 Hello everyone and welcome to this panel session as a part of open source summit Japan bridging modern DevOps and the main frame. Coming here from the open main frame project. We have a great set of panelists here today. I'll introduce myself I'll be the moderator and also a little bit of a panelist I suppose as well. My name is John Murtic. I'm director of the mainframe project and I also serve as director of program management here at the Linux Foundation. I'll next introduce lens to Lucia chairperson of the open mainframe project and chief technology officer and business development manager via common infinity. Welcome. Hi, John. Hello everyone. Thank you for the opportunity to be on the panel today. Thank you, Lynn. And we also have with us Jen Francis for a developer advocate in the IBM open group and a master certified architect. Welcome Jen. Hi, John. It's great to be here. It's great to say everybody today. Great. Let's just jump right into it and our first question really centers around the open mainframe project and the Zoe initiative is a part of it and the open mainframe project turned five years old this year, Zoe turned two. And we'll take a really look at the challenges and opportunities that led to the creation of the Linux foundations open mainframe project and Zoe initiative and what I want to start with you since you were there at the very beginning and maybe talk about what that look like. Yes, I remember it well. And it was a very exciting event. To be honest with everybody, you know, five years ago, when the inception of the open mainframe project occurred that was also when IBM made the announcement for the IBM Linux one system, which was the Linux only mainframe. It has all the characteristics and qualities of service that the IBM Z mainframe has, but it's all dedicated to just Linux and open source. So it really was an exciting event. And since that time, boy, there has been a lot of things that have occurred with this organization in and around IBM's Linux one and open source on the mainframe and open source on on the Linux one system. So, very, very exciting things have occurred and then of course, you know, we're Zoe and many other. I think, John, we're now up to about what 15 or so project. Yeah, 16 projects. I probably at the time you hear this recording some great progress certainly. Yeah, very good. Jen, what do you think. So, so the open mainframe project, the first time I ever became aware of it was actually through you Lynn years ago and we had an intern that was working on a blockchain project and I remember watching them present out at share which is a user group conference for the mainframe platform. And at the time, that was really what I knew about open mainframe project through the Linux foundation, and it wasn't long after that that along came Zoe which really became the first kind of collaborative. I would say technology that we could all use that it was not just a single company organization creating it was actually a group collaboration, and it was actually great because the mainframe the platform itself has always had a huge sense of community. Everybody wants to get together understand what the others are doing where they're struggling what they've learned things like that. The Linux foundation through the open mainframe project has actually enabled that to happen through developing technology through developing educational resources. They're actually sharing all these things that have kind of been. You had to know where to find the right groups and different geos and different things like that. And now it's actually this formal community and brought everybody together and Zoe's just been the first big role project that everybody has joined in on. And it's been interesting it's the mainframe communities almost came full circle because if we look at back we're open source the roots of it. It's from the mainframe community in the 50s at share and that early collaboration and now we've came back full circle of bringing this community which exactly like you said Jen is always been a collaborative always been there for one another always had that great strength and now has came together right under the same banner here under the open mainframe project. Absolutely. Awesome. Well let's skip ahead next question on the panel here and we're going to dig a little bit into Zoe and Jen you remarked here Zoe's that real. Not only that first open source project on the ZOS platform, but really this first time where it really clicked as this. I was reading what you're saying is a moment like oh wow this isn't just a candidate a you know vendor giving this project. It's three vendors coming together collaborating on a huge technology and that integration platform for really where this is going and bringing in so many new stakeholders but at the same time also enabling the platform for decades to come. What did you try to talk about and talk about just you know as this came into your purview like what was the reactions, what have you been hearing tell me a little bit more. So Zoe's been really fun to watch over the last two years so when they had the big announcement I remember being like out at share and out at other conferences and the huge buzz around it everybody's like what is this what is this. The first takeaway I think everybody's first takeaway was. Oh, this would be great for development everybody was talking about you know the CLI or the fact that you could have a plug into VS code. And that's great and you can do cool things on it and it allows us, you know, some opportunity to work with the mainframe with ZOS that maybe we couldn't have before. But what I think has been missing is what's really picking up traction now in your to going into your three is the ability for the administration of management it's having the API interface that you can work with is that you can actually do some really cool things with the CLI that give that and that management and administration is not just oh yeah I could deploy code to order yeah I can use VS code to see some things. You know, that's what kind of the initial reaction was and I was like, no wait, this is actually a lot more powerful than that let me see what else I can build. And we see some really cool advancements on top of that. IBM has been working across all of its different development teams kicks DB to IMS to use the zoo, Zoe, you know either CLI or the API is to actually build out and allow for more interaction with their different teams like that so we're constantly seeing more and more advancement, because of what the base open source project has done. Now all these different teams can also say hey, I can actually make that work more for me. And so we're seeing that and it being you know opened up as well to the community for more usage and open issues and kind of driving where it goes. Well, and thinking about that administrative part of the things that so we could potentially manage. You know the one thing that always comes to mind when you know where I'm going to be going with this is the great demo that Alex Kim, or actually a demo it's a fully working tool that Alex Kim has put out, you know from Viacom Infinity and the Viva which I absolutely love mostly because back when we were in conferences in person he was carrying it around in a suitcase. And if you want to do a demo who just opened the suitcase and just start doing it on the top but tell me a little bit about that and tell me just you know what the experience has been like and what's that meant for Viacom Infinity. Well, thank you John for mentioning this. Viva Viacom Infinity voice assistant. I'm sure everybody knows Alexa and Google Home and so on, the consumer types of voice assistants but we started getting this idea, starting with Alex, Kim on our team that wouldn't be kind of cool to be able to have voice control of the IBM mainframe. And the thing that concerned us with using Alexa or Google was Home was because of their security exposures. They're really designed for consumer level types of voice and enterprise customers, ZOS customers, Linux on Z customers, you know, ZVM, TPF, BSE, all those kinds of customers would be very apprehensive using a consumer level type of voice assistant. When Zoe came along, we got the idea that hey, we could actually take advantage of the security of the mainframe because it interfaces with APIs very nicely into ZOS and other, yeah, there are other operating systems available on the Z very transparently. And before we knew it, we had the Viva system of talking to the mainframe and when you talk to the mainframe, you wait, what you say is, you know how you say, hey, Alexa or hey Google, well you say, hey TJ, now TJ has a lot to do with the building that's right behind my head here. I'm just going to ask you how it all tied in together so I'm glad you called that out. It's the original lab in Endicott, New York, where IBM incorporated in 1924. And I have a lot of my family starting with my grandfather and my father and then me and a lot of other relatives and aunts and uncles that all worked there, because that's where our family settled when they first came to the United States from Italy. And I was destined to be part of the IBM family, I guess I didn't realize it, but it turned out very well. And my office is in that building right over my shoulder. It's on the first floor of that building, and it was right next to the original office for Thomas J Watson senior, the founder of IBM. That's where the name TJ came from. So we thought it'd be out of nice respect and remembrance of him, and it's worked out very well. This voice assistant is no longer a prototype, it's actually a product that's actually registered in the IBM global applications registry where people can look at it online anytime and see what it's all about and what the solution has to offer. So isn't that funny using those kinds of interfaces. And thanks to the nice work that the open mainframe project did and bring bringing some semblance around the project of Zoe and making it really what it is today. And that is absolutely fabulous is a really cool story. I mean, Jen have you seen sort of other stories like that out in the customers and folks that you're working with of just something interesting something cool that has, you know, brought in brought up because of Zoe. I'm not quite as cool as that it's hard to top that. That is true that is true so you know it's not a campaign it's not a contest but I'm sure there's other interesting things. Yeah, so, and it's actually, I guess enabled a lot of new opportunities so one of the things that we IBM do every year is the master the mainframe competition, where we are encouraging students to go out and trace the platform and actually this year, we're leveraging Zoe through for the whole competition, which enables just a new way to work with the to connect with the Z-walls platform we all know and love but something that wouldn't have been possible. Two years ago, but now we can and it's just brought a whole new life and really kind of reinvigorated the competition. I love it for some other reasons, we won't go into those today. It does bring a kind of a modern look and feel and just allows people to focus on learning the technology and not doing a bunch of setup because the setup is quite simple. Yes, yes, that's one piece of feedback I've heard quite a bit is just it's it's all ready to go it's much simpler through VS code it's already a tool that students have at their disposal, so they're not trying to set up a 3270 emulator and all sorts of other pieces. And that's actually one of the things I really love so I tend to work with a lot of cloud based technologist and they don't want to think about where server is they don't want to have to care they typically have a few different you know ID set up via the source is one of the ones people commonly will have. And so when I can say hey just add this tool let me give you the IP address. They're pretty happy to end and they're good to go and they're then willing to learn to work with the platform. Whereas before I may have been like oh can you find a you know 3270 emulator or well we really need some other tools or things like that and it started to be like, you know, people start to put their shoulders up and like I don't know that's a lot of extra work. So it's really kind of opened it up to different mindsets. I'm able to show that you can do a lot of the same things on from that you would do with cloud you can do one Z and things like Zoe enable that because it just looks exactly the same and you can switch perspectives with things like that and make it happen. It's fantastic it's it's amazing as this community has come together how this is evolved over time and just the new opportunities that open up and just things like that I wasn't too long ago I learned that the mastermind program was using that and I just thought that was just amazing. I'm just how much that's made a transformational step and moving that forward. So it's been really fabulous. Moving ahead here so we're one of the key pieces of the Zoe framework and project is new interfaces on some of them not necessarily knew they've been in there a long time but pulling it together into a singular API mediation layer and The concept you know and Jen you've been out working you know as a developer advocate with people before and I throw the term API first out there and that's just second nature I can only imagine. And now that's how it came to the mainframe. That's a huge huge step tell me tell me a little bit more about like how that API first mentality now that it's getting to the mainframe and I know you've seen this in the cloud world and other worlds and so that's kind of you know farther up the curve but you're seeing this at the front end of the curve tell me what that's like. Yeah so whenever you are starting to talk about you know different components you want to put them together that's generally the first question is OK well what is the API look like you know can you give me an API endpoint you know do they have a swagger page you know how can I look at how this is going to work. So having that kind of API mediation layer and really just opens the doors to possibilities. So if we go back a little bit and we look at something like ZOS connect when that first came out and when you might remember how many years ago that starts to blur together here but are remembering the you know that was like this is like huge moment for the ZOS platform like oh my gosh we can you know API enable kicks and DB2 and IMS and this was really awesome. But now it's always saying oh hey not only can you API enable that but you can actually API enable you know your management and your administration which we hadn't really done as well before things like ZOS MF you know kind of started to enable it so we worked with that even more. But then we also continue to see further development to have that API first extended to the mainframe so kicks has GraphQL that's now available to work with the kicks bundle so if you like GraphQL that's another API layer that makes it really simple to do kicks bundle deployments. So as we continue to expand this idea of API first working with the open source community. It just opens up the doors so that we can use some of the common skill sets that we have across other platforms across other technologies to allow more people to work with such a powerful platform. That's very cool and you know the API first sort of approach is certainly something of the customers that you work with when I mean a number of them I know work. And many of our other Linux foundation projects as well and the concept API first as I know is a part of them as well, but now bringing that to the mainframe what have you seen the impact in the customers that you're working with. Well, first of all they have been able to open up the mainframe in a secure way because these connections through the restful API's all adhere to the security rules and regulations that the mainframe follows. Well, that's one very good thing because especially, you know, being involved a lot with the financial firms like I am on Wall Street. They really found that to be very helpful because it's helping them to bridge their way into a hybrid multi cloud environment which everybody's trying to do, and most of them have found that they were trying to, or at least they thought they were trying, oh, here comes the cloud, we can get rid of all our infrastructure, let alone the mainframe. And, well, right away they found out that wasn't the case. There was some very nice things that could go to the cloud and should be on the cloud, but there's things that just can't go to the cloud and need to remain for compliance rules and regulations and this API capability just made it so nice to blend everything transparently together. And, you know, it also opened up to other software houses that were not looking at the mainframe. One that we happened to meet was a place called Private Key. You remember that, John? And Private Key is integrated through API's with the Viva. Wow. I didn't realize that. Yeah. And it allows, you know, you know how you go to a bank online and you get a code back to verify that it's you, right? Well, this does this with Viva and it does it transparently so quickly. You hardly notice any interruption, but it verifies, you know, this intention for transaction through the use of this tooling that came available with API's when it was made available with Zoey and ZOS Connect and a lot of our things. And in Jen's world with CICS, now Private Key is looking at interfacing directly