cdCON 2021
2021-06-23 - 2021-06-24
Open Mainframe Project will be participating in cdCON, a virtual event on June 23-24, for the first time this year with two presentations.
On Wednesday, June 23 at 7:45-8:15 am PST (10:45 – 11:15 am EST), Broadcom’s Daniel Kelosky, Software Architect, and Michael Bauer, Product Owner will give a presentation titled, “Mainframe DevOps and Modernization.” Add this to your schedule here.
This presentation will show traditional mainframe development practices and interfaces and how the practices and interfaces can be modernized with Open Mainframe Project’s Zowe framework. The session will be in the context of C and assembler language software development for z/OS, but the concepts apply to other language development for mainframe, like PL/1 or COBOL.
On Wednesday, June 23 at 11:30 am – 12 pm PST (8:30 – 9 am EST), John Mertic, Director of Program Management at the Linux Foundation, and Sudharsana Srinivasan, Program Manager at IBM, will lead a session titled, “Back to the Future with COBOL.” Add this to your schedule here.
Mainframe applications are the lifeblood of the global economy. COBOL is the lifeblood of those applications. Yet few people realise or acknowledge the profound impact the COBOL language has had over its 60 year history. Showcasing a brand new OMP Working Group, this session reveals COBOL’s secret history and the efforts of OMP and others to bring COBOL’s value to the public eye. The session will cover – 1. COBOL’s enduring value – how it stood the test of time 2. Recent trends to demonstrate COBOL’s ongoing popularity 3. The work of the OMP in promoting COBOL.
Open Mainframe Project is a proud sponsor of cdCON. To learn more about the conference or to register for it, visit the cdCON main event site: https://events.linuxfoundation.org/cdcon/

Zowe Quarterly Update - July 2021
2021-07-21 08:30 - 09:30 (America/Los_Angeles)
Whether you are a Zowe User, Contributor, Extender or simply interested in what’s happening with Zowe – we invite you to the next Quarterly Update Webinar on July 21 at 8:30 am PT /11:30 am ET (US and Canada). This is the fourth in the series of webinars we plan to host each quarter that includes a topic, Zowe Squad update, brief Zowe update, community events overview and interactive polls.
In this session, you’ll learn more about the Zowe Explorer Team Configuration. Register today for this webinar: https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_8-Ktj-0NQYeA1RGXA-dhXQ.
Zowe Explorer is adopting the Team Configuration File (recently developed by the Zowe CLI Squad) – designed to make profile management more centralized and much simpler. In this webinar, you’ll learn more details about the configuration, how users can try it and ask questions.
Speaker: Jessielaine (Jelly) Punongbayan, Product Owner at Broadcom and the Lead for Zowe Explorer Squad and an Open Mainframe Project Ambassador. Jessielaine is a modern mainframe engineer who has experience in both mainframe and distributed systems. She is passionate in finding new solutions to modernize mainframe and share it with the community through her blogs and video tutorials. She is a committer for Zowe Explorer, Zowe CLI and Zowe Mobile Application. Additionally, she is also part of the TSC for Open Mainframe Project COBOL Programming Course and a member of the COBOL Working Group.

Unmasking Our 'Whole Self': Can We Create Inclusive Psychologically Safe Spaces in the Workplace?’ Webinar
2021-07-28 09:00 - 10:00
In the third webinar installation of the Making Our Strong Community, Stronger collaborative initiative on diversity, equity and inclusion, ‘Unmasking Our ‘Whole Self’: Can We Create Inclusive Psychologically Safe Spaces in the Workplace?’ we look at how the pressures of the pandemic have heightened racial, gender and additional inequalities.
Register for the July 28 webinar at 9 am PDT/12 pm EDT here: https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_9lBJWkNzSpChfbUQoa8n3w.
Work/life integration is the modern equivalent of work/life balance, and inherent in this is the idea that your “whole self” is welcome at work. As the last many months demonstrated, there is less separation between work and personal lives than we originally thought. But this idea of work/life integration and its influence on corporate inclusion plays out differently for different people, when being your “whole self” is a privilege—while some may be comfortable being their genuine “whole self” at work, others (especially those from more diverse populations) still feel a need to wear a mask based on how they are expected to behave but not who they really are. How can we create psychologically safe spaces where all employees feel comfortable bringing their “whole selves” or more of themselves to work? Panelists for this webinar include:

