Ask and you shall receive: New Mainframe Resource for All – The Open Mainframe EP 15

Hey everyone, welcome to another episode of the open Mainframe project. The open Mainframe project is a collaboration video a collaboration of a video show that plays about once a month between Tech strong group. I'm Alan shiml CEO of techstar group and the open Mainframe project, which is a project under the auspices of the Linux Foundation.

You may be watching this on techstrong dot TV. And if you are, we we appreciate it and three texture on TV. com and container Journal Security Boulevard and others but exciting this month is that the open Mainframe video show is now available as a podcast.

So if you usually watch these kinds of events, whether it's the full audio video version or just the audio on Apple podcast or Spotify or Pandora or Google or Stitcher your podcast platform of choice, you can catch it and you can subscribe to the show there and not miss another great episode. So thanks for joining us. We've got a great panel a great topic for those who don't know about a month ago.

Now the open Mainframe project had their annual Summit. last month and we're gonna be highlighting some of the highlights from the summit there today and talking about some New possibilities as a result of what went down at the summit before we jump in though. Let me introduce you to our panel today.

So first I'd like to introduce you to and if I mispronounced names, please correct me. Don't be ashamed. I'm I do my best with names but sometimes I just don't do them right red herbic.

Register we get that semi close. Reds why don't you introduce yourself to the audience? So I'm as I like to see an enthusiastic Mainframe nerd.

I wrote my first cobolt program in 1985 worked on my first Mainframe in 1987. I wrote the white paper about the need to get a new generation of people on the Mainframe in 2004 became an IBM champion in 2020 for IBM as I like to see Zed because I'm basically in Southwest Canada and just got a master's degree in Industry Humanities with the focus on the humanity of the IBM Mainframe year ago and very enthusiastic participant in the Mainframe and cobal ecosystems. Actually and Welcome to our show.

It's a pleasure to have you on. Next up. I'd like to introduce you to Yvette Lamar is that I get it.

Okay Yvette. Why don't you introduce yourself? Great.

Thanks Alan. Thanks for having me here. My name is Eva Lamar and I am the director of the ibmc systems influencer ecosystem.

What that means is me and my team help our clients have a sustainable Workforce by building a vibrant Talent Pipeline and also a very strong Community. Also personally. I am on the Mainframe open education project which we're super excited about over here.

And also on the marketing board with felonics open Mainframe project. So glad to be okay. We love to hear about the you know, the open Mainframe project for those who don't know out.

Sorry. There's 20 something projects kind of umbrella under this open Mainframe project and education is such a big push of many of them. So that really happy to have you on and can't wait to hear more about that.

Let me introduce you though now to our third panelist today, and that's Rick parrot. Or as a paret Bread close, but hey, I'm like, thanks great to be here again, and I am been on the marketing committee with the open Mainframe projects since 2018 and I work at broadcom and I'm responsible for analysts relations as well as core infrastructure marketing and I've been here I've been at broadcom and involved in this project since 2018 and prior to that spend a few years at IBM working in those software and their research division as well as the systems group so great to be here. Actually, thank you for joining here, you know having John and I do in this show for a year, and it's amazing to me.

What a great community. This Mainframe Community is and what's equally amazing is when you trace back. You know, everyone has a little IBM in their veins it seems you know within the community even though from that, you know, like Evolution and it's many more even though from that IBM.

Everyone has that IBM kind of background, but from there that you know, a lot of people go out into so many different Places and posts and companies but I think it helps Foster that sense of community that we see in this whole Mainframe community. So it's it's a testament to IBM but it's also a testament to the great people in the community that you know, you you've taken that in your background and built on it and and all this very different. ways and designs that we say speaking of myriad.

Let me introduce you to my co-host. up in cold, Ohio today He's the director of the open Mainframe project, or is it executive director John? I don't want to slight you.

All right. John verdict John introduced yourself. Yeah.

