuesday, August 23:
8 -9 am

Zowe Version 2 Updates – Domenico D’Alterio (IBM), Bruce Armstrong (IBM), Joe Winchester (IBM) and Michael Bauer (Broadcom) 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 recently 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 as well as you will learn what you need to know to migrate from Zowe 1.0 to Zowe 2.0.

9:15 -10 15 am

What’s New in Zowe 2.0: Desktop, Apps and ZSS – Sean Grady (Rocket Software) Zowe v2.0 is its first big change since Zowe launched in 2018. Each section has improvements and new features, and there’s plenty to cover so join this session if you’d like to see what changes for installation and use of the Desktop, ZSS, and their Apps. Whether you’re a developer or user, we’ll have tips for you to migrate and make best use of Zowe 2.0.

10:30 – 11:30 am

Schemas for Zowe 2.0: How they evolve the way you setup and validate Zowe – Sean Grady (Rocket Software) Zowe’s latest server release improves upon Zowe to address a common request: Make zowe server configuration easy to understand and validate! In 2.0, we’ve added schemas everywhere and we’ll show you how this revolutionizes and simplifies how you setup Zowe, track changes, and clone & verify configuration.

Wednesday, August 24:
8-9 am

Getting Your Mainframe Ready for High Performance with Cloud Storage – Eddy Ciliendo & Tomer Zelberzvig (Model9) While the mainframe is a robust mission critical platform , there is new storage out there barely being utilized by the mainframe. What is cloud storage? How do you connect to it from your mainframe? What needs to be done on the mainframe and TCP/IP in order to get high performance with cloud storage?

10:30 – 11:30 am

How to Monitor and Manage Mainframe and Storage Performance Metrics Utilizing Voice and Open Source Software Tools – Len Santalucia, Justin Santer, Vincent Terrone (Vicom Infinity, a Converge Company) We hear a lot of talk about hybrid, multiplatform, and Internet of Things. In this session, Vicom Infinity, a contributor and silver member of the Linux Foundation Open Mainframe Project, will talk about their quest for easier access to mainframe and storage performance metrics by simply using your voice in a completely secure manner. ZEBRA (Zowe Embedded Browser for RMF/SMF and APIs) is an open source SW project under Linux Foundation’s Open Mainframe Project’s ZOWE Project. It intends to provide re-usable and industry compliant JSON formatted RMF/SMF data records, so that many other SW providers and users can exploit them. VIVA, Vicom Infinity Voice Assistant posted at this link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rE8IQaE3rUs , is a secure voice assistant that enables enterprise systems clients to use a voice user interface for their enterprise applications in a completely private and secure way. The integration of ZEBRA and VIVA provides the ultimate solution for fast and easy access to mainframe and storage performance metrics data.

1:15-2:15 pm

I get my CICS on Route Zowe! – Joe Winchester (IBM) and Ezriel J. Gross (Rocket Software) This presentation will show how to use ope source Zowe tooling to develop, administer, deploy and test CICS applications. We’ll show how to build automation to drive CICS automation for compilation and deployment from a stand-alone environment using the Zowe command line interface, as well as how to embed scripts in a Jenkins CICD pipeline. We’ll show how to use Visual Studio Code Zowe extensions to work with JCL, REXX and TSO to drive z/OS, as well as how to write, compile, and debug COBOL and Java CICS programs. We’ll show how to use VS Code tasks to integrate with CLI scripts. We’ll show how to use the Visual Studio Code Zowe CICS Explorer plugin to connect to CICS regions, to view resources and perform actions like newcopy, enable/disable, and perform development tasks without needing to use CEMT or other CICS interfaces. We’ll show how to develop CICS programs with BMS maps, CICS programs with web services, and CICS Java programs, all using Visual Studio Code Zowe extensions. This presentation has content for experienced CICS developers and system programmers, as well as newcomers who want to learn how to interact with CICS through a CLI and through Visual Studio Code. This presentation will also cover interacting with Db2, MQ and other subsystems that make up a CICS program’s technology stack.

4-5 pm

Navigating the Minefield: Diversity Tips for White Males – Misty Decker (Micro Focus) Does diversity make you a little nervous? Do you worry about giving someone a compliment or asking about their culture for fear of offending them? You know that tech needs to be more diverse and you want to be sensitive to your diverse colleagues’ feelings, but how do you do that? In this open and honest conversation, we’ll share tips for white males hoping to support their diverse colleagues without offending.

