Terminal Talk

A lively conversation with Matt Leming, Anthony Papageorgiou, and Dale Lane about Kafka not only running on z/OS, but making the most of it alongside MQ.    Additional Reading Material: Anthony's blog post abotu mainframe to kafka options: https://medium.com/@anthonypapageorgiou/from-cobol-to-kafka-ac8cfb96f238 Dale Lane's blog (all things Kafka): https://www.ibm.com/products/event-automation/resources Open Enterprise SDK for Apache Kafka (COBOL, C/C++): https://www.ibm.com/products/open-enterprise-sdk-apache-kafka MQ Connectors: https://github.com/ibm-messaging/kafka-connect-mq-source https://github.com/ibm-messaging/kafka-connect-mq-sink Kafka Connect MQ connectors on z/OS: Overview - https://community.ibm.com/community/user/integration/blogs/amy-mccormick/2023/06/29/unlock-events-in-mission-critical-systems Setup - https://ibm.github.io/event-automation/es/connecting/mq/zos/ Performance - https://community.ibm.com/community/user/integration/blogs/anthony-sharkey1/2023/07/31/ibm-mq-for-zos-933-performance-of-kafka-connectors

Erik Weyler (AKA COBOL Erik) is a Solution architect at SEB.  He has not only been an advocate outside of his company, but also focused on helping newer employees understand and use the modern mainframe. In this episode, we get down to the how and the why. Also, sandwich talk.  https://github.com/COBOL-Erik/Sudoku-Solver-COBOL

On a mission to spread the word of enterprise computing and the power of running applications on IBM Z, Joris Mertens and Frank van der Wal have been hard at work getting learners all over the world engaged with Code-A-Thons. Listen here for more details, and for the full multimedia experience, visit the one-pager here: https://www.ibm.com/community/z/advocacy/wp-content/uploads/IBM-Z-Xplore-Code-a-thon.pdf

When you beat a game on Super Difficulty, sometimes there's an extra bonus reward or special animation waiting at the end. There's no prize for taking the hard route when it comes to mainframe, so let's make sure we clear out as many hurdles and time sinks as possible at the start of a project. This means getting systems set up exactly the way you'd expect, with the tools you'll need, in an environment that's familiar. The IBM Open Enterprise Foundation for z/OS is a no-cost collection of vetted open source developer tools for z/OS that you can download and have on your systems today. Why? How? I'll let the Mike, Anthony, and Igor spill the details.  They also asked that include this absolutely massive list of links: IBM Open Enterprise Foundation for z/OS - https://www.ibm.com/products/open-enterprise-foundation-zos Join the System Z Enthusiasts Discord Server - https://discord.gg/sze z/OS Open Tools - https://zosopentools.org/#/ z/OS Open Tools Github - https://github.com/ZOSOpenTools/ The UNIX Command Line on z/OS : Use It  - https://makingdeveloperslivesbetter.wordpress.com/2024/06/25/the-unix-command-line-on-zos-use-it/ The Mainframe Demystified - https://igortodorovskiibm.github.io/blog/  

Running the systems that run the world... nobody expects it to be as simple as flipping a light switch, but there are certainly some areas where advancement means simplification. In this episode, we hear from Marcel Mitran about how this is achievable on everyone's favorite computing platform. 

Being able to work with the infrastructure of IBM Z as an evolving set of code, which can be reviewed, updated, iterated, and managed the same as a traditional software project opens up a whole new realm of possibilities. It's a task easier said than done, thankfully there are some wonderful people working on this task who are making sure it's done the right way. Details inside. 

Datacenters grow, and every so often, they need to move, which is quite possibly the clearest definition of "Easier Said than Done." Now make it 23 datacenters around the world with an IBM Z presence, consolidated down to 4.  In this episode, Marianne Serra talks us through how to even start thinking about tackling a problem this size. 

We had a packed studio for this one, and there is much to discuss. It's time to get an update into the latest Ansible news, plus some deep diving into some work being led by Jay in the area of automation on z/VM using Ansible. An episode to delight, educate, and inspire anyone interested in working smarter, rather than harder.  Ansible for IBM Z Playbook repository: https://github.com/IBM/z_ansible_collections_sample z/VM Ansible collection: https://github.com/IBM/zvm_ansible Ansible for IBM Z collections: https://galaxy.ansible.com/ui/search/?keywords=ibm_z

If you know how to do it, you're probably looking to do it faster. ZOAU is a great set of tools which exists to make many common z/OS system tasks happen with less friction and more user friendliness. In this episode. Anthony Giorgio gives us the info on what we can find, and what we may hope to find in this wonderful piece of software. https://www.ibm.com/docs/en/zoau/1.2.x https://www.seven9s.com/

Returning to the show are Python and Open Source Experts Joe Boston and Chad McIntyre. Keeping up to date on how Python on IBM Z is advancing and improving is important, and we've got an episode chock full of info. From packages to ports, AI to Flask, it's time to refresh that knowledge.    Auto-Generated Transcript (may not be 100% accurate) Frank Welcome to the Terminal Talk podcast on mainframe and mainframe related topics.  Jeff Frank Hi, Frank, It's really nice to meet you. I'm Jeff.  Frank And with us today, we have two very important guests. We have Chad MacIntyre, who is the lead for Python and U.S., and Joe Basson, who is the lead for Open Source NZ. And so both of these guys have been on the podcast before. You probably remember the great episodes that they did. Mm hmm. We wanted to kind of get together and hear about what's been happening since the last time they went on. Yeah, some good.  Jeff Sounds good to me.  Frank You feel so engaged as the important thing.  Jeff At least I'm not drawing this time.  Frank Yeah. So last time Jeff actually created a doodle of me that was maybe not the most complimentary. So it really felt like it was. It was with me, so.  Joe Yeah, I saw that, though. It was probably about the best Jeff could do, though, don't you think? Well, I.  Frank Thought about the.  Jeff Worst and not the.  Frank Worst. I'm going to make it my I'm my profile picture for the company.  Jeff For those in the room.  Frank And that's why.  Jeff I sent it to you, Chad. So you can see it, too.  Frank Okay. So let's start I think we'll start with the Python stuff, because some of that was has really changed quite a bit since last time we talked and. So, Chad, you want to talk about, you know, your adventures since the last time we talked to you?  Chad Certainly, Frank. So we've definitely been through a lot of growth and expansion, I would say, and exciting things going on in the Python universe. And just to kind of bring everybody up to speed in terms of some of the important things that are happening there. You know, Joe's on the call today for I'd say probably one of the things that's been troublesome. The most troublesome for everybody on the python front and those consuming packages. So you know, we'll get into that as we go down the line. So there's good news there. And the other one that everybody, I think from day one of release was asking was the question, you know, can Python run on Zips? And then the answer to that question was certainly no for quite a long time and has now changed within the last couple of months, too. Yes. So that's a very exciting development. And we're seeing a lot of people really interested in adopting Python workflows and running those things on the Atlas machines. Beyond that, you know, we've been doing our work to keep up with the community. So, you know, we're it's it's core to our mission to make sure that we've got the latest and greatest python supported on the platform. But not only that that we're making it take advantage of those special things that Z has to offer. Right. So in the latest release, 311, we've added support right within Python to take advantage of the enterprise data compression accelerators, accelerators. And so this is a nice feature because you get it for free, right? You don't have to do anything to kind of code to it or take advantage of it. If you've got them in there enabled, it will just work with Python. So lots of great work and lots of great developments on the Python side, and that's just a teaser from there.  Frank Well, in Python 311, across the board was a better performing python. Are we seeing that on the U.S.?  Chad Absolutely, yeah. So there's been some terrific work done in the community to rework some of the guts of the python the python implementation specifically to perform better. And so, you know, this was a concerted effort by the community to take a look at, you know, what are Python workflows, how do they run and why are we here, how can we do better at running them? And so there was a whole kind of re-organization and a breaking down of byte codes and stuff like that that happened in The Interpreter. And the question is, does that pan out into Z? And absolutely, it does pan out into Z. So this is kind of an across the board thing in terms of performance benefits. So I don't want to go into quoting numbers or things of that nature. But on the Net Corp performance benchmarks, we're definitely seeing benefits that match what the community was seeing there.  