No, so I'm I you know, I work here with the Linux foundation and I'm really lucky to be able to work with this community and the words you said about the Mainframe King Yellen are just so spot on I I mean unfortunately work a lot across a lot of them and I think the close knit-ness the commitment to any other and really how they look out towards the future of where this architecture is going. I mean mainframes have been around for you know, 60 70 years. Now if you really want to trace back into the 1950s and you know, your IBM 704s and machines like that and you know, this is a group of people that are committed to having them pass their lifetime that they can hand off to their kids and their kids can hand off to their grandkids and it's it's such a unique thing in technology just to see that being carried through generations and that same spirit.

So I I count myself fortunate enough to to be a part of this community. Absolutely. All right, let's jump into stuff guys.

So John as I mentioned at the top is just at the top of the show last month was the annual open Mainframe Summit. I believe it was in Philadelphia correct and lots of news coming out of there. He As the Ed it's kind of you know, it's gonna fall on you.

Let's talk about what some of the big stories were and ask our panel. To you know elaborate on it. Sure sure.

And you know, I really think um, the big news out of there. There's a lot of cool news lines out of it. There was a lot of great opportunities for this community to come together, which many of them haven't seen each other, you know since 2018 2019 or earlier.

So there was a lot of uniquenesses that came together and this being an event that while it's three years old was the first time they've ever got together in person for this event. And the rest of just uniqueness is that that we saw with that but really the big news is through the generosity of broadcom Mainframe software donating a z15 resource and disc storage to the open Mainframe project through the generosity of marriage College. That's gonna provide a host for this hardware and the hard work that Viacom Infinity has put into really helping facilitate and pull all this together and some of our member companies like IBM And others that are excuse me donating.

So we're up here. Yeah, I showed up. I didn't realize it.

I'm getting the clumped here. Oh God, I'm sorry about. I'll give you a topic.

No, um through the generosity of them. Um, we're able to fulfill something that since 2015 when I started with this project was the exact thing that I kept getting asked. Where is it Mainframe resource that we can use and in 2023, we're gonna have that for the community there.

So I think that's the the star of the show here is is really that and the panels we have here are all pieces of that story. Absolutely. So look.

First of all, let me just say big. Thank you to broadcom. I guess Viacom Marist College.

So I'm a Saint John's guy. Maris was sort of arrival. It's hard for me, but many.

Thanks to Marist College. For housing this Mainframe. Yeah, as I'm sorry.

It's absolutely first of all a couple things it's a community effort, but I do want to Circle back to the summit. And when John was saying and John May the entire OMP team. It was a first of all it was great to see everyone in person.

Absolutely and it was a Flawless event lots of energy about all the different projects and all the good things that were happening. So really kudos to the Olympics Foundation team for for putting that together, you know, first, you know, sort of live first real event in person which was which was awesome. Good to be in person again, isn't it?

I mean see people that we've only seen like this for a year or two. I'm gonna ask Greg Yvette. You were both also at The Summit.

Wasn't at the summit, but I certainly have enjoyed the the news that came out of it particularly including this news about me. Doesn't mean Zen 15. Well I said it's super excited to hear about the and then also we I was on boots and just the feedback from being able to see everybody in person was so fabulous in the course content that was there at the session.

So it was a great event. Excellent. So let me let me throw in and I'll throw it up to the whole panel including you giant.

All right, so we got it. We got a Mainframe. Right.

It's kind of like that movie We Bought a Zoo we got a Mainframe. But what does that mean? What does that mean?

What are the plans? How are we gonna use this? How's this gonna help education?

How's it going to help COBOL programmers or making new pocobo programmers? Right, let's hear what's getting the hands on everybody wants to have Hands-On. We have a lot of coursework.

That's out there. We have a lot we have systems that are available like through the programs through IBM, but they're they're specific courses and there's career paths that go with this what's happening with having a system available to the whole entire. Mainframe Community is we can get interesting content different content tribal knowledge that then have Hands-On.

So I just get so excited about it. I'll let the other folks jump in but it's just amazing to have this opportunity. Yeah.

No. I let me let me tell you from a broadcom perspective when we Thought about doing this donation. I mean obviously IBM rocket all the other companies that are part of this this OMP ecosystem.

We all donate our time, you know, the people in our organizations and so on and and that that's sort of becomes a like any volunteer or project right? That's really what it's all about, you know people spending their people spending their time and so forth and whether it's donating IP or evangelism or or whatever it happens to be, you know, we really felt that when you when you step back And experiencing how the program has worked that having. This piece of Hardware was really important because yes more people can be exposed to it.

But we really see it as as a way to jumpstart even more taking the development of all the IP that's created by all the committers right and all the different projects and you know bringing that to the next level. You know, you just said there were like some 20 projects that we see will really, you know benefit everyone and we also think It clearly can help increase the opportunity for collaboration. Not only across individual projects within OMP, but I think it creates a tremendous opportunity for OMP to work with other projects in the Linux Foundation, whether they're you know industry vertical focused, you know, or what have you so I think that's you know, those are two real important things that were, you know in our mind, you know, and when we thought about making this donation I love it.

And that's somebody who's a big fan of both IBM and broadcom and pretty much all the other major players in the Mainframe ecosystem. I had just been absolutely delighted to see how hot can and Greg locko and the whole broadcast Mainframe team have really made a point of being so present in the Mainframe ecosystem in so many ways and and to see this donation also recognizing how important the broadcom software is and you know, really anticipating that this Mainframe will be something that has a much broader Community presence in terms of the options available on it. But more importantly that it is available to a much broader portion of the community because as with pointed out, there's being this Perpetual question great.

How do I get on to a Mainframe? How do I learn on a main train? How do I teach on it?

And you know just to see that that optional available in really the ideal place, you know, this combination of physical location and the community and the main project. I think the opportunities are really Limitless in terms of how that can become part of a real Advantage as we grow the community from Much more open perspective. Yeah, and I think that's something that as I've talked with all of you have talked with people in the community.

You know, that's that's what the big goal of this is. I mean, there's there's frankly never been a resource like this. I mean, there's been little efforts here and there we've had Linux on community Cloud we've had some of the Partnerships with the open source development labs and Marist College, you know several years back.

So we've had some limited and some of these, you know organizations here have been some limited things as well. But to have it being a truly neutral resource that any open source project can leverage. I mean, you know, certainly we're gonna see all the project hosted here, but you know, the big goal is and and you know, I'm already having conversations with a number of our hosted projects about how could they leverage this?

Because they've wanted to support this platform a lot better, you know how from an open ssf perspective can this be a part of the strategy to ensure Security on you know, open source as a whole so that many of these Key open source projects that run on multiple architectures can use this as a Target so you can isolate a lot of those potentially certain security vulnerabilities. I mean David wheeler keynoted at the event and you know talked you know so much about where the the state of the art is happening there and I see this Mainframe fitting into it. So it's it's sort of a cool opportunity, you know for this and you know, I'd be curious to you.

You mean you have given your reactions and I'm sure you've heard your own buzz like what's what's the buzz that you're hearing? Like where where is the excitement? Where is you know, it has this been just like lighting up your inbox like, you know, tell me about the buzz that you're hearing about this.

I think open you know, you mentioned sort of I'm sorry sort of getting more awareness to people about what's going on. And I think there's sort of a very subtle distinction of giving people in a sort of open access to to this platform because one of the things it does is it really raises the awareness and hopefully reinforces the understanding of what a modern agile platform. The Mainframe is because there are some biases that exist out there and having this more widely available right within the you know, constructs of the mission of the of the project I think can go we'll go a long way and in setting the record straight if you will.

Absolutely. Sit in your thoughts, too. You know, sometimes it's be careful what you wish for.

So now we have this great resource. Right and you know the worst thing in the world is wasted potential. How do you make sure?

That the project that the open Mainframe project is kind of ringing all of the possibilities out of this so you that you mentioned you're on the education committee. I got to assume you guys are. Drawing up plans and making, you know, checking your list twice.