Thursday, August 25:

8-9 am

Mentors Wanted: The Role of White Males in Improving Diversity and Inclusion – Misty Decker and Derek Britton (Micro Focus) Does it seem as though white males are often relegated to the sidelines of diversity efforts? It’s unclear what role they can play in improving the diversity and inclusion of their organizations. When it comes to mentors, most people tend to connect with someone like them. But white males can provide very valuable advice and support for women and people of color, if delivered appropriately. In this session, Misty Decker (mentee) and Derek Britton (mentor) will share lessons learned from their mentor/mentee relationship and help you learn how to explore a similar partnership in ensuring diverse talent grows and succeeds.

9:15 – 10:15 am

A Demo of Integrating Workload Automation in Automated Processes through Zowe Extensions – Domenico D’Alterio (IBM) Zowe enables the integration of Z specific workflow and actions in hybrid cloud application and processes. IBM Z Workload Scheduler extends Zowe API Mediation Layer and the Zowe CLI with a set of Workload Automation specifics that enable integration scenarios to, for example, resolve a ticket. Come and learn how IBM Z Workload Scheduler extensions of Zowe enable a real automated scenario for ticket resolution, a demo of the scenario will be showed as part of the session.

Friday, August 26:
8-9 am

Extending the Access, Personas and Use Cases for z/OS Based REST Services: Zowe Chat – Domenico D’Alterio (IBM) and Bruce Armstrong (IBM) Zowe is always evolving and adding new capabilities to extend the access, personas and use cases for z/OS interaction. 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.

8-9 am

Simplified Container Management with SUSE Rancher – Mike Friesenegger (SUSE) During this session, attendees will be introduced to SUSE Rancher and how it orchestrates Kubernetes to deliver Kubernetes-as-a-Service. Learn about Rancher components with a demo that shows the deployment and use of Rancher components running on IBM Z and LinuxONE.

9:15-10:15 am

Modernize z/OS System Management with As-a-Service Approach – Hiren Shaw (IBM) Today, z/OS day-to-day administration requires specialized z/OS System programming skills. This session talks about how z/OS Management Services Catalog revolutionizes z/OS system management with easy-to-use modern interface. We will demonstrate how you can transform the way you manage your z/OS environment with the new z/OS Management Services Catalog. Completing z/OS management tasks is now simpler than ever for early tenure system programmers. This cloud-like interface helps systems programmers of all skill levels to be self-sufficient and productive using services.

9:15 am-10:15 am

Feilong: The Open Source API for z/VM Automation – Mike Friesenegger (SUSE) Feilong is an Open Mainframe project. Come learn about the project as well as be introduced to the technical components. A demonstration will show the API in action driving z/VM functionality as well as how the API is used to provision and manage a cloud on z/VM.

9:15 – 10:15 am

Why we chose Zowe to help Advance our Mainframe Automation Initiatives – Rose Sakach (Broadcom) When tasked with enabling automation to address a series of infrastructure-group managed procedures, this technical team began investigating leveraging APIs and Curl scripts but ultimately decided to use Zowe CLI. Join this session to learn why and gain insights into how Zowe can help advance your mainframe automation initiatives.

Learn more about SHARE Columbus at the main event website here.

Making Our Strong Community Stronger Reception at SHARE (Columbus, OH)
2022-08-23 19:00 - 20:30
Are you attending SHARE Columbus on August 21-26? If you’re attending the conference in-person, we invite you to stop by the Making Our Strong Community, Stronger SHARE Columbus Reception! The event is free and open to the mainframe community. Register through your SHARE registration process here.
Join us on Tuesday, August 23 at 7 pm at SHARE (Taft A Room) for networking event to accelerate diversity, equity, and inclusion in our mainframe community. Mingle with your peers, hear others’ experiences and share your own—everyone can contribute, no matter what your role.
Several members, sponsors and speakers will be at the reception – ready to answer questions, receive feedback and learn more about you.
About Making Our Strong Community Stronger: Making our Strong Community Stronger is the first-ever initiative on diversity, equity, and inclusion in the mainframe industry. Sponsored by BMC, Broadcom Mainframe Software, IBM, Open Mainframe Project, Rocket Software, TechChannel, and VirtualZ Computing.