Allyson B. Cook, Program Lead, Customer Engagement Programs, Broadcom
Earl Dixon Jr., Principal Client Services, Vitality Program Tech Lead, Broadcom
Kevin Norlin, Chief Revenue Officer, Rocket Software
Tina Tarquinio, Product Management Director for IBM Z, IBM

We are also pleased to host a unique event after the webinar for attendees only: Dr. Gloria Chance, our webinar moderator and President/CEO of The Mousai Group, will hold a private Town Hall on July 29 at 9-10 am PDT for attendees to join the conversation, bringing their own experiences and questions into this growing DE&I community.
The Making Our Strong Community, Stronger collaborative initiative is sponsored by Broadcom Mainframe Software, IBM, Open Mainframe Project, Rocket Software, TechChannel and VirtualZ Computing.

Zowe 1.23 Live System Demo
2021-08-04 06:00 - 07:00
Open Mainframe Project is excited to announce that Zowe 1.23 release is now available! OnAugust 4 at 6-7 am PST/ 9-10 am EST, Zowe squads will share the new benefits of the release as well as live demos to see these features in action.

What: Live Zowe Demos and Q&A
When: Wednesday, August 4 at 6-7 am PST/9-10 am EST
Where: https://zoom.us/j/94784372343
Add to your calendar: https://lists.openmainframeproject.org/g/zowe-dev/viewevent?eventid=1205575&calstart=2021-08-04

This is a great way to not only see the new features and enhancements, but to ask questions to the teams who work on Zowe and give them input that will help shape future release items. Key 1.23 features include API Mediation Layer authentication based load balancing, improvements to the Docker and High Availability tech previews, allowing the Zowe cLI to filter data sets by volume serial number, and for the Zowe Explorer a number of enhancements for refreshing UI content and an improved developer guide.

Check out the last few demo presentations here:

Zowe 1.22 Release Highlights and Demo Video
Zowe 1.21 Release Highlights and Demo Video

SHARE Virtual
2021-08-09 - 2021-08-13
The SHARE virtual conference (#SHAREvirtual21) is hosting its summer session on August 9-13. There will be more than 100 live sessions and 100 on-demand presentations focused on a variety of topics related to mainframes. Several Open Mainframe Project community leaders will be speaking at the event about Zowe, COBOL and other topics. Take a look at the details below and add these sessions to your schedule.
Monday, August 9:
12 – 12:45 pm: How Zowe made the mainframe open, simple and familiar – Joe Winchester, IBM
The Zowe project launched at Share in August 2019, will be two years old this month ! This talk will cover how the project has grown up to where it is today, with its core components, its incubators, its community, and its customers. The focus will be on how Zowe has been deployed as infrastructure for education classes, at customer sites for automating system operations and devops tasks, by developers learning VS Code rather than ISPF, and by vendors modernizing their mainframe software tools by onboarding them within the Zowe technology stack. Attendees to this talk will get to hear real world examples of where Zowe has been a success, together with where it didn’t meet customer needs but was able to evolve and add missing or new features. Speakers include a customer, and a student who has done Master the Mainframe before and after Zowe.
1:15 – 1:35 pm: What’s new with Zowe CLI? – Rose Sakach and Michael Bauer, Broadcom
Join us for a review of some key CLI features planned for the Zowe V2 LTS release. From converting to the new profile configuration offering easier onboarding for CLI users, to nearly instantaneous response time for interactive commands, we will include the value-add details and help prepare you on how best to take advantage of each of them.
1:40 – 2 pm: Configuring Zowe CLI with new team configuration – Eugene Johnston, Broadcom
The Zowe Team Configuration replaces the current method of defining application profile properties. The goal is to enable team members to easily share their configuration. We will discuss how this changes the way users configure Zowe-CLI.
Tuesday, August 10:
10 – 10:30 am: Colleagues in Corvettes Getting Cappuccinos – Greg Lotko, Broadcom
Join us for a fun-filled session and learn about some of the latest mainframe trends and best practices.
10:45 – 11:05 am: Top 5 (and more) reasons customers modernize with Zowe’s API mediation layer – Rose Sakach and Michal Supak, Broadcom
Do not miss this session if you are beyond experimenting with Zowe. We will describe the critical role of the API Mediation layer and share some tips and tricks for installation.
11:10 – 11:30 am: Using a Zowe CLI plugin to manage mainframe developer workspaces – Vaughn Marshall and Michael Vasak, Broadcom
Modern developer workflows involve coding in a working directory, typically opened in an IDE. Using CLI’s like Git, they are able to easily sync and integrate changes from other developers via a single command. No tracking what you’ve changed or where conflicts lie hidden in the central repo. In this session we’ll see how we constructed a similar experience for mainframe developers using a Zowe CLI plugin.
11:45 am – 12:05 pm: DIY Zowe Explorer Starter Kit – Jessielaine Caidic Punongbayan and Richelle Anne Craw – Broadcom

