"There's plain few problems can't be solved with a little sweat and hard work"

In this edition

19th Annual Mainframe Survey ▪️ Hybrid Mainframe case study ▪️ Grow your skills on z/OS USS ▪️ Azure Mainframe Connector ▪️ COBOL Sandbox ▪️ COBOL Talk at GSE ▪️ COBOL Assessment Courses ▪️ SQL reinvented ▪️ GSE UK upcoming ▪️ IBM z Day ▪️ IBM TechXchange - win a trip to Vegas ▪️ AI Podcast ▪️ New mainframe AI chipset ▪️ Gen AI in the workplace ▪️ AI is the new Snake Oil ▪️ Podman vs Docker ▪️ Potpourri - various stories including buy a mainframe from Paul G Allen to get inspired ▪️

Intro

The Mainframerz meetup events & newsletters are designed to share the latest news and training to 'help you grow your skills and network'.

At our events and through the newsletter you can network with like minded friendly folks keen to help and engage in discussion around the mainframe.

To get the most from our community we invite you to jump in with questions, ideas, or helping with one of our events.

The newsletter is a little briefer this time as I have been on holiday for the last 10 days and its been a bank holiday in the UK, apologies for any stories I may have missed this time.

I was going to use the title 'do you feel lucky mainframer', but it's not the right Clint Eastwood film, so opted for a Pale Rider quote. As I have just come back from my holidays you could say I was a Pale Rider!

19th Annual Mainframe Survey

Insights into the future of the mainframe

Thank you to Mikhael (Mike) Liberman who has shared a glimpse into the results of the BMC 19th Annual Mainframe survey.

❐ 94% of respondents saw the mainframe as a long term platform

❐ 87% reported that their ransomware controls are effective

You can register to view the webinar with more insights from Alan Warhurst & Priya Doty here:

One more post that caught my eye was by Anji Stephens and it is taken from last years GSE UK by April Hickel of BMC

❐ Executives believe in the Mainframe

❐ "from legacy to legendary"

Hybrid Mainframe

”People should not view the cloud and mainframe as different or competing entities.”

Many of you have reached out to say you found it helpful to understand about the differences in terms of modernisation, optimisation and the different ways services can be managed for the mainframe.

I wanted to follow up with one more story or use case that may be of interest this time it comes courtesy of NatWest Group .

Iain McCorquodale, head of Core Solutions at NatWest, discuss NatWest’s strategy of being a “relationship bank for a digital world” and the underlying technology infrastructure that supports that strategy.

The case for mainframe modernization is vital, as nothing matches a mainframe to securely process hundreds of thousands of business transactions daily. However, it must also become an integral part of cloud strategy and continually leverage its strengths, which no other platform can match.

You can find a link to the full post courtesy of Moez Boubaya which discusses this topic here:

Grow your skills: z/OS Unix System Services

Tips to improve your z/OS skills

Thank you to Mathieu Dalbin who has created a post in the IBM Community blog with tips on using z/OS USS which you can read here:

❐ Setting up the z/OS Unix Systems Services terminal

❐ Using tmux on USS - terminal multiplex

❐ Update Vi to ViM

Grow you skills: Azure Logic Apps

Mainframe Integration connector

Thank you to Alfredo Iglesias who shared the YouTube video by Harold Campos .

We are adding support to 3270 screens menus for more complex integration scenarios with Legacy 3270 green screen applications running on Mainframes.

Did you know: When the Crowdstrike outage hit the AZURE platform was also unavailable at the same time for 1 hour but only for customers in the US?

Grow your skills: COBOL

Free Sandbox

A few people have asked me for resources for COBOL and how to learn COBOL and practice COBOL.

Vagner Bellacosa shared the free Online COBOL Compiler available from Tutorialspoint which you can access here:

COBOL Talk at GSE UK

Another interesting take on COBOL will be given by John Rankin "The Long Life of COBOL and the Mainframe".