COBOL Programming Course Q3 Webinar
2022-08-30 09:00 - 10:00
Join the COBOL Programming Course team on Tuesday, August 30 at 9 am PT/12 pm ET. Register here.
In this session, COBOL Programming Course TSC members will be speaking with Open Mainframe Project Summer Mentee, Sainath Rao. Join us and listen to the next generation of COBOLers share and discuss the content refresh and updates done through the Summer Mentorship project. Whether you are new to COBOL or a seasoned COBOLer there is something you can take away from this new and updated COBOL Programming Course!
Register to attend this free webinar here.

Open Source Summit Europe (Dublin, Ireland + Virtual)
2022-09-13 - 2022-09-16
Open Source Summit Europe, which takes place in Dublin, Ireland is on September 13-16 and will have a virtual element.
Open Source Summit is the premier event for open source developers, technologists, and community leaders to collaborate, share information, solve problems, and gain knowledge, furthering open source innovation and ensuring a sustainable open source ecosystem. It is the gathering place for open-source code and community contributors.
Open Source Summit is a conference umbrella, composed of a collection of events covering the most important technologies, topics, and issues affecting open source today.
On Thursday, September 15 at 2-2:45 pm, Jeff Reser, Head of Solution Marketing at SUSE, will give a presentation about “How to Help the Next Generation.”
The technology skills gap is not new. Mainframe organizations are aware of the skills gap and the difficulties of attracting new talent to the mainframe because of misguided notions that it’s an outdated system. Far from being obsolete, many mainframes today are seeing increased workloads as they underpin high volume transactions in a number of industry sectors, boosted especially by the rise in customer facing online and mobile applications. Whole generations of people are “touching” the mainframe in this way without even realizing it. Open Mainframe Project aims to educate the next generation through its hands-on programs including the COBOL Programming Course, Mainframe Open Education and the Mentorship Program. In this presentation, attendees will learn more about these programs and how to can get involved. Add this to your schedule here.
Register to attend in person or virtually: https://events.linuxfoundation.org/open-source-summit-europe/register/.

IBM zDay 2022 (Virtual)
2022-09-15
Join us for IBM zDay – Global Conference to connect, learn and be inspired.
IBM Z and LinuxONE Community is hosting its signature annual virtual conference – IBM zDay 2022, bringing together over 150 industry experts and global thought leaders on AI, modernization, hybrid cloud and more! Join us on Sept 15th. This free digital event is open to everyone of all levels! No experience required!
REGISTER FOR FREE NOW: ibm.biz/ibmzday-2022

Open Mainframe Project Ambassador Sarah Julia Kriesch, a key contributor of the Linux Distribution Working Group will also be doing a panel discussion at 12 pm ET.
Explore 5 all-new content-rich learning tracks:

IBM zSYSTEMS: Build a flexible, AI-infused, sustainable business with IBM zSystems. Accelerate and scale with infrastructure that is optimized at its core to secure your enterprise.
IBM LinuxONE: Build a sustainable infrastructure with IBM LinuxONE, an enterprise-grade Linux server designed to meet the needs of mission-critical workloads in the hybrid cloud.
MODERNIZATION: Build a connected business with IBM zSystems and Cloud. Leverage APIs to extend and access applications and data, and refactor or rewrite existing application code.
COMMUNITY: Learn how our global community is shaping the digital landscape, evolving the tech industry and making the world a better place.
STUDENT 24-Hr Global Meetup: Starts Sept. 14th! Students and life-long learners from around the world will come together to advance their skills and participate in hands-on coding activities designed for all levels, including our all-new 2022 IBM zStudent Contest.

SIGN-UP TODAY: ibm.biz/ibmzday-2022

Open Mainframe Summit 2022 (Philadelphia, PA + Virtual)
2022-09-21 - 2022-09-22
Open Mainframe Project is excited to announce that Open Mainframe Summit will be an in-person event this year! Join us on September 21-22, 2022 in Philadelphia, PA. Register here: https://events.linuxfoundation.org/open-mainframe-summit/
If you missed the 2021 event, you can find a recap here. Or, you can find the all the videos available on the Open Mainframe Summit 2021 playlist on our Youtube Channel.