o you want to build a mainframe VS Code extension but don’t know where to begin? Good news! We have just what you need to get you started. In this session we will talk about building VS Code extensions using Zowe Explorer extensible APIs. We will share code samples, tips and tricks and best practices so that you don’t have to start from scratch. We will also discuss what you need to keep in mind while building, in order to be compatible with the Zowe Explorer conformance criteria.

Wednesday, August 11:
12:45 – 1:30 pm: Do you really understand mainframe modernization? – Ed Airey and Misty Decker, Micro Focus
The phrase Modernization has been used frequently in the last year, but do you really understand what Modernization means when it comes to Mainframes? Does it mean moving off of the mainframe or rewriting COBOL applications in Java? Modernization means many things to many people and differs based on the requirements and the desired outcome. Today’s demands require mainframe applications to do more for the business—connect, share, integrate and secure—across networks, devices, platforms and the cloud. All while running the business and keeping the lights on. These mammoth mainframe systems aren’t going away either. Rather than a re-write or replacement strategy which is prone to cost overruns and risk of failure, IT leaders are looking to modernization as a pragmatic path to achieve IT transformation. During this session, we will: • introduce a new mind-set to mainframe modernization including how to re-think digital change for IBM Z applications. • Share the research into the effectiveness of various techniques. • explore how your organization can get started quickly along this modernization journey by leveraging best practices, proven technology and choosing the best modernization technique for your unique situation.
3:45 – 4:30 pm: Avoid unconscious bias to become a better professional – Misty Decker, Micro Focus
What does unconscious bias have to do with being an ally? In this session, we’ll explore this question and in the process learn something about ourselves. We’ll start with a revealing riddle and an exploration of unconscious bias, learning how we all have biases. Then we’ll discuss what it means to be an ally, including specific actions you can take to help others. Finally we’ll explore how an awareness of our own biases is essential to being an ally.
3:45 – 4:30 pm: What’s new in cloud provisioning and management with continuous delivery – Hiren Shah, IBM
Cloud Provisioning and Management for z/OS allows middleware system programmers to create software service templates that provision IBM® middleware, such as IBM Customer Information Control System (CICS®), IBM DB2®, IBM Information Management System (IMS™), IBM MQ, and IBM WebSphere Application Server (WAS). System programmers can track software instances that were provisioned from those templates. Application developers can quickly provision and deprovision an environment as needed through a self-service software services marketplace. In this session we will go over new enhancements provided in Cloud Provisioning and Management with continuous delivery stream.
Friday, August 13:
11 – 11:45 am: Shh! Don’t say the M-word; How to talk about mainframes – Misty Decker, Micro Focus
To the non-mainframer, the word “Mainframe” comes with lots of assumptions, usually not complimentary. In this session, we’ll explore the word “Mainframe”. – Explore the wide range of ways people use the word “mainframe” and the confusion that can ensue. – Learn how you can explain what you do in a way anyone can understand. – Learn how to convince people mainframes are cool with just a few words.
Register for the SHARE conference here: https://www.share.org/Events/SHARE-Virtual-Experience/Registration.