His talk will explore the history and development of the IBM mainframe, from the perspective of the needs and requirements of COBOL. From its introduction in 1964, the IBM mainframe has been designed to implement the COBOL programming language, among its many other valuable purposes. This tradition has continued until the present day, with the introduction of the z/16.

Read the post from GSE UK Region here:

COBOL Assessment courses

I would like to stay with COBOL just a little longer to help you Venkat Trainer has created a series of assessments that are available to watch on YouTube that may be interesting to anyone interested in learning more about COBOL.

A complete list of the COBOL assessments provided by Venkat is available here:

Grow your skills: SQL reinvented

GoogleSQL

Thank you to Marian Stiehler who has shared the latest interpretation of SQL which shows how SQL queries can be piped to simply the request.

In addition Marian has noted in his post that as of 24th August 2024 SQL is the most requested programming language in the TIOBE index.

Finally Marian has also added a link to the post by Google on why they created GoogleSQL.

You can follow Marian Stiehler or if you would like to thank him for sharing his knowledge you can give his original post a like by clicking here:

Grow your skills & networking: GSE UK

GSE UK in person Event

GSE UK in person takes place between Monday 4th November to Thursday 7th November 2024.

Speakers have now been chosen - as we get nearer to the date I'm sure you will see lots of posts from Speakers giving you a flavour of their talks - if you have a great talk everyone should know why not drop me a message and I can add the odd talk to look out for (space permitting).

Why you should consider joining GSE UK?

❐ Defines tomorrow’s architectures

❐ Shares knowledge

❐ Sets industry standards

❐ Networks with the world’s top IT professionals

❐ Trains the next generation of tech specialists

❐ Promotes diversity and sustainability in the industry

"We will be looking to build on the success of the 2023 in-person Conference which was our largest event to date with over 600 delegates".

Grow your skills: IBM z Day virtual event

1st October 2024

Last year the event saw "70 sessions led by more than 200 industry experts and global thought leaders across five tracks over 26,000 views from 135 countries."

Celebrate our inclusive, diverse and engaging IBM Z and LinuxONE Community, the front door into IBM Z with 20,000 members today and growing!

Topics this year to look out for:-

❐ Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning

❐ Data and App Modernization

❐ Digital Transformation and Hybrid Cloud

❐ Sustainability and Innovation

❐ Security, Privacy, and Resiliency

❐ Open Source Technology

❐ Client and Industry Best Practices

❐Skills Programs and Career Journeys

❐ Global Talent Showcase and Accelerated Learning Opportunities

Grow your skills: IBM TechXchange - Win a free trip to Vegas

12th - 22nd September 2024: Hackathon

Are you a developer, a student or just a part time hacker? Would you like to attend the IBM TechXchange Conference in Las Vegas for free.

Imagine winning a trip to go to Vegas.

Get free access to watsonx, IBM’s data and AI platform (plus IBM’s LLM, Granite) and watsonx training. Develop an innovative proof-of-concept for how a real-world business or societal process can be streamlined using generative AI.

Top 3 projects can win a trip to showcase their work on the main stage at IBM TechXchange Conference 2024 in Las Vegas in October!

Read more and register to take part here:

Did you know: Many people who have been to Las Vegas refer to Vegas after they have been? Also there are more flights out than in to Vegas & you have more chance of finding a fruit machine "one arm bandit" than you have of finding a clock in the airport at Vegas McCarran.

Grow your skills: Podcasts

AI talk with Mark Zuckerberg & Daniel EK

Mark Zuckerberg {CEO Meta} and Daniel Ek {CEO Spotify} discuss Why Europe Should Embrace Open-Source AI: It Risks Falling Behind Because of Incoherent and Complex Regulation, Say the Two Tech CEOs

Editor’s Note: At Spotify, we believe that AI has the potential to offer real benefits for innovation and creators. Read on for thoughts from our CEO, Daniel Ek and Meta CEO, Mark Zuckerberg’s on the promise of open source AI and its ability to drive progress and create economic opportunity globally. 