COBOL Programming Course Q3 Webinar (Virtual)
2022-09-27 09:00 - 10:00
Join us on Tuesday, September 27 at 9 am PT/12 pm ET for the COBOL Programming Course Q3 Webinar! Register here: https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_G2TJ5fgGQd6f9xT6VLyscA

In this session, the TSC members will be speaking with Open Mainframe Project Summer Mentee Sainath Rao. Join us and listen to the next generation of COBOLers share and discuss the content refresh and updates done through the Summer Mentorship project. Whether you are new to COBOL or a seasoned COBOLer there is something you can take away from this new and updated COBOL Programming Course!

Session Speakers:
Sudharsana Srinivasan (IBM), Mike Bauer (Broadcom), Paul Newton (IBM), Joe Winchester (IBM), Hartanto Widjaya (member of the COBOL Programming Technical Steering Committee), Sainath Rao (Open Mainframe Project 2022 Summer Mentee)

Register here: https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_G2TJ5fgGQd6f9xT6VLyscA

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.

All Things Open 2022
2022-10-30 - 2022-11-02
All Things Open 2022, which is celebrating its 10 year anniversary this year, will take place on October 30-November 2 in Raleigh, NC.
Three beliefs are at the core of what we do:

Technology will continue to increase in importance and influence as we move forward
Open Source is at the core of innovation and remains a gateway to participation and opportunity
Live events and in-person communication and dialogue will continue to increase in importance and have never been more vital

These beliefs and created events and platforms that have hosted tens of thousands from all over the world, including All Things Open, the largest open-source event on the U.S. east coast.
Submit a speaking proposal (deadline April 22): https://www.allthingsopen.org/call-for-papers-2022/
Learn more on the main event website: https://www.allthingsopen.org/.

Words Matter: The Language of Diversity, Understanding, and Acceptance (Webinar)
2022-11-16 09:00 - 10:15
Join us for our next webinar as part of the Making Our Strong Community, Stronger collaborative initiative for diversity, equity and inclusion. In this discussion on November 16 at 9-10:15 am PT/ 12-1:15 pm ET, we take an unflinching look at the role of language in our diversity, equity and inclusion efforts. We’ll see how fluid language is today and discover the importance of supporting the evolution of vocabulary to drive greater equity, inclusion and acceptance across our increasingly diverse community. Register here.
Words have power. They can connect or divide. Create friends or enemies. Without clarity and common ground, words can foster generational misunderstandings, inflicting harm and holding us back from societal, personal or cultural advancement. But words can also build the bedrock for new levels of progress, appreciation and humanity. If you doubt the power of words, ask yourself this: have you tip-toed around how to address a person or group of people for fear of “saying the wrong thing” or offending them?
Specific language conveys inclusion and “being seen” and can provide confidence in our connections with friends, family or colleagues. However, it’s easy for those not impacted by injustice or discrimination to downplay the power of words. Language drives our conscious minds but also embeds itself deeply in our unconscious where it drives how we think, feel and act—and how we treat each other.
Moderated by Dr. Gloria Chance, CEO and President of The Mousai Group, panelists include:

Alysha M. Campbell, CEO, CultureShift HR
Michael Daubman, Director Product Management, Broadcom Mainframe Software
Shahed Alqadi, Project Manager, BMC Software
Nik Harris, Director of Strategic Outreach & Engagement, Human Rights Campaign
Jane Kerzhenetseva, Delivery Manager & Inclusion Lead, Rocket Software

Our panelists will openly discuss words, phrases and concepts that have entered our collective lexicon but are being met with confusion or even hostility by some, while welcomed and celebrated by many. Where are the triggers with this new language and how can we move past what is potentially blocking progress or understanding?
We are all impacted directly and daily by words around us, in the media, entertainment, songs, conversations, books, social media, work, and so on. Outdated language coddles and amplifies the harm of racism, sexism, ageism, ableism, religious bigotry, classism and heterosexism, yet new, more inclusive language plays a critical role in the dismantling of these societal structures.
Join us for a frank (and hopefully fun) conversation. Together we can prompt learning and raise awareness while taking personal responsibility for the words we use and our willingness to be open minded and empathetic towards each other. What words come to mind when you think of new terms and concepts in the public sphere?
Register for the free webinar here: https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_grHjM17kSiykhrvgQ0GHrQ.