Code PaLOUsa 2021
2021-08-18 - 2021-08-20
Codepalousa is a multi-day software development conference designed to cover all aspects of software development regardless of technology stack. The conference features presentations from well-known professionals in the software development community and virtual booths where leading software development companies come to interact with attendees to show off their latest wares. Open Mainframe Project Ambassadors Joe Winchester, Jessielaine Punongbayan, Richelle Anne Craw as well as John Mertic, Open Mainframe Project Director, will be presenting several sessions including:
Joe Winchester, Wowee it’s Zowe – how the mainframe got its groove again – Thursday, August 19 at 8:30 am EDT
The mainframe is often viewed as a legacy 65 year old computing platform operated by grey (or zero) haired developers typing 8 letter commands into green screens. This talk myth busts that stereotype and discusses the growth of the mainframe in today’s hybrid computing world, especially around the Linux Foundation’s Zowe project. This provides a command line interface, a VS Code extension, academic initiative training courses, and is a bridge to modern tech stacks around Jenkins, Node.js, Swift, Golang and more. https://www.codepalousa.com/Sessions/1983
Jessielaine Punongbayan and Richelle Anne Craw: VS Code for Green Screen Developers. Thursday August 19th 9:45am EST
Mainframe modernization is an unavoidable topic for every developer these days, whether your tool is the traditional green screen or another IDE. How does the coding experience differ between the two? In this session, we will showcase a side-by-side comparison on these development environments, based on our experience using both. We will also dig into what the different mainframe VSCode extensions are, how to take advantage of automation in VS Code, and how to integrate product-specific components and other open source tools in the developer workflow. https://www.codepalousa.com/Sessions/1997
Jessielaine Punongbayan and Richelle Anne Craw: COBOL Coding in the Cloud. Friday August 20th 8:30am EST
How do you imagine coding in COBOL? Join this session as we give you a glimpse of our day as COBOL developers working with Eclipse Che4z, a mainframe development tool that blurs the lines between mainframe and distributed environments. Come and hear about the tips and tricks we learned first-hand; the technologies involved; and the challenges we experienced, switching from traditional green screen development to Cloud IDEs. We will discuss the benefits of using a cloud managed mainframe stack and how quickly we can provision our development environment and get started with team collaboration. https://www.codepalousa.com/Sessions/2049
John Mertic and Joe Winchester: Who said you can’t teach an old dog new tricks? – Friday, August 20 at 9:45 am EST
The Mainframe computer is over 65 years old, and has a dual personality of either being viewed as a proprietary thing of the past or else a hidden closed locked down machine as espoused in Hollywood movie plots. The truth is neither, and a huge amount of mainframe computing workload today comes from open source tooling. This talks show the use of Linux Foundation tools, especially Zowe, Jenkins, modern tools such as VS Code, IntelliJ, modern languages like Node.js, Java, Swift, Golang, and more. A lot of the mainframe’s growth comes not from tech, but from its ability to build communities and academic learning initiatives. From what was once a platform businesses were leaving due to stagnation, this talk shows the turnaround and the important lessons to be learned that apply to any technology wishing to survive beyond its 50th birthday. https://www.codepalousa.com/Sessions/2061
Learn more about the conference or register for it here: https://www.codepalousa.com/Default.aspx

I am a Mainframer: Personal Stories and Lessons from the Next Generation of Mainframe Developers
2021-08-18 08:00 - 09:00
Join us on Wednesday, August 18 at 8-9 am PDT for a new webinar that explores “Personal Stories and lessons from the next generation of mainframe Developers.”
Five open source mainframe developers will share their personal journey into the mainframe, covering what they’re working on, the challenges and issues (good and bad) and their experiences with customers, the open source community, and more.
One of the challenges of open source and projects like Zowe is how it can reinvent a 60 year old computing platform for the next generation of developers and system programmers and architects at tomorrow’s IT companies.
This webinar will shine the light on four key Open Mainframe community members who are playing their part and open the lid on their successes, failures, and questions and answers for the secret sauce that is powering Zowe and other Open Mainframe Projects they are involved with. The success of Zowe and the Open Mainframe Project comes in large part from the diversity and background of its committers, and this panel brings together a group that includes the Zowe Technical Steering Committee lead together with squad members from different companies.
Speakers include:

Joe Winchester, Senior Technical Staff Member at IBM (Moderator)
Jakub Balhar, Staff Software Engineer at Broadcom and Zowe TSC Chair
Lauren Li, Front-End Developer at IBM
Leanid Astrakou, Staff Software Engineer at Rocket
Leonid Baranov, Staff Software Engineer at Broadcom
Ashley (Nan Nan) Li, Content Designer at IBM

Register for the webinar here: https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_XxwiPaFtRreDN1aONdQa_A.