Frank Yeah. So how long before Python takes over the Z OS world?  Chad Oh, can I defer that one to Joe?  Frank No.  Joe It already has.  Frank Happened.  Joe We just don't know yet.  Chad Exactly. I think it's it's one of those things where the roots are already there. It's just a matter of time for this time the show is.  Frank Well, and that's that to me, a big part of this. And I kind of want both of you guys will weigh in on this. But in my perspective, though, the python work that we you know, that you guys have done, along with things like Zillow or U.S. Open automation utilities, see, I got it all. You know, it really starts to democratize the platform in a way that really has never happened on the platform. People now have a lot more choice and they don't necessarily have to do things the way IBM tells them they should. And so I that's a yeah, I think it's a really important piece. Imagine it. My, my future is always managing the platform with Python instead of JCL. Right. And I'm oh, pause for some listeners to have, you know, a complete nervous breakdown.  Jeff That's obviously one of the big. Hearts of Python success on Z is going to come from packages being available for it because Python is a very extensible language. I'm curious what the process is to in identifying those important packages, because it's not just the big ones that everyone thinks about. It's these tiny little ones that you need that one weird bolt to make a project work. So how do you how do you make sure you have all those bolts in place?  Joe A lot of it's trial and error and inexperience. And one of the reasons that we have gotten to the point now where, you know, between Chad's team and our team here in Poughkeepsie, that we're at least reasonably competent. And what we do these days is that we've made all the mistakes before. Right. I mean, we we originally started diving into the python pool in 2016. We came out with some of our AI related stuff and we pretty much did all the wrong stuff, right. We tried to shoehorn we tried to shoehorn code into packaging mechanisms and delivery channels that didn't make sense. And so what happened is you would you would come out with a product or a function that did something very useful, very cool, but the code would just sit there and rot over time because you had no capability to keep up with the open source community.  Chad Right.  Joe And so there were so many technical issues that were in our way. And over the years we kept identifying what these problems were. And one of the very key ones right from the beginning was to settle on a standardized first class python that we could make part of our regular language environment on us and rely on it and lean on it as heavily as we do the C compiler or any other language on the platform. And once, once, once we put that that group together and Chad became the lead of that, that that's when things really started to take off. That was the major inhibitor that we really that we really faced. And then from then on, it's like, okay, now we can tackle all the other kinds of things primarily how do you stay current? And even just two years ago, currency was all about how do we put the latest function out there, as everyone knows, right? More and more security has become the focus of the open source community. And now currency and security are tightly coupled with one another. So. So as we look forward to how do we best manage the open source community? Number one, we've got our good, solid current language to work from, which solves all a whole host of problems. And from my point of view, the next question is how do we keep up with the open source community when we've got hundreds of packages that we need to put out there? Right. And so you ask the question, how do we make sure that we've got the one little utility that is the, you know, the bolt that holds everything together is even.  Frank Yes.  Joe Yes. Something something profound like that, you know. And in the answers, we just spend time installing things and look for stuff that falls out. Right. And it's not actually even that hard. Python is such a flexible environment, and the package management system that's built into this ecosystem is so flexible and so useful that you go, Well, I've got this set of say, 15 different things that I want to do, but me install 15 and then look at everything that gets dragged in and maybe do some analysis on the dependency trees. And that's everything that I need to know. And you're not going to you're not going to get bitten by that. One thing that's missing, because in order for you to even have installed it in the first place, all these pieces had to be okay.  Jeff So from a currency perspective, how much of that falls on staying up to date? How much of that falls on the developer themselves versus like the mechanism there they're using?  Joe Yeah. The open source community, I saw a statistic that we put in several of the presentations that we've done, which I believe is really true when you when you look at all of the vulnerabilities out there that are exploited in the wild, they're 97% of all of them already have fixes waiting are already available. So what we have to do as a team is make it very easy for our clients to stay current as well. And so the way we used to do things prior to coming with coming up with a more comprehensive open source strategy was that, you know, we would we would go ahea