Open Source Finance Forum (New York, New York)
2022-12-08
Open Source in Finance Forum, hosted on December 8 in New York City, is the only conference dedicated to driving collaboration and innovation in financial services through open source software and standards. Learn more or register here.
The event brings together experts across financial services, technology, and open source to engage our community in stimulating and thought-provoking conversations about how to best (and safely) leverage open source software to solve industry challenges.
Open Mainframe Project will be on-site with a panel titled, “Trends in Enterprise Open Source.” Panelists include Alex Kim, Open Source Incubator Advocate at IBM; Misty Decker, Director, Worldwide Product Marketing, AMC Portfolio at Micro Focus; Len Santalucia, CTO at Vicom Infinity, a Converge Company; and Moderator John Mertic, Director of Program Management at the Linux Foundation.
Forward-thinking organizations no longer consider their IT infrastructure as the cost of doing business but as a competitive advantage. These organizations have various IT services and infrastructure, from SaaS services, cloud-native applications, edge computing, and even mainframe. This hybrid infrastructure isn’t an easy out-of-the-box solution. However, the ability to tailor it to their business needs enables them to create better customer experiences and engagement. In this panel, global IT leaders will share how they view and use open source projects including benefits, perceived barriers and strategies that can be applied to your organization. Add this session to your schedule here.
Learn more about the conference or to register for it, visit the main event website: https://events.linuxfoundation.org/open-source-finance-forum-new-york/

COBOL Programming Course - Meet the Community of Learners! (Webinar)
2022-12-12 09:00 - 10:00
As we bring 2022 to a close, the COBOL Programming Course team would like to showcase our amazing learner community. We are always pleasantly surprised by the continued interest in COBOL learning content and are super thankful for this amazing learner community that has helped us by sharing valuable insights, inputs and direction to the course. You don’t want to miss this session – Your one opportunity to hear from some of our amazing learners as they share their learning journeys!
Register here.
Speakers include:

Michael Bauer, Broadcom
Sudharsana Srinivasan, IBM
Hartanto Widijaya, COBOL Programming Course Community Member
Paul Newton, IBM
Joe Winchester, IBM
Elizabeth Joseph, IBM
Tiiso Senosha, Mainframe Open Education member
Janos Varga, Community Member

Move from Modernization Confusion to Modernization Clarity (Webinar)
2022-12-14 08:00 - 09:00
Join Forrester, Micro Focus, and Open Mainframe Project on Wednesday, December 14 at 8-9 am PST for a free webinar titled “Move from Modernization Confusion to Modernization Clarity.” Register here.
Depending on who you ask, you’ll get very different definitions of the word “Modernization” and those different definitions are causing unnecessary confusion. The Open Mainframe Project is working with the broader mainframe and cloud ecosystems to create a shared understanding of modernization options, from modernizing in place to moving to the cloud.
Come learn about the new Modernization Working Group of the Open Mainframe Project, where we will create “open-source thought leadership” and a repository of vendor-agnostic modernization information. We’ll also describe where you can find free modernization education, adding to your own modernization knowledge and credentials.
Speakers include:

Brent Ellis, Senior Analyst at Forrester
Misty Decker, Director of Worldwide AMC Product Marketing at Micro Focus

Register for the free webinar 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.

LFX Mentorship Showcase (Virtual)
2023-01-18 - 2023-01-19
The LFX Mentorship Showcase is an opportunity for graduating mentees of the LFX Mentorship program to showcase the work they completed during their session term. Register for the event here.
This virtual event is free to attend and open to anyone who would like to learn more about the experiences of LF Mentorship Program mentees, find out more about some of the programs our projects are working on, recruit new talent, and support new developer contributions.
Open Mainframe Project 2022 Mainframe Open Education Mentee Tisso Senosha, a student at University of Johannesburg, will give a presentation on Wednesday, January 18 at 9:20-9:30 am EST.
The Mainframe Open Education Project provides students with the resources to learn foundational mainframe skills. As a reviewer, contributor and advisor to the project, Tiiso upskilled himself, influenced how he wants to learn mainframe skills, curated content for the project’s GitBook, and built a student user group that he continues to lead. He also created awareness of the project in the student community. My mentor made it easy to adapt to the core team’s style of work and be able to make an impact. It was fun experience that helped me grow and discover my passion. Lauren Valenti and I met bi-weekly to discuss how far we are in reaching the targets set for me and have a coaching session too. I focused on reviewing the educational content on the Gitbook and acquire more knowledge. However, I took the Mainframe Security Administrator learning path on Interskill. From my mentorship, I learned team-work, leadership skills, content curation, improved my communication skills and found best ways to deliver educational content. It is more about being creative, promoting the project on social media and at different universities, writing blog posts and organising virtual events. Add it to your schedule here.
Learn more about the presentations or register for the event on the main event website here: https://events.linuxfoundation.org/lfx-mentorship-showcase/.