IBM Z Day 2021 (Virtual)
2021-09-15
IBM Z Day, which takes place on September 15, is a free virtual Enterprise Computing conference with a lineup of more than 100+ global thought leaders that will highlight industry trends and innovation. Last year, IBM Z Day had more than 12,000 registrants from more than 96 countries.
Attendees will:

Engage with 100+ thought leaders & subject matter experts who share their expertise and first-hand knowledge, with live Q&A at the end of each session
Participate in the 24-hour Global Student Meetup
Learn how IBM Z is embracing open technologies, fueling digital transformation and designed to operate at the core of the hybrid cloud world
Get free in-depth training on everything IBM Z & LinuxONE – industry-leading security, open source capable, always available platform
Hear from IBM clients & startups who are innovating & disrupting the digital era with IBM Z
Connect with local IBM Z communities and the global IBM Z and LinuxONE community

Keynotes include:

Ross Mauri, GM, IBM Z and LinuxONE
Barry Baker, VP Product Management, IBM Z and LinuxONE
Willie Tejada, GM ISV/Build Ecosystem and Chief Developer Advocate, IBM Cloud and Cognitive
Marius Ciortea, Chief Community Officer, IBM Cloud and Cognitive
Meredith Stowell, VP, IBM Z Ecosystem

For more info and to register, check out: ibmzday.bemyapp.com/2021

ConsoleZ - Access z/VM consoles and more from a Web UI (Webinar)
2021-09-21 09:00 - 10:00
Join the Open Mainframe Project community on Tuesday, September 21 at 9 -10 am PDT for a webinar about ConsoleZ. Register here.
ConsoleZ is an open source package that gives browser access to z/VM consoles and CP commands, while also being able to limit access by groups. Hosted by the Open Mainframe Project, it can save time when teams need access to multiple z/VM LPARs.
Rather than having to open many 3270 console sessions, Mike MacIsaac, the leader of ConsoleZ and a Systems Programmer at ADP, will present will show how all z/VM LPARs can be accessed through the same Web user interface and how easy it is to data mine.
Attendees will learn:

How ConsoleZ strives to modernize Linux on Z by offering a new open source tool for z/VM and zLinux.
How it can save more time and resources
How ConsoleZ is secure, efficient and has a better user interface

Register for the webinar: https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_39KvlhDOQ5mVNn_5BEIccw

Open Mainframe Summit 2021
2021-09-22 - 2021-09-23
Open Mainframe Summit is back for 2021! Join us virtually on September 22-23 for the second annual event that brings open source, mainframe and technology developers, students and thought leaders together.
Go to the Open Mainframe Summit main conference page to check out sponsorship opportunities: https://events.linuxfoundation.org/open-mainframe-summit/.

Open Source Summit/Embedded Linux Conference (Seattle, Washington + Virtual)
2021-09-27 - 2021-09-30
Open Source Summit and Embedded Linux Conference will be held on-site in Seattle, Washington as well as virtually on September 27-30. It is the leading conference for developers, architects and other technologists – as well as open source community and industry leaders – to collaborate, share information, learn about the latest technologies and gain a competitive advantage by using innovative open solutions. To learn more about the event, which is co-located with Open Source Summit, or to register for it, please go to the main Embedded Linux Conference website here.
Open Mainframe will be have a virtual booth at the event – look for that online. Additionally, Open Mainframe participants from the Mentorship Program will be giving a presentation.
Wednesday, September 29 at 11:30 – 12:20 pm PDT:
Modernizing Code Older than You Are: One Student Takes a COBOL Bank App to Hybrid Cloud – Sudhanshu Dubey, Open Mainframe Project Summer Mentee and student from Guru Nanak Dev Engineering College; and Misty Decker, Contributor of Open Mainframe Project’s COBOL Working Group and Product Marketing Manager from Micro Focus
Billions of lines of COBOL are still running the core IT of thousands of companies but those applications have largely been left out of modern advances in IT. Misty Decker will introduce the Open Mainframe Project’s COBOL Working Group and how they are working to address COBOL skills and modernization of legacy core applications. As part of the Open Mainframe Project’s mentorship program, student Sudhanshu Dubey demonstrated the options for modernizing an existing COBOL application to address the business needs and prove the future possibilities. Sudhanshu will demonstrate how he:

Ran analysis tools on a monolithic banking core application
Identified key services that could be externalized
Ran the application in a hybrid cloud environment
Modernized the user experience COBOL can be a part of modern hybrid cloud environments.

Add this to your schedule here.
Open Mainframe Project is a Bronze sponsor of the event. To register or learn more about event, visit the main Embedded Linux Conference website.

Zowe Quarterly Update (October 2021 Webinar)
2021-10-20 08:30 - 09:30
Whether you are a Zowe User, Contributor, Extender or simply interested in what’s happening with Zowe – we invite you to the next Quarterly Update Webinar on Wednesday, October 20 at 8:30 am PT /11:30 am ET (US and Canada). Register for this webinar here.
The Zowe Community is currently planning a Zowe V2 LTS (Long Term Support) release delivery in Q1 2022. Join this webinar to learn what’s planned for the release, overall release cadence and timing going forward, and the impact to the conformance program.
Register here today.

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.

IBM Community Festival
2021-11-08 - 2021-11-17
Open Mainframe Project member IBM is hosting an inaugural IBM Community Festival 2021, which takes place on November 8-17.
This five-day festival will have days dedicated to user groups, the IBM Loyalty program, IBM experts, and our Cloud Without Compromise program with an opening keynote presentation by Rob Thomas, Senior Vice President of IBM Global Markets.
Len Santalucia, Open Mainframe Project Governing Board Chair and CTO of Vicom Infinity, will be giving a presentation about Open Source on the mainframe on November 10 at 8:30-9:30 am PST/ 11:30 am – 12:30 am EST. He’ll be joined by Andy Youens, Managing Director of Formaserve, and Phil Allison, Enterprise Architect at Black Knight Inc.
Open Source Meets IBM Systems
Bring your questions for this panel of IBM Champions who have been supporting, contributing to, and implementing open source on two of IBM’s key platforms: IBM i and IBM Z. The panel will feature Andy Youens, Managing Director of FormaServe in the UK; Phil Allison, Enterprise Architect at Black Knight Inc in the USA, who has been working with Ansible on IBM Z; and Len Santalucia, CTO at IBM Z Platinum Business Partner Vicom Infinity, A Converge Company, and Governing Board Chair of the Linux Foundation Open Mainframe Project. They will share their experiences and provide insights you will certainly find valuable in your discussions with clients and colleagues.
Learn more or register for the event here.

Open Source Strategy Forum (New York)
2021-11-10
Open Source Strategy Forum (OSSF), hosted in New York on November 10, is the only conference dedicated to driving collaboration and innovation in financial services through open source software and standards. 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.
On November 10 from 12:10-12:40 pm EDT, John Mertic, Director of Program Management at the Linux Foundation, and Len Santalucia, CTO at Vicom Infinity and Chair of the Open Mainframe Project Governing Board, will give a presentation about the “Next Generation of Mainframers.”
In this session, leaders from Open Mainframe Project will present how they are helping to train the next generation. They’ll share details about the skills gaps, open source on the mainframe and offer resources, best practices and advice for developers looking to join the industry. Add it to your schedule here.
To register for the event or to check out the complete schedule, visit the main Open Source Strategy Forum website: https://events.linuxfoundation.org/open-source-strategy-forum-new-york/register/.

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.

LFX Mentorship Showcase
2022-01-12
The LFX Mentorship Showcase, hosted online on January 12, is an opportunity for graduating mentees of the LFX Mentorship program to showcase the work they completed during their session term. Learn more about the 29 graduated mentees of the Linux Kernel, Cloud Native Computing Foundation, Open Mainframe Project, RISC-V, Hyperledger, and LF Networking mentorship programs as they share the specific projects they worked on during their mentorship, highlighting the contributions they made. Visit the main event page to learn more or register: https://events.linuxfoundation.org/lfx-mentorship-showcase/.
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 is excited to announce that two graduate mentees will be featured in this showcase – Hartanto Ario Widjaya, a student at the Singapore Management University and mentee of the COBOL Programming Course, and Sudhanshu Dubey, an Application Development Associate at Accenture and mentee of the OBOL Working Group. Please see their presentation description and times below and add it to your schedule.
COBOL: Now and Tomorrow, Hartanto Ario Widjaya
10:05 – 10:15 pm EST
https://sched.co/tRX6
During the Open Mainframe Project Mentorship Program, Ahmed and Hartanto improved upon the materials of the COBOL Programming Course, a project set to provide free and accessible COBOL training for everyone. Amidst the needs for COBOL programmers, they help to enable the next generation of learners to add COBOL to their tech toolkit. The project community has been amazing, everyone is welcoming of us, and we get to work with various people who are happy to help us even though we are new to the field. Unlike most projects, our project is courseware-based. So we get to explore COBOL in great detail to add to the course. Furthermore, we also learned how to communicate better with each other and got exposed to mainframes, where millions of lines of COBOL code are still in operation today.
COBOL Modernization: Renovating Core IT Applications, Sudhanshu Dubey
10:29-10:39 EST
https://sched.co/tRXF
Billions of lines of COBOL are still running the core IT of thousands of companies but those applications have largely been left out of modern advances in IT. In partnership with the Open Mainframe Project, we asked student intern Sudhanshu Dubey to demonstrate the options for modernizing an existing COBOL application to address the business needs and prove the future possibilities.
During the project Sudhanshu did the following:

Ran analysis tools on a monolithic banking core application
Identified key services that could be externalized
Modernized the user experience

If a university student can do it, certainly you can too. It was a wonderful experience working with my mentors and the project community. The mentors were very welcoming and supportive. They understood that I am new to this and helped me at each step without putting too much pressure on me. Similarly, the project community helped me with everything I needed and it was fun interacting with other mentees. While working on the project I learned COBOL, CICS and the MicroFocus tools I used. Also I learned modernization techniques. We presented at a lot of places which improved my speaking and presentation skills. Add it to your schedule here: https://sched.co/tRXF
The Linux Foundation’s Mentorship Program helps developers – many of whom are first-time open source contributors – gain the skills and experience necessary to contribute effectively to open source communities. Learn more about the program here: https://lfx.linuxfoundation.org/tools/mentorship/.

FOSDEM
2022-02-05 - 2022-02-06
Open Mainframe Project will be featured at FOSDEM, happening virtually on February 5-6.
Sarah Julia Kriesch, a DevOps Consultant at Accenture and Open Source Contributor at openSUSE, will be presenting a session about the Linux Distributions Working Group.
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 and Debian have established together with IBM a Linux Distributions Working Group for a better collaboration together and with the goal to receive better support. In this presentation you should receive an overview about a good collaboration between Linux distributions and what you can achieve together with such a Working Group.
Details can be found below:

Learn more about the conference or to register, visit the FOSDEM website here.

COBOL Programming Course Q1 Webinar
2022-02-08 09:00 - 10:00
Since the launch of Open Mainframe Project’s COBOL Programming Course two years ago, we have held quarterly TSC calls to encourage our learners, COBOL fans and the community at large to join us to learn more about our work we drive and provide inputs and thoughts about the course.
For our 1st quarter session webinar on Tuesday, February 8 at 9 am PT/12 pm ET, we are excited to have Rune Christensen from Bankdata as our guest speaker, joining us to talk about COBOL and this specific COBOL course and how his team leverages it. Register here: https://bit.ly/3gm7PxO.
Speakers:

Rune Christensen, Bankdata
Sudharsana Srinivasan, IBM
Michael Bauer, Broadcom
Joe Winchester, IBM
Paul Newton, IBM
Hartanto Widjaya, Singapore Management University

Zowe Office Hours
2022-02-16 09:00 - 10:00
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

From Educators to End Users: Leveraging Holistic Approaches and the Importance of Belonging Across the Tech Ecosystem
2022-02-23 09:00 - 10:00
Join us on February 23 at 9 am PDT/ 12 pm EDT for the first 2022 webinar of the Making Our Strong Community, Stronger collaborative initiative on diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) in the mainframe industry. Register here: https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_eO5uTSRsThKcAa9M0jgq9Q.
We’re mixing up the conversation by sharing the perspective of IBM Z educators and end users. In keeping with our previous discussions, we are continuing our bold, open and honest dialog related to the experiences, challenges, and solutions to navigating DEI. But this time around, we’re bringing in one new, important factor—belonging—making our key initiative diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging (DEI-B).
Throughout last year, we discussed the importance of telling our stories and creating a climate for success for everyone. We are shifting to demystify the challenges of isolation and loneliness that can occur when programs, training, support and other components of the ecosystem may not provide the holistic access, partnerships, and opportunities that unlock real belonging and potential for people, teams, and companies.
Some organizations create well-intended approaches to provide help, however, these noble attempts can feel like a one and done mentality, meant to do good, while possibly further isolating the very individuals who are meant to benefit. DEI-B is not a one-time initiative—it’s a lifetime of educating and listening to everyone in the company to improve. Organizations need to match what’s happening societally to reflect, hear and understand everyone’s values and needs in order to progress. This is not a one-time initiative, project or task.
You’ll notice that the panelists for this webinar include end users and educational professionals—and that’s no coincidence. From vendors to end users and partners that use IBM Z—there are more perspectives and personalities than you’d expect within the technology ecosystem. This breadth of perspectives makes it more important than ever to build, support and maintain holistic, effective approaches that will make the ecosystem stronger working for everyone.
Panelists include:

Dr. Gina Bullock, Assistant Professor, North Carolina A&T State University
Chinedu Ibeh, Corporate Vice President, Enterprise Compute Services, New York Life
Byron Smith, Senior Mainframe Security Engineer, Systems Technology Banking Officer, M&T Bank
Nicole Nwakalor, Specialist, Systems Engineering, Infrastructure, Operations and Cloud, Charles Schwab
Moderator: Dr. Gloria Chance, president and CEO, Mousai Group

We are also pleased to host a unique event after the webinar for attendees only: Dr. Gloria Chance, our webinar moderator, will hold a private Town Hall for attendees to join the conversation, bringing their own experiences and questions into this growing DEI-B community.
Sponsored by Broadcom Mainframe Software, IBM, Open Mainframe Project, Rocket Software, TechChannel and VirtualZ Computing.

Micro Focus Universe 2022
2022-03-22 - 2022-03-23
Universe 2022 is for those journeying into the unfamiliar to solve a digital dilemma—how to balance today’s needs with tomorrow’s opportunities. Join us as we show you how to achieve the outcomes needed to run and transform at the same time and boost your transformation journey without ever leaving your home or office. Learn more here.
Register for the “Application Modernization and Connectivity” (AMC) track to gain access to information that will help set a successful path to digital transformation for your COBOL and mainframe applications.
What to Expect:

Attend Online: The event is virtual so you can experience it from your sofa, home office, or wherever you are!
General Session: Micro Focus executives share strategies for solving your digital dilemma: how do you balance running day-to-day with the need to transform your organization for tomorrow—and do both at the same time.
Track Keynotes: Key leaders from each of our tracks share specific information from disciplines across the enterprise that can help you run and transform at the same time.
Breakout Sessions: Attend customer and Micro Focus-led breakout sessions to benefit from best-practices and product usage tips.
Live Studio Broadcasts: New for 2022, Live Studio broadcasts are available any time during conference hours. They provide one location to easily view a variety of track-specific content—from product strategy to customer stories, and demonstrations.
Explore Zone: Looking to dive even deeper? Taking things at your own speed? Visit the Explore Zone to watch deep dive demos, download white papers, find customer stories, discover research, and more.

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.

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
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/