That we have been looking with the open education project really to get the community because what the purpose is and the vision of our of our project is really to get that tribal knowledge and Consolidated and so what we want to do is have folks that are maybe retiring people have got interesting skills that they've learned sharing it and so we want to make sure now if we could do some workshops get some hands on exercises as well. So really for us we want the community to contribute and that is our mission and that's ever we're going out getting the message out to please please join us help us and contribute and then also consume Agree, yeah, and and you know, it's kind of interesting you put that question out there Alan because you know as as much as I've always heard like where is the Mainframe resource that we all can use? Yeah, the the analogy of you know, you know, so we bought a zoo or you know, the Field of Dreams building you come is is a fairly Fair one to put out there.

I think one of the things that We're first hoping to do is having this resource of it becoming of something interesting to people and there's some low hanging fruit. And there's people that have asked us about it. But I think the other thing that's incumbent on the project is to Showcase what the actual Market looks like for Mainframe usage and how much it's actually used and it's it's mainframement we've talked about this on previous shows.

It's sort of like the the quiet, um worker in the background it just it's doing its thing and you know, the fact that our society continues to function especially in the financial and transportation and government and those aspects is sort of a testament to how well the system works because the system has been the back end of it. And so one of the things that that we've been really trying to do is begin to start telling the story of how this is being used, you know, we did a great case study with bank data, which is a bank within in Europe about their usage of a lot of these open Technologies in here. And we're beginning to kind of pull some the stories out of these different vendors because I mean think we all know that the products and projects that are adopted.

It's because people are out there using them. They tell the story of how they're using them and then the cycle continues and builds on itself and and I think you know venues like this where we can just start to tell the story of these things are being used. These things have immense value is is sort of a critical critical piece to it.

So I think it's gonna be a little bit of a a long tail as we get a lot of new projects on here. I mean clearly we have a lot of relationships with projects that I'm already talking to that have interest. There's a considerable interest from a security angle of projects that are looking to Shore that up but I think it's something the nice thing is it gives us sort of time to work our way into and kind of figure out like what is the right models for making this Hardware available?

What are the right things that projects need? Because I think they also interesting thing is because it's never really been done before. It's hard to know exactly what the expectations what someone needs to better support this.

So there's some great opportunities that I think that are gonna be learning for us along the way and the community uptake is it takes over time we'll get there and you know, and I know you know, folks like reg. I mean, I know you're you've been a great Community Advocate out there for it. So I mean, I know you probably know that there's huge interest out there and a lot of it just takes time to develop out, right?

No, I think one of the important things to recognize is that this really represents us beginning to own our historical role. You know that that we we're so used to Windows and and Linux and or apple. These are very important.

We don't Unix and but the thing is that the Mainframe is the definitive historical computer, but we've gotten so used to we forgotten about that it if you take a look at the history of computing from a human perspective, you know that so much the last few decades has been about a conscious definition away from what are perceived to be the weaknesses or are uncomfortable parts of the major. So in 1982 in Time Magazine, you know calls the personal computer that what will they know called person of the year and then turn passing Millennium and they put a little mirror on their cover and say that you are the person of the year because of social media and all of these different things basically of being a poke at the Mainframe thing. Hey, how come you're not this?

How come you're not that? How come you're this funky thing hiding the basement you could be so much more and I think we're finally taking ownership of that and recognizing. The Mainframe, you know almost as a pun on 360 because they invented the wheel when they invented the Mainframe and everything else is sort of almost a reaction to what the Mainframe could be in isn't yet.

So now we see that the Mainframe owning it's its role as a a publicly available resource that people can use to really build forward with the computer now the past but of the future and so I think this is a really exciting moment in history when we finally see ourselves owning that responsibility for being the computer that people can do Excellence with that's that's powerful reg. I I like that a lot. You know.

So I'm not from the Mainframe community. So I don't view the the PC or Linux. as sort of a competitor To Mainframe per se though I could see why you would say that I mean, I certainly I quite frankly, you know, I know there is some companies that say you can do everything in the cloud that you could do in the Mainframe and I don't buy into that either.

But it is great to have this resource. It is great to have it out there. I Rick let me ask you a question.