FOSDEM (Brussels)
2023-02-04 - 2023-02-05
FOSDEM , held in Brussels on February 4-5, is a free event for software developers to meet, share ideas and collaborate.More than 8000+ developers of free and open source software from all over the world gather at the event for more than 755 lectures, devrooms and lightning talks. Learn more about FOSDEM on the main conference website here.
Sarah Julia Kriesch, Open Mainframe Project Ambassador and Chair of the Linux Distributions Working Group, will be on-site on Sunday, February 5 at 11 am with a session titled, “Upstream Collaboration and Linux Distributions Collaboration – Is that excluded? The Linux Distributions Working Group @ The Open Mainframe Project.”
Debian, openSUSE and Fedora have founded together the Linux Distributions Working Group at the Open Mainframe Project for achieving better support for the mainframe architecture s390x and collaboration for providing solutions. That has been such success, that SUSE, Red Hat, Canonical (Ubuntu), AlmaLinux and Rocky Linux have joint also. The question has poppeed up, whether we should be restrictly open only for all Linux Distributions or should we include also important upstream projects in our Linux Distributions Working Group. In this presentation we will represent the existing benetif for all Linux distributions and go into detail, which (base) upstream projects should be included/invited and why. Finally, we want to receive feedback during the Q&A session with a discussion, how we should proceed with this idea. Learn more here: https://fosdem.org/2023/schedule/event/open_mainframe_project/.
Register or learn more about FOSDEM here.

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

COBOL Q1 Webinar (COBOL Course & COBOL Check - Integration)
2023-03-22 09:30 - 10:30
Topic: COBOL Course and COBOL Check – Integration
NOTE: Date changed.
Join the COBOL Programming Course team on March 22 at 9:30-10:30 am PDT (12:30-1:30 pm EDT) as we kick off 2023 with an exciting session with our Open Mainframe sister project – COBOL Check. Rune Christensen, Lead Software Developer at Bankdata, and Dave Nicolette, Chair of COBOL Check, will share updates and together we will explore opportunities to integrate the project into the course.

It is part of the COBOL Programming Course strategic Roadmap to bring in debug and testing – this presents an exciting opportunity to give our learner community that end-to-end developer experience. Don’t miss this opportunity to learn first-hand from the creators of COBOL Check!!!
Register for the free webinar here.

