 Welcome to 2023 protection series and today we have with us once again John Murtic executive director of open mainframe project John is great to have you back on the show It is great to be on the show and happy new year. Thanks for joining me We all know about the open mainframe project, but this is a good reminder to tell folks What is this project all about this project is really about the the ecosystem of open source on the mainframe whether that be Linux ZOS any any operating system and specifically I think Focusing on how the mainframe can interact with the rest of enterprise IT and focusing on Helping build open source projects community solutions and collaborations that are really helping tackle that problem Because that's you know one of the biggest needs for enterprise IT today Now it's time for you to grab your crystal ball and tell us what predictions you have for our audience I think the first one is really going to be related to You know the growth of open source Within this industry we saw Zoe just year over year Almost doubled its growth in some of the earlier predictions that are done around in the industry and I thought what was really Telling to me was I believe it was you know somewhere around 70% of mainframe customers in one way or another We're actually looking at Zoe, which means there's an eye peeking towards the future of This being you know a technology people are looking at but more broadly the people in mainframe are considering Open source, which you know has been a big challenge companies You know trust what they know they've been sticking with these you know infrastructure for decades on Decades and they're very used to it They're used to where they get their software from and the idea of bringing Software with the source code that anybody can look at and you know the potential security Grampifications of that feels very scary But I think the investments that have been going into it are Starting to mitigate that and so we're going to see more and more companies that are going to be seeing a project like Zoe But even more importantly just open source in general. They're going to be using them more and more companies are going to be Because of projects like Zoe they're going to be able to better figure out how to use these mainframes and the rest of their business That is kind of been the biggest challenge inside some of these companies is you know The mainframe group is kind of often its own little world and the great work that they're doing is not connected right back to the rest of the business so I see a big thing that's going to start to happen is the walls are going to begin to come down and You're going to start to see companies are like oh wow We realize that we have amazing data and applications and tools that we can use over here Let's leverage those in the rest of our line of business and Maybe just maybe that somebody's going to see an application. They're buildings like you know one of the tiers of it The mainframe might be a really good spot for it It may be they'll actually you know push and play it over so so we're going to see that kind of within companies that are already with Mainframes they're going to see that become much more centralized and pulling that together and I think the third is and and this is sort of related to one of the you know big Things that are going to be head for us in 2023 with our own hardware coming on board is I'm hoping to start to see More and more just sort of general folks out there Having the mainframe on their radar of a technology To just play with but also just to you know become more and more interested in and maybe even based a career Last year alone. We had for our mentors program. We had well over 500 applicants to be a mentee in the mainframe space which is Fantastic, I mean I don't think there's any other program in mainframe. That's that's getting that level of attention and With a new hardware coming on board with work that's happening like in the cobalt programming course and also our open mainframe Education project. I think we're going to start to see that becoming a little bit more mainstream where people are going to say You know what? I'm going to pick up these skills because these are really good career opportunities for me So I'm going to keep it at three. I'm a big person in number and rules of three So that's where I'm thinking for 2023. That was a good pun. I think we at the end there Thanks for sharing these predictions. Can you talk a bit about what is going to be the focus of the project this year? Getting the mainframe online. We announced it last year and Our laser focus is we want this box online. We want to get it So not only our project communities that we're hosting but any open source project out there can come and use it to help support it So that is our number one focus is exactly that I would say the number two after that is starting to work with some of our You know partner foundation such as Finos and the CD foundation and there's going to be a number of others on Just ideas of how we collaborate together because there's just a lot of different shared interests Within Finos that's focused on the financial industry the bulk of mainframe usages around finance So there's a ton of overlap there And I think for a lot of the companies that are invested on both sides They're going to see this as a way to kind of the aforementioned walls that I was talking about This is a way they can take them down because they're going to be delivering both sides of the business together and with the CD foundation a huge thing that we're seeing in mainframe is the rise of DevOps and How can we connect how the mainframe CI CD and DevOps? Skill sets are back to the same one that are used within the rest of the enterprise So I would say that's going to be a number two theme in there for us But the biggest and the biggest thing that our community wants the biggest thing that every single person I have talked to around this project for the last eight years has kept asking up When are you getting a mainframe? We have one we want to get it turned on and that's that's our big thing Now if I ask you what are some of the big challenges that you see are going to be there not just for the project or in you know mainframe in the Ecosystem but industry in general and how the open mainframe project can help, you know organizations companies stakeholders kind of navigate through some of these challenges We're heading it into an industry downturn. We're heading into a recession We're probably in a recession depending upon who you talk to and you know that's affecting Everyone and I think we're seeing areas of the tech sector and especially being hit quite hard With playoff announcements Unprecedented levels and number of a number of these companies And I think additionally that's gonna have a trickle down effect into a number of the users of mainframes They're just also using of technologies as well So generally what we tend to see is in economic downturn opportunities You see companies kind of hedging back you start to see them You know really kind of taking stock of what they're all about and oftentimes We see coming out of that is open source. We see companies saying well geez we're holding on to this Let's build a community around it, you know, let's use this opportunity to get this you know to get this code out here You know saving us some costs, but then also potentially bringing other costs as well So I see the challenge of the economic hardships. They're gonna hit us all is It's inevitable It's going to be there where I see the open mainframe project is Is an outlet for companies that are looking to see as open collaboration as a way to You know reduce costs reduce R&D But still being able to execute at that high level But you know also as an opportunity for for seeing some of the projects and technology to driven here and looking back And their companies and saying, you know, maybe this is maybe this is the time we kind of look at implementing a Zoe Maybe this is the time, you know, we look at you know a cobalt check For you know standardizing our cobalt unit testing. Maybe we start to look at a fey long You know around cloud stack So I think that becomes sort of a Motivator for companies when they're kind of in a an area where they're all sort of cutting corners John, thank you so much for taking time out today and of course share this prediction Challenges ahead and of course the opportunity that are there and how open mainframe project can help the community Thank you for sharing all those insights and as usual, I'd love to have you back on the show. Thank you. I Will definitely you back on that show. Thank you so much