Open Mainframe Project Celebrates Major Technical Milestone with the 5-Year Anniversary of Zowe

Designed for mission-critical applications and data processing, Zowe ensures product stability, security and interoperability with the support of a large open source community

SAN FRANCISCO, August 10, 2023 – The Open Mainframe Project, an open source initiative that enables collaboration across the mainframe community to develop shared tool sets and resources, announced today that Zowe will mark its 5-year anniversary this month. Zowe, an open source software framework for the mainframe that strengthens integration with modern enterprise applications, will celebrate the milestone by bringing the community together for Zowe Day at SHARE New Orleans on August 14.  

Zowe, the integrated and extensible open source framework for z/OS, was announced at SHARE St. Louis 2018 with initial contributors Broadcom, IBM and Rocket Software. The framework comes with a core set of applications out of the box in combination with the APIs and OS capabilities future applications will depend on. Zowe offers modern interfaces to interact with z/OS and allows you to work with z/OS in a way that is similar to what you experience on cloud platforms today. Developers can use these interfaces as delivered or through plug-ins and extensions that are created by clients or third-party vendors.

The Arcati Mainframe 2023 Survey, the independent annual guide for users of mainframe systems, surveys mainframe sites each year to see what technologies are being used and which ones are going out of favor. This year, 69% of respondents said they are or will be using Zowe by the end of the year.

“As businesses around the globe tackle their mission critical workloads, they’re looking for security, privacy and long-term solutions,” said John Mertic, Executive Director of Open Mainframe Project. “Five years ago, Zowe promised to deliver a more open, integrated and secure environment. With the strength of almost 700 community contributors, we were able to deliver that and become a foundational enabler to businesses’ hybrid IT strategy and an essential component to an organization’s modernization strategy. We are excited to see where the Zowe community will go next.”

Security

As part of its security-first approach, Zowe established a security workgroup that ensures that Zowe is part of the Zero Trust Architecture within enterprises. Zowe’s API Mediation Layer is the zero-trust enforcement behind API access to Mainframe system APIs. Additionally, Zowe has also been authorized by the Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE) Program as a CVE Numbering Authority (CNA).

 Community Leadership

Zowe is a contributor-led community with participating vendors such as but are not limited to Broadcom Mainframe Software, BMC, IBA Group, IBM, Micro Focus, Phoenix Software, Rocket Software, Segus Software and Vicom Infinity. Through extensive collaboration, the community:

• Launched Zowe LTS V2, which ​​increases product stability, security and interoperability and ensures longevity compatibility with the Conformance and Conformant Support Provider Programs.
• Organized 9 dedicated squads that help advance the project including API ML, CLI, Documentation, Zowe Explorers, Onboarding, Systems, Web UI, z/OS and IntelliJ Plug-in.
• Leveraged the Zowe Onboarding Squad that has helped contributors speak at more than 30 industry events around the world such as Open Mainframe Summit, SHARE, GSE events, CDcon, Open Source Summit and VMWorkshop.
• Created 13 Projects that improve the learning ability, accessibility, and possibility of mainframe development including Zowe Application Framework, API Mediation Layer, Zowe CLI, Zowe Explorer, Zowe System Service (ZSS), Node.js Client SDK, Zowe IntelliJ Plugin, Zowe Kotlin Client SDK, Zowe Chat, ZEBRA, Zowe Python Client SDK, Zowe Swift Client SDK amd Zowe Java Client SDK.
• Was recognized as the #1 awarded “z” badge issued by INTERSKILL, which is led by industry mainframe educators. Total number of badges issued as of April 21, 2023, was 7,021.

Zowe was named the “Best DevOps for Mainframe Solution” in the DevOps Dozen Awards for the second year running. This win reflects the many achievements from this past year, such as increasing in components, extensions, community members and adoption.

Zowe will also be featured in several sessions at Open Mainframe Summit Las Vegas, co-located with IBM TechXchange on September 11, and Open Mainframe Summit New York, co-located with FINOS’ Open Source in Financial Forum on November 1. Learn more.

Additional Resources:

• Zowe GitHub Repository
• Getting Started documentation site
• Open Mainframe Project’s I am a Mainframer Podcast

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.