Well, I'm gonna ask you a question. Now throw another question out at the panel talk to us about sort of broadcom's motivation here. Right?

This is not for those who don't know mainframes are it like going to the Apple Store and laying down a thousand dollars from MacBook Air? You know, this is a sizable investment. Yeah, and like you I actually don't have a main Fame background until actually I take that back when I was in high school.

I did programming on a Mainframe but we won't get into the exactly. Yeah those I had those Punch Cards too Rick. Yeah.

Yeah. Oh 29 punch and anyway, though. When just from a broadcom perspective look our customers and I want to say our all of our Mainframe customers no matter where they Source their capabilities.

They're constantly faced with change right competitive. They have to know they need to grow and they need to be competitive and so things like interoperability. Become really important and the way you get to interoperability in a constant changing world is it's really about being open and certainly from a broadcom perspective and it's CA, you know the idea of open.

What is something that really took at the heart. back about maybe six seven years ago, which is why we were You know one of the you know founding Partners along with with IBM and Rocket, you know of the open Mainframe project. We thought look the OMP was the right approach the right strategy.

And so it's always been an integral part of how we do development and our value streams. For example, we have an open Mainframe leader within broadcom that looks across value streams, you know, not just an app Dev but in you know, I Tom insecurity and when you look at a project like Zoe for example, which is one we've contributed to the the conformant CLI the conformance set of Components the API mediation layer and so on it touches across our portfolio right not just in in debt, but an item and and security and output Management on all those sorts of things. So for us the motivation is open is the right approach.

for this industry and not only open source, but you know going to what reg was talking about, you know the ability to really make it something that That's more visible, right? You think about our phone, right? We are familiarity with that.

I've got an iMac sitting next to me along with my MacBook. These are technologies that are very visible. So I agree.

Let me throw it the rest of the panel. Right, like in my mind. This is sort of an adbc moment right or bcad.

Excuse me, you know, does this fundamentally change the charter? of the open Mainframe project by being much more of a Hands-On organization, especially, you know, look over the past year. We've had many of your education programs that the open Mainframe project sponsors right from Young interns to Cobalt to a bunch of others.

You can look on the You know a patch shows does this change the organization from talking about it to doing a doer, you know kind of thing John I'm going to ask you to kick that off. I mean I think change is one way to put it but I would almost say fulfill is maybe another way to think about it, you know because like we said this is having this resource is something we've been asked about for only seven years down the organization's been around for seven years now. so it's always been something that's known to have needed to be in there and With all of the energy that is just beginning to happen in this industry around open and collaboration, which frequently has always really been a part of it meaning.

If you go back to the 50s with share and you know, some of the early work of people just you know, the systems programmers getting together and collaborating and it's always really been a part of it. We've just really seen it take off, you know here in these last several years and more importantly there's an alignment from a vendor perspective. That's how they want to go to market.

This is an opportunity to fulfill that like this is this is the you know, yes Hands-On, but the Hands-On in the way of now this community that has been held back by really getting to the next step by a hardware and infrastructural limitation. That's gone now. Like that's the moves and now all the patterns of collaboration that have been you know built through these projects are able to Excel and then what I see then behind it is that new way to Innovation that all of these vendor companies have been sitting on and thinking about of cheese.

Like could we drive this better out in the open? I think that is also the new thing that is going to be starting to pop up. At least.

That's how I like I view it but I mean, I'd be really interested especially, you know about from your view from like an evangelism perspective. In it. It really is having that a that system that's available.

That is it's like it's like so excited Switzerland. It's this neutral platform that everyone has access to and then also on top of the On the education side there is you know, there is Hands-On available and we found when we're doing coursework that people learn better when they can you know. Do Hands-On work because it just retains better.

And so having the material that's being created by the community and then have supporting Labs that go with it or you know, self-paced workshops is gonna be incredible because they get that chance to learn the knowledge and also apply it so it's I think that's going to be game changing. Let me ask another question. So we've got the hardware.

I'm not clear software. What you know our other companies other than broadcom is IBM or rocket or BMC other companies donating software for this as well. Yeah, I mean and we've had extensive support from broadcom of donating the software from their portfolios IBM Sue say and I think we're gonna see a number of other companies are gonna be stepping up this round because I mean the underlying of a lot of especially in the COS side is just a lot of proprietary tools and software that are just a part of the enabling Technologies which to be fair.

I mean, if you go over like Windows different platforms, it's not an unreasonable thing, but I think that is a huge part of commitment because you know a it's a huge part of the cost and be even As we've looked at resources in the past getting access to that software to even do that about and it's hard enough to get access to a Mainframe. But to get access to all of the software to build on top of it is is just really hard. I mean just cost perspective licensing perspective the whole nine yards.

So there'll be a lot more to come there, but that is a big component of it. Final question I have on the Mainframe and then I want to talk some more open source Summit. Well, that's not question.

But area I wanted to talk kids so Oh, is this another yet another committee or another project? That's going to get spun up that manages this? Within open Mainframe.

Yeah. So right now our technical advisory council is taking on the sort of responsibility of building out the processes and policies around this. It's it's a bit of a unique from a hardware from an infrastructure perspective more than just like Cloud infrastructure and things like that mostly just because of the nature of How It's deployed and how it's used.

And and also I I think there is a sense of wanting to make sure that there's a degree of vetting of the access to this. So they're gonna be taking the initial charge with it. There's a lot of folks in the community.

We've had a working group around us enablement for a year. Now that has built up a lot of knowledge as well. And I think they're going to be contributing to that as well to get there.

So that's more to come on that but that is a big portion of it. Very cool. All right.

Hey John, we have a few minutes left. Not a lot. But beyond the you know, the the open Mainframe project Mainframe donation any other highlights from the summit that you want to bring up to the audience?

I think too. Actually three, um one is is that we had announced a great collaboration between the various Linux distributions that support the Mainframe which architecturally Wise It's called s390x as it's identifier to help me help with cross maintaining a various packages because it's just a huge challenge where you know, the Ubuntu you have the red hat you have the Sue say you have all these different communities maintaining packages very independently in some of the patches that need to go in for architecture support our maintained independently. Now, there's a cross group on this form to manage that and that's Linux distribution working group a second one and this is what I'd love to kind of get a little bit of edges take on is our Cobalt working group, which we announced two years ago at the Summit is beginning is partnering with the Linux Foundation research group along with our training and certification group to build out a indust.

Three report on the use of COBOL in the world and what that looks like and so they made the announcement around this and there's great opportunities for sponsorships there. And before I get to the third piece of news, I would you know, I want to kind of hear from reg because you know, as Regis of this panelist is the the Cobalt person and I know this is something that there's been a ton of excitement in the group in him personally and you know red, what do you think about that? Like what's what's sort of your actions and and sort of tell I guess everyone like why this is valuable.

You know, it's it's interesting because it goes football predates the IBM system 360 Mainframe, which is really the same machine only elaborated that we're running today. And it really was one of the things that gave that Mainframe it strength and football was really that original open source language, it was written to be platform agnostic and so it really worked, you know, it became the place where people develop the applications around the world economy. And those applications are still running often with only, you know minimal modifications when it became necessary.

That's why I think it was such a big deal. And so now we're running with hundreds of billions of lines of Como Running World economy. And so to finally, you know, get historically involved with ownership of that fact and and understand what that means.

And so that being some surveys done on the One Hand by the open Mainframe projects cobal working group, which I'm part of but also by one company at least microfocus which has two members on the mobile working group that did an additional elaborate survey and Between these sorts of information now, we're starting to dig deeper and interview people and understand it and really characterize I was Cobalt being used today because you know, as I like to say, you can't get from point A to point being unless you're willing to admit your appoint a you know, so what is point a where are we today? You know not like, you know certain a government figures are suggesting all the problems are cool, but rather than all our opportunities are cobal and so it's just so exciting that people waking up to to the fact that cobal is always been there literally always being there and we can you know, really hook into that and and see just the amazing potential because on the one hand this language is written to be or create even written by Ordinary People, you know normal people not fancy technologists and so, you know, replenishing the cobal programming Workforce is not that hard because normal people the right Global but the combo can use to advance as well and do some amazing stuff. And so just the future is so bright and and so really need to be part of a group that is explicitly addressing that and really trying to pull some meaning and understanding about So that we can really move forward much more consciously.

Yeah, and just the fact that there's research in this area, which there's not there's been just a desert of cobalt research at least our factual point of view. I mean, there's certainly been you know certain things on just sort of the you know, the the view of the demise of it but I think getting an actual view of what this really looks like and and driven from a vendor neutral perspective so that everyone out there especially Enterprise leaders that are looking at what are my future Investments? Like they have research they can tap into so that that is one huge fantastic thing.

And then the last bit is a kickoff of a working group which is looking at modernization in the Mainframe space, which is has been a very controversial topic because so much has been loaded on using modernization as a cover word for activities of just blanketly moving things off of the Mainframe architecture and you know if there's one thing I've learned in Enterprise Computing over the last decade is Enterprises a day have architectural all over the place. They're using Cloud. They're using distributed.

They're using Edge notes using everything and the companies that are Forward Thinking you think don't look at this as the cost of doing business. It's a competitive advantage and you know that and Rick I mean both of you are square in that area and I know there was a lot of Buzz about this modernization group and you know, I'd like both of your thoughts like what it what what do you hope to see out of this? Oh, okay.

I guess I go ahead go ahead. Yeah, so yeah because I sort of volunteered for it, you know moderate the m word has become problematic. Yeah, and actually in my my day job which is analyst relations.

It's been interesting to see how the m word is Shifting someone the way analysts are referring to it. It's we're starting to see less of this lift and shift mentality and more about you know, the mod the word modernization really having there's a role for modernization in place and I think which is a good thing. Uh, as far as the work group is concerned, I think certainly the industry coming around and coming up with a standard definition of it.

Number one is important and I think number two identifying Pathways to to modernization, you know using The inherent capabilities of the of zif, you know of the platform number one and number two, you know, just ways of using things that OMP offers right or any of the other Associated programs to get people, you know, two two modernization. I think the most important thing is to make sure though that we say when you think about modernization you start with the business goal in mind first, not the technology because the problem is everyone focused on the technology side and it's just amusing to see now people looking at cloud and saying, oh there's a slow down and spending of cloud, you know, people are rethinking their Investments and David Lynton come from the light recently. I had an interesting blog this morning on it, so Good timing.

Yes, absolutely. And I would just add to that especially again back to the education and skills is is looking at the the Mainframe as an as another platform, but they're able the people that are coming out of the universities or maybe have worked in the cloud environment can use those same skills in the Mainframe environment and letting them realize it that things that they're learning. Now the modern tooling modern design today can be implemented against the the Mainframe applications and updating those applications.

Even the data is on the Mainframe but having the ability to use that tooling to get a really cool user experience, which is what they need to be competitive and and the environment so it's important to make sure that it's a huge commitment from IBM, but you know, we have our our whole modernization Center and we're working closely with you all on this too. So it's it's an important. It's important for the for the platform and luncheonity of the platform.

Yeah, absolutely guys. I need I need to wind this down. Unfortunately.

We I think we're even overtime already first of all. panel members Rick Yvette Reg, thank you so much for joining. You know, we do these once a month.

We're always looking for people to come on and talk to Mainframe with us. So please come back again anytime. John great job on the summit.

I I really I'm serious. I think. In hindsight, we're going to look at this donation.

And this Mainframe coming home? As as the beginning of a new era for the open Mainframe project from a project that sponsored projects and talked about it to a project that has Hands-On, right? Teaching people expanding the Mainframe and the mainframes role.

Thank you. All we're going to as I said at the top of the show catch this on power in your favorite podcast Channel as well going forward, but for now, this is Alan Shimmel Tech strong for the open Mainframe project many thanks to the open Mainframe project Linux foundation for working with his partnering with us on this. We'll see you next month with another great show.

Bye.