Always good to hear Steven's informed thoughts on where the platform is headed, how to get others along with us, and just where to find motivation. Lots to digest in this episode, so you might need to drive around the block a few extra times to fit it all in! https://www.seven9s.com/ https://www.ensono.com/

Nuts and Bolts vs Ones and Zeroes. Who really makes the world go around? It gets feisty on this one when Frank and Ray go toe-to-toe discussing their favorite part of our favorite platform. 

Getting resolution on an ever-evolving platform requires ever-evolving solutions. In this episode, we talk with the Team Lead for z/OS & USS Support, John Shebey, about what it takes to optimize problem resolution on such a demanding system. 

Getting skills on Z is discussed almost as frequently as Z itself, and with good reason! The jobs are out there, they need to be filled, but it takes the right type of person and the right type of education to bring it all together. There is perhaps none better to discuss this topic than COO of Interskill, Darren Surch.  Learn more about Interskill's offerings at interskill.com To see some of the courses that Jeff is featured in, visit learn.ibm.com

Being back in the studio means we can finally get the band back together. In this episode, we've got Gary Puchkoff and Allison Moshier to tell us how z/OS Container Extensions have advanced since we last chatted, and to give us a peek of the direction of things to come. 

Standing in for the now-possibly-unbanned Peter Enrico, Scott Chapman is in the virtual studio to give us a fresh batch of insight into how IBM Z users can get the most from their systems. We learn that sometimes exceeding your goals is *not* a good thing, and that recompiling code to take advantage of new features isn't always as simple as hitting the big green "recompile" button.  Learn more at https://www.pivotor.com 

The Go language has emerged as a leading language for server-side and cloud applications, DevOps automation tools, and so much more. Like all good things, it has come to z/OS, and may just be what you're looking for to extend existing methods into a new direction. Bill O'Farrell and James Tang are here to walk you through all of the questions you never knew you had about the Go language.  Go on z/OS download - https://www.ibm.com/account/reg/us-en/signup?formid=urx-49659 Product page (Demos on "Resources" tab) - https://www.ibm.com/products/open-enterprise-sdk-go-zos IBM Documentation - https://www.ibm.com/docs/en/sdk-go-zos  Go on z/OS community - https://community.ibm.com/community/user/ibmz-and-linuxone/groups/topic-home?CommunityKey=6fb961a9-1e24-42c4-ad73-6a4a6b799f8a  

SDSF is, to many, the part of ISPF that lets you manage jobs and fire off the occasional command, but not many truly appreciate its journey and just how deep those hooks go into the core of the OS. Ken Jonas and Rob Scott stop by this episode to shed some insight into SDSF and what the future may hold for such a powerful tool. 

In order for Z continue to run the world, we need a world around for it to run. Recent efforts in Sustainability are designed to lessen the impact of computing on our own natural resources, as well as making better decisions with regards to modern workloads. There's lots to discuss, and Dustin Demetriou is going to lay it all out for you on this new episode of Terminal Talk. 

It's time to rethink your storage model. Don't worry, nobody is saying throw everything into the cloud, rather TCT is a new offering allowing for a whole new tier of storage which leverages the cloud storage provider of your choice. That's about the extent of my Storage knowledge, so if you want to know more, hit play and listen to Robert Gensler tell us all about Transparent Cloud Tiering.