The Open Mainframe Project Announces A New Mainframe Resource to Advance Mainframe Talent and Innovative Technologies

Broadcom-donated Mainframe system will be available in 2023 for use by all Open Mainframe projects

SAN FRANCISCO, September 21, 2022 – The Open Mainframe Project today announces the availability of a z15 Mainframe system dedicated for training next generation talent and the development of new open software technologies in ways that will further strengthen the integration of mainframe and cloud. Donated by Broadcom Mainframe Software Division, the z15 will be available for use by all Open Mainframe Projects and the open source community at large beginning in 2023. Broadcom’s donation provides a critical, new resource to foster greater collaboration and the development of new tool sets across the mainframe community.

Open Mainframe Project’s work as an open innovation pipeline enables organizations to gain the most value from their mainframe. This major donation by Broadcom enables Open Mainframe Project to continue evolving its mission as the primary clearinghouse for community involvement and scale it across the ecosystem of vendors, academic partners and the next generation of mainframe talent. As a result, Open Mainframe Project is now positioned to deliver a new level of value to the ecosystem.

“We support and foster the mainframe ecosystem in many ways — often it’s our time and talent,” said Greg Lotko, senior vice president and general manager, Mainframe Software Division, Broadcom. “We saw a special opportunity to lift the open mainframe ecosystem to a new level. The donation of the z15 mainframe is an important investment that will accelerate projects, skills, growth, and open innovation for the mainframe community.”

With more than 20 current projects and Working Groups, several technical communities have a need to be able to test open source code on hardware. The new z15 not only offers them an opportunity to test their contributions, it also equips them to build use cases and better plan a road map. Additionally, this mainframe infrastructure will be available for broad open source projects as a development, test, and continuous delivery environment, enabling developers within these communities to be able to support both z/OS and Linux on s390x. The z15 will be hosted at Marist College.

“This valuable donation is a significant investment to our community and serves as an accelerant for our communities like Zowe, COBOL Check, GenevaERS, Zorow and the COBOL Programming Course,” said John Mertic, Director of Program Management at the Linux Foundation. “Having open access to the mainframe will take these projects’ initiatives  to the next level. As our members, we’re thankful that Broadcom and Marist College have helped provide this opportunity and cement the Open Mainframe Project as the cornerstone that will help close the technology gap and inspire innovation.”

Availability of these tools and resources also serves as the catalyst to train a new pool of mainframe talent. The Mainframe Open Education and COBOL Working Group are now positioned to offer a real-world environment to better prepare learners as they transition to full-time careers in the mainframe industry.

Today’s donation was announced at the 3rd annual Open Mainframe Summit, hosted for the first time in-person in Philadelphia, PA, and streaming online for global attendees on September 21-22. This year’s conference features the largest number of ecosystem sponsorship participation demonstrating their commitment and focus on open innovation for the mainframe.

Open Mainframe Summit is made possible thanks to Platinum Sponsors Broadcom Mainframe Software, IBM, Kyndryl, and SUSE; Gold Sponsors BMC, Micro Focus and Vicom Infinity, a Converge Company and Bronze Sponsor Rocket Software.  See the full conference schedule here.

About the Open Mainframe Project

The Open Mainframe Project is intended to serve as a focal point for deployment and use of Linux and Open Source in a mainframe computing environment. With a vision of Open Source on the Mainframe as the standard for enterprise class systems and applications, the project’s mission is to build community and adoption of Open Source on the mainframe by eliminating barriers to Open Source adoption on the mainframe, demonstrating value of the mainframe on technical and business levels, and strengthening collaboration points and resources for the community to thrive. Learn more about the project at https://www.openmainframeproject.org.

About the Linux Foundation

Founded in 2000, the Linux Foundation and its projects are supported by more than 2,950 members. The Linux Foundation is the world’s leading home for collaboration on open source software, hardware, standards, and data. Linux Foundation projects are critical to the world’s infrastructure including Linux, Kubernetes, Node.js, ONAP, Hyperledger, PyTorch, RISC-V, and more. The Linux Foundation’s methodology focuses on leveraging best practices and addressing the needs of contributors, users, and solution providers to create sustainable models for open collaboration. For more information, please visit us at linuxfoundation.org.

The Linux Foundation has registered trademarks and uses trademarks. For a list of trademarks of The Linux Foundation, please see its trademark usage page: www.linuxfoundation.org/trademark-usage. Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds.