SHARE Orlando (March 3-7) will shine a light on some of the latest technologies and strategies in securing and utilizing today’s mainframe. This year’s conference is sure to inspire mainframers to jump into uncharted waters and unlock their own potential with technical sessions ranging from securing z/OS data to learning the latest in artificial intelligence (AI) through demonstrations, hands-on learning labs, and more. Here are a few technical sessions to consider from the Focus Areas of Core Platform, Application Development, Service Delivery, and New and Innovative Technology.
Core Platform
In the “Cybersecurity for Your z/OS Data - Best Practices for Planning and Implementing Pervasive Encryption” on Monday, March 4, IBM’s Cecilia Lewis, senior technical staff member software engineer, and DeWayne Hughes, executive architect for IT, will explore the layered cybersecurity strategy of encryption. They will help attendees understand how to navigate the multiple groups and roles involved in creating appropriate policies and procedures. Through a set of best practices, attendees will learn how to plan and implement pervasive encryption for the entire z/OS data set. Lewis says, “SHARE members will learn about the best practices related to the importance of early planning, building the right teams, developing procedures, utilizing tooling, etc. to ensure a successful start for a pervasive encryption deployment.”
During the “Putting the ‘I’ in AI With Linux on IBM Z and LinuxOne” session with IBM’s Stefan Raspl, product manager for Linux and virtualization on IBM Z and LinuxONE, and Amit Tolmare, program director for Linux on Z and LinuxONE platforms product management, on March 5, SHARE members will get a glimpse into the work that IBM is doing on open-source AI frameworks that support IBM Z and LinuxOne platforms and how to utilize them in Linux distributions. They will offer details on how special instruction set extensions and the integrated accelerator for AI can help technologists get the most out of the platform. Raspl and Tolmare also will explore how to integrate AI models directly into applications for maximum benefit.
“We will not only discuss hardware features of the IBM Z and LinuxONE platforms that help to accelerate AI workloads, but we’ll also point out the various open-source frameworks and how to take advantage of these,” says Raspl. “Attendees of the session will get an impression of the performance benefits when deploying solutions under Linux on IBM Z and LinuxONE, and what to pay attention to. Other aspects we’ll consider include security to ensure both client data and IP is protected adequately.”
Application Development
On March 4, pull up a chair in the “User Experience: What Does Your Pipeline Build? Automating Everything: Working From the Ground Up and the Sky Down” demonstration from IBM’s Suman Gopinath, senior technical staff member and chief architect - DevOps for IBM Z hybrid cloud, and David Rice, lead developer advocate for z/OS. They will explore how an application is not just its COBOL or PL/I source code and how change can be delivered and affect all parts of a z/OS application without manual coordination between sys progs, developers, and build engineers.
Gopinath says, “z/OS applications have always been treated in different silos even though in reality an application is not just about source code, but also middleware definitions and so on. In addition, the infrastructure automation within z/OS is fairly siloed.” Gopinath adds that attendees to the session will learn how to “make sure every part of the application is storage class memory-controlled (SCM) in a modern open source SCM like Git. It is a session to demonstrate how all parts of z/OS can be part of a modern pipeline.”
On March 6, “The Future of AppDev Begins with VS Code & Code4z” with Vaughn Marshall, senior principal product manager at Broadcom, SHARE members will learn how VS code can help a new generation of developers embrace the platform and become proficient at making changes, working with code, and performing debugging and other operations. “We want to discuss how developers using VS Code can use this as their primary interface for making application changes to COBOL and other z/OS language programs,” says Marshall.
Next-gen developers will share how VS Code can make a difference, what tasks need to be completed, and how it can be supported in the integrated development environment (IDE). Marshall also adds, “Sheree Britt from TD Banking Group will be on hand to share the firm’s experience with using VS Code to enable mainframe development and share the challenges next-gen developers can face in an unfamiliar environment, such as 3270 / ISPF, to perform their developer activities.”
He points out, “Next-gen developers should learn from this session that the mainframe is a modern platform that they can be confident in using to build future skills. Additionally, in order for organizations to be able to attract the next generation of developers, they need to embrace a strategy that embraces how next-gen developers want to work.”
Service Delivery
Libor Cerny, product owner at Broadcom, will explore how to bridge mainframe skill gaps with automated expert recommendations to ensure organizations can ramp up quickly and frugally in today’s economy in the March 6 session, “Using Automated Expert Recommendations to Bridge the Mainframe Skill Gap.” Workloads are only going to continue growing, and mainframe teams need to ramp up their mainframe efficiency and operations. SHARE members will learn how automated expert recommendations and other actionable insights can bridge the skills gaps of junior members and boost the efficiency of senior team members to improve service delivery.
On March 7, Henri Kuiper, DevOps engineer for mainframe security at Belastingdienst, will explore how Python-based automation techniques for content retrieval can have unintended consequences in his session titled, “From Accidental Hacker to Ethical Wizard: Unmasking Anonymous Downloads and Responsible Disclosure.” He will take SHARE members through a scenario in which downloading SHARE NOLA slides led to the discovery of a “flaw” and how he became an accidental hacker.
Kuiper explains, “SHARE attendees will walk away with an inside view on a real-use case of a 'flaw' being exploited, and how to properly report such a flaw. The session also provides insights on how to protect/upgrade one’s own applications that might have these flaws.” He also will explore the ethical considerations surrounding the responsible use of discovered vulnerabilities.
New and Innovative Technology
SHARE Orlando also has several bring-your-own-device (BYOD) labs to choose from, and on March 7, IBM’s Andrew Sica, senior technical staff member for AI on IBM Z systems, and Tabari Alexander, senior technical staff member for IBM Z AI and analytics, will take members through a hands-on look at the AI ecosystem in their “BYOD Lab: Explore Huggingface and Foundation Models - Experienced on IBM Z!” The Huggingface AI platform features pre-trained models, data sets, and packages for managing interactions with AI models. Sica says, “Come learn about state-of-the-art natural language understanding techniques through a guided hands-on exercise - all on IBM Z!” Those who attend this session will be able to interact with open-source implementations of numerous transformer-based models to explore foundation model concepts, terminology, and capabilities within an IBM Z environment.
These are just some of the technical sessions available in SHARE’s Focus Areas. Whether you want to improve your language skills or learn about the latest in AI, SHARE Orlando has something for everyone. Join us at SHARE Orlando (March 3-7) for some fun in the sun and a deep dive into your cutting-edge mainframe education.