Whether we like it or not AI will be coming to the Mainframe and I thought the talk on Spotify would be of interest for awareness of what may be coming.

“Podcasting is a great way to share your ideas and knowledge with the world.” – John Lee Dumas.

You can listen to the Spotify podcast here:

Leading Enterprise AI into the Future

IBM announces Telum II & Spyre Accelerator

Thank you to Diego Bessone for the sharing the news of the latest IBM AI chip release for the IBM z16 mainframe.

In 2021, IBM® introduced the IBM Telum® processor, featuring its first advanced on-processor chip AI accelerator for inferencing. The Telum processor’s ability to deliver business outcomes has been a key driver behind the success of the IBM z16™ mainframe program. As client needs evolve, IBM continues to innovate and push the envelope on emerging technologies.

Today at the Hot Chips 2024 conference in Palo Alto, California, IBM announced the next generation of enterprise computing for the AI era with the IBM Telum® II processor and a preview of the IBM Spyre™ Accelerator. Both are expected to be available in 2025.

You can read more about this via the IBM blog announcement here:

AI Assistants are Transforming Companies

Tim Beerman CTO of Ensono interviewed about the use of Gen AI

I have been previously asked by readers of the newsletter how could Gen AI be used to work with the mainframe; reading the report in CNBC which talks about the use of LLM for reports, we could well see Gen AI being used to help simplify the creation of custom queries and reports on mainframe data which by definition is often "Big Data".

The program, called LLM Suite, is already available to more than 60,000 employees, helping them with tasks like writing emails and reports. The software is expected to eventually be as ubiquitous within the bank as the videoconferencing program Zoom, people with knowledge of the plans told CNBC.

You can read more by visiting the post from Ian Thatcher which has a link to the article in CNBC by clicking here:

AI is hype, AI is the new Snake Oil

Ted Talk by Dr. Jen Golbeck

I recently spotted a post by Ray 🖥️ Mullins on AI which gives the counter point and fits my loose theme after holiday in America of inspiration from Pale Rider. You can give Ray and the original post a like here:

To finish I want to leave you in the words of Ray who has done a great job of offering up the counter point to AI.

Finally. People are noticing that AI is all hype. So much snake oil. Bridges in Brooklyn. Stock options.

It’s regression to the mean. It’s averaging. It’s math. Not simple math, which is why probably so many people are deceived. What is being sold as AI really is just algorithms. Don’t call it AI. Call it algorithms to analyze data and give good guesses at what something is.

Follow-up to our Mainframerz Event on z/OS Containers

Podman v Docker: Understanding the differences

As we heard our last event the mainframe is now capable of running Containers and we heard some presentations about the various ways Containers can be used by us Mainframers.

I thought a nice follow-up would be for me to share a post by Wali Muhammad on the differences between Podman & Docker which you can read here:

"Do you have an idea or topic you would like to present at one of our Mainframerz events, do you have a topic you would likes us to discuss at the Mainframerz event.....

....or would you like to suggest an article, topic or discussion for the newsletter...

...if so I want to hear from you as well as my regular contributors!"

✨ 💬 Potpourri {mainframe & non-mainframe stories} ✨

Are you looking at Developing AI?

AI and it's use continues to be one of the hottest questions around: where is the data used in AI models sourced from; questions around who should have access to AI capability and how accurate are the AI models?

The UK has recently launched a new state (Government) backed initiative to help with AI development.

New UK AI Safety Institute - Safety Evaluations platform here:

After establishing the world’s first state-backed AI Safety Institute, the UK is continuing the drive towards greater global collaboration on AI safety evaluations with the release of the AI Safety Institute’s homegrown Inspect evaluations platform. By making Inspect available to the global community, the Institute is helping accelerate the work on AI safety evaluations being carried out across the globe, leading to better safety testing and the development of more secure models. This will allow for a consistent approach to AI safety evaluations around the world.