Open Source Summit North America (Vancouver, Canada + Virtual)
2023-05-10 - 2023-05-12
Open Source Summit is the premier event for open source developers, technologists, and community leaders to collaborate, share information, solve problems, and gain knowledge, furthering open source innovation and ensuring a sustainable open source ecosystem. It is the gathering place for open-source code and community contributors. Join us for the Open Source Summit North America, hosted in Vancouver, Canada, and virtually on May 10-12.
John Mertic, Executive Director for Open Mainframe Project, and Cynthia Coupe, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Specialist, co-chairs for SDDI (Software Developer Diversity and Inclusion (SDDI) project will be on-site to give an overview of the project.
On Wednesday, May 10 at 12:05-12:45 pm PDT, join the session titled “Lean in: Software Developer Diversity and Inclusion Project“
“Openness” has always been a core principle in open source. It’s designed to grant everyone with the ability to use, update and distribute source code for any purpose. Unfortunately, open doesn’t always mean everyone feels welcome. Like the broader tech industry, open source has a diversity problem. Though anyone and everyone is welcome to contribute – many under-represented groups like women, minorities, parents, non-technical contributors, members of the LGBTQ+ and more have shared stories of the challenges they’ve faced in open source communities. The Linux Foundation believes that people of vastly different backgrounds, nationalities, orientations, and identities create stronger communities that produce better outcomes and more robust technologies. Re-launched earlier this year, the Software Developer Diversity and Inclusion (SDDI) project is dedicated to improving this. The mission of SDDI is to discover, evaluate, and promote best practices from research and industry to increase diversity and inclusion in software engineering. In this session, attendees will learn more about SDDI, its goals and how to get involved. Add this to your schedule here.
On Thursday, May 11 at 11 -11:40 am PDT, join the session titled, “Hidden Differences: How to be Inclusive When you Don’t Know – Cynthia Coupe, OARS
Workplaces and managers are being asked to be all inclusive for their workers, but what does this mean? How can you be inclusive if you don’t know there is a difference? Sometimes we have employees who don’t even know they are neurodivergent, so how do we navigate this in the workplace to be inclusive of all people, whether or not their differences are hidden, known or unknown? How can we create an environment where everyone is supported if we don’t even know what who or what we are supporting?
This presentation will address these issues and provide some guidance as to how to make an inclusive workplace, what inclusive attitudes are and why this is important for everyone. Add this to your schedule here.
On Thursday, May 11 at 2:55-3:35 pm PDT, join the session titled, “Squashing Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Bugs in Open Source Projects: How to Find and Resolve Common “DEI Bugs” – Georg Link, SDDI member and Direct of Sales at Bitergia

Open source software projects are hyper-collaborative environments but surveys reveal that project members lack diversity. There are many reasons why open source projects appear uninviting to people of underrepresented groups. We would consider these reasons “bugs” if the system was software. This talk uses the idea of DEI bugs to discuss how we can identify where open source projects fall short in being inviting and inclusive. The goal of this framing is to find ways to squash these bugs and bring out the potential of everyone who has an interest in our open source projects. A concrete suggestion is to walk in the shoes of others and take a fresh look at your project. The audience will learn actionable steps to take a new look at their own open source projects and start making a positive difference. This revised talk adds a discussion of common DEI bugs, where they come from, and how we can resolve them. [notes to program committee:] We revised this talk based on feedback that the talk could be improved with more examples and guidance. We walk faster through the steps of identifying DEI bugs and added a discussion of common DEI bugs, based on peer-reviewed research. Add this to your schedule here.

To register for the conference or learn more about the schedule, visit the main Open Source Summit North America website here.

Mainframe Modernization Summit (Virtual)
2023-05-11
Experts in both cloud and mainframe applications come together at the first Mainframe Modernization Summit on May 11. This is the only event of its kind where you can explore the full range of possibilities for modernizing your mainframe applications.

This year’s Summit explores the options for your mainframe applications. While they were born on the mainframe, what does their future look like in a cloud world? There is a range of options from staying on the mainframe to going cloud-native.
We’ll learn from industry leaders, gain valuable insights, and discover best practices that you can apply to your organization.
Open Mainframe Project will be represented in a strategic panel at the Summit. Please see below for details.
Strategic Panel: Understanding the Mainframe Modernization Movement (9:45 am – 10:15 pm PDT//11:45 am – 12:15 pm CDT)
What is mainframe modernization and why has it been getting so much attention in recent years? Industry thought leaders will explore the answers to those questions and much more in this strategic panel.
Speakers:

Register or learn more about the event at the main event website here. #MainframeMod23

Fostering Inclusive Work Environments for the LGBTQIA+ Community (Webinar)
2023-05-17 09:00 - 10:00
The LGBTQIA+ community is a vital part of not just the technology ecosystem, but the world as a whole. On May 17 at 9-10 am PDT (12-1 pm EDT), in the next session of the Making Our Strong Community Stronger collaborative initiative, national DEI consultant Jess Pettitt will moderate a thoughtful conversation with panelists about the importance of community, self-expression, and relationship-building in creating safe spaces for LGBTQIA+ individuals, along with the impact of popular cultural polarization. Register for the webinar here.
This webinar’s panelists include:

Debbie Schildkraut, Founder/President, Kestin Impact Consulting
Dan Brown, Head of Communications, LF Energy
Michelle Hébert, Enablement Manager – Data Services, Applied Systems
Larry Cook, Global Event Manager, Broadcom Mainframe Software

Check out other Marking Our Strong Community Stronger videos here. Join our LinkedIn community here.