to CICS through these API's. Wow. Yeah. So it's going to make really very nice for the mainframe and those in the mainframe world. I love it that we've done this recording three times and every time I learned something entirely new out of it. It is just so fabulous. So for the folks at home, if you see this repeat, everyone is unique. You really got to check them all out. So it's very cool. And, you know, it's great. The one thing I've been, you know, not as long involved in the mainframe world as either of you, but I have the privilege of being able to speak with a number of customers, speak with a number of vendors, to understand where their challenges are, you know, from a different angle. And the one thing that I've always found interesting is, you know, the early days it seemed like when I was starting this project was very mainframe or not, like it was an either or proposition. And the one barrier that the project has been slowly trying to open up is the mainframe and because if I look at many of, you know, the things that I've done in my career and the organizations I've worked with, it's always been clear that an organization that has a hybrid approach to solving their computing challenges ends up being one that is ahead. They're unique. They have all of a sudden unique differentiator between their competitors, because they've taken the time and really built up that custom way to engage their customers and maintain their infrastructure and you want to approach how they work their business. And, you know, mainframe's always sort of been a little bit that one thing on the side here and the API first coming together and I think both of you just illustrated this perfectly. It's just opening up those last areas that have needed to be opened up and it's really just changed a lot of the trajectory, getting from that mainframe or mentality to the mainframe and mentality, which I think has been really interesting. Well, cool. Last question for the group here and this is always the fun one of looking into the future. And Len maybe let's start with you on this one. Future of DevOps in the mainframe. What are you seeing out there. It is starting to really become part of the mentality of the mainframe groups within organizations. That's what I see happening. And they're becoming more comfortable with it because of the kind of tooling, especially some of the things we just talked about becoming available to allow it to fit into their into the world to develop so that they can take advantage of CI CD continues and continuous development that other platforms have had to lead on. And, you know, one on one of our other sessions that we had, John, you might remember, it really helps the mainframe become part of the overall family. You know, family is very important, especially when we started thinking about this time of year with holidays and everything else coming up. If you all become one big family, you all become more trusting of each other and know how who's strengths and each other's, I wouldn't say weaknesses, but differences. And actually, instead of using the word strengths and differences, I like to say use each other for what you're designed to do, you know, mainframe designed to do different things than what other platforms are other alternative are designed to do. And the customers that are starting to get that and have gotten it for a while have learned how to blend the environments and especially with that concept of the hybrid multi cloud also not just only on prem infrastructure integration. That's fantastic. And I love the concept of family. And when I think of family, you know, you always think of longevity because families are generations, they're not just one group and it's a generational thing over time. So when you think about open source projects, you're not just at the open mainframe project but just broadly at the Linux foundation that where we get involved with. There are ones that look at sustainability as a key part of that and sustainability means it's not just a few years thing it's not just you know one generation. It's an investment mainframes, you know, been around, you know, since, you know, geez, you know, almost 65 years now, longer if you, you know, get some of the early machines in there. And when I see efforts like Zoe being trusted into a group like this and other ones that have came along a recent one CBT tape which maybe not familiar with most of the audience but if you're looking at the early work and share and those earlier collaborations that came together in a conical in 1975 probably one of the oldest open source projects before open source projects were there. More of those are turning towards this direction of we want to continue this we want to pay this forward we want to take this, not just for the next generation, but for generations to come and I think that really that concept of family really is a great way to kind of circle all that together. Jen, what are you sending your thoughts as you look at the future of DevOps in the mainframe. It's kind of a mix of what you're just saying about family but also mix of john what you said before about it's no longer a mainframe or its mainframe and or, and it really is that so to me, the future of DevOps. In regards to the mainframe is really the blending of coming together as that family across your entire organization. It's, regardless of what kind of developer you might be you're going to have the tools that you need to use so whether you're a data developer whether you're an application developer your UI UX whatever you're going to have the tools you need to get the job done. They're going to be able to integrate with the repository with source code management, that there will be processes in place to allow the automation and deployment to the back end platforms that are available to it whether it's a cloud platform whether it's a in house platform, doesn't matter that those things can all work together and historically kind of mainframe was always unique. We had its own repository had its own tools. We very much control deployment and we still absolutely want to have the checks and balances in place it's not just you know release release something and without having everything in place. But we now are have the ability and really are trying to integrate to say yeah we could use those tools we can still put those checks and balances in place we can actually fit the same DevOps pipeline we can now have that CI CD that continues integration continuous delivery you can use all of our framework for development that you want to do but those tools. By the time your code is ready, we can actually use those same tools to get to our platform. So actually does allow us to all come together as a family bring our unique characteristics to actually make things the best that they can be. And be able to all have dinner on the same table and enjoy one another and you know leverage all of that great heritage and things that that will make us unique also bring us also together it's it's such a such a great analogy and I look at it very much the same way. I mean turned back the table five years how many times would you have seen DevOps and mainframe mentioned in the same sentence. So this is, we're doing a panel about this we're doing a panel, because this is mentioned all over right now. I mean I know Jen you've you've seen it you've contributed to articles I know in the space as well and when you're seeing it with your customers but it's just it's fantastic to see this all just coming together and we're I'm usually really bad at being a soothsayer on things I never like to do predictions of the future. But what I will say is I think we're seeing this beginning to grow and seeing organizations, not only looking at that mainframe and looking at the investments that are happening there and figure out how they fit more in the line of business but maybe there's some potentially some customers out there thinking geez that that's a hardware I can take advantage of there's some really useful things that I can do otherwise that maybe I need to have this as a part of my IT infrastructure. Yeah, and if you watch the open rainframe group if you join the Slack channels and things like that you'll see people asking and looking for those opportunities like I've been hearing about this I'd really like to try to really like to learn more. That's awesome. It would have been hard a few years ago to find those people if they could find things like the listserv that was available. They really had hunted and they tried and so you kind of we've now made that barrier a little easier it's easier to find where you can, you know, ask that community you don't feel like so much of an outsider you can see people active and talking. And that really does change everything having that community having it being available and welcoming. And that will only continue to drive where the future of DevOps go because you get as you get more people interested, you're going to need to drive more of that integration more of that family and that community working together. And that certainly have happened here I think since Zoe came in two years ago the year after we doubled the number of projects in 2019 and then 2020 we're on pace to double it again. Which, you know shows that that's the communities coming together and it's all, it's all in different realms and we've seen a lot of working co ball in the last year without a lot of the needs is our society. We've also seen, you know, further investments even in the depths DevOps and education spaces as well so it's, it's, it's a great time to be involved in mainframe and it's also just great to see for this community for so many people that have put their lives and their careers into it. That are wanting to carry this forward and I've heard from so many of them that that's one of their big things is how do we carry this forward and to be in this position where this project is able to do that is is just fantastic. Well, I want to. Oh, sorry I didn't you had something to Jen. Go ahead. Okay, I was just going to bring us to a close. I want to think these two great panelists. This has been great insight from both of you, being both deep in the mainframe world. There's a lot about the open mainframe project today. If this is interesting to you, I would really encourage you to head to our website open mainframe project or you can learn more about the project. You can subscribe to our newsletter. If you go to our projects page which is slash projects you can learn about any of our 15 and actually that's one off 16 now hosted projects and working groups get involved they're all open communities. They're all eager for people to get involved. They have a mailing list they have open meetings they're on Slack so there's plenty of ways all the codes on GitHub, plenty of ways to get involved in there. And if you're an organization you're watching this and you're watching this because your company has investments in the mainframe, and it's important to you and it's important to where this is going just as much as it is for this panel. Become an organizational member and that helps drive forward that stewardship and showcases your organization as key to wanting to drive that future and you can learn about that on our join page as well or email us at membership that open mainframe project.org. So with that, I want to thank you both. This has been a great panel I've always enjoyed talking with both of you. I hope everyone in the audience has enjoyed this as well. And I hope you also enjoy the rest of open source summit Japan, but thank you both. Thanks, Sean. Thank you, John and Jen is nice working with you again here today. Good to see you, Lynn. Same here. Terrific. Thank you all.