Inspect is a software library which enables testers – from start ups, academia and AI developers to international governments – to assess specific capabilities of individual models and then produce a score based on their results. Inspect can be used to evaluate models in a range of areas, including their core knowledge, ability to reason, and autonomous capabilities. Released through an open source licence, it means Inspect it is now freely available for the AI community to use.

Learning More

To get started with Inspect, we highly recommend you read at least these sections for a high level overview of the system:

• Workflow covers the mechanics of running evaluations, including how to create evals in both scripts and notebooks, specifying configuration and options, how to parameterise tasks for different scenarios, and how to work with eval log files.
• Log Viewer goes into more depth on how to use Inspect View to develop and debug evaluations, including how to provide additional log metadata and how to integrate it with Python’s standard logging module.
• VS Code provides documentation on using the Inspect VS Code Extension to run, tune, debug, and visualise evaluations.
• Examples includes several complete examples with commentary on the use of various features (as with the above example, they are fairly simplistic for the purposes of illustration). You can also find implementations of a few popular LLM benchmarks in the Inspect repository.

Uber trip involving sending personal data of European drivers to US Servers costs the company $342m [£246m or €290m]

Uber the ride hailing app has just been fined $324m for transferring the personal data of European drivers to US servers.

The Dutch Data Protection Authority (DPA) said the transfers were a "serious violation" of the EU's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), as they failed to appropriately protect driver information.

According to the watchdog, information including ID documents, taxi licences and location data was transferred to the company's headquarters in the US over a two-year period.

The best advice I can offer is that before moving any data that may be subject to GDPR is to seek advice and do not send any personal data without checking with your data compliance team first.

You can read more about this with the BBC article here:

Sea-Tac sees a Change

In the Channel 4 news this week was an incident involving Seattle Tacoma Airport which suffered an outage due to a Cyber attack, whilst this was unpleasant for those impacted. I did like the fact that we did not see accusations of blame for the mainframe being wrongly attributed in the press on this occasion.

Previously we have been wrongly accused of causing problems for aviation, due to poor reporting by journalists who had a lack of knowledge around the stability of the mainframe platform!

Whilst screens and terminals went blank in the Airport, this time the fault was identified as an internet outage caused by Cyber attack.

The choice of location for me was an interesting choice of attack.

Did you know: Seattle was the original home of Boeing since 1916 when Bill Boeing founded the company in a shipyard on Seattle's Duwamish River & is the home of Bill Gates who has an impressive house on Lake Medina, Washington which you can see from the Highway.

For Sale in Seattle

Staying in Seattle, thank you to my colleague Renate Hoffmann for suggesting to our team that we could buy a 1959 IBM 7090 Mainframe from the Paul G Allen Collection for Sale via Christies the Auctioneer.

The Paul G Allen Collection was designed to inspire future technologists.

I found it interesting that Christies have chosen various items that helped shaped the course of modern computing from the Paul G Allen Collection and how the mainframe has influenced the choices of Christies (Buzz Aldrins spacesuit & mainframe 360):-

❐ Buzz Aldrins flight suit the first lot shown which is interesting as we often think of the mainframe contribution to the space program.

❐ Early Enigma machine and we think of the role of Alan Turing

❐ IBM 360 from 1966

❐ Apple 1

You can visit Christies the Auctioneers to see all of the lots for Sale from the Paul G Allen Collection.

Linux turned 33 years old this week

33 years ago this week on the 26th August Linus Torvalds gave the world Linux, thank you to the The Cyber Security Hub™ for sharing the post here:

Just for fun: Channel 4 News

I have no reason for adding this fact other than I found it fun and I occasionally watch Channel 4 News in the UK.

Did you know that the theme tune for the Channel 4 News is shared with Pale Rider or it least has been since it changed shortly after its launch in 1982 when in 1983 it became what we know today in the UK.

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