Colleagues in Corvettes* Getting Cappuccinos

by Greg Lotko

I had a ‘latte’ of fun working with the Broadcom team to put together this year’s GSE UK keynote session, “Colleagues in Corvettes Getting Cappuccinos.” We invite you to “ride along” with us as we discuss mainframe topics ranging from security, DevOps, and AIOps, to becoming a new mainframer. Here are some highlights from the road:

Cybersecurity – It’s no Joke

Carla Flores, mainframe security specialist, and I share a few fun car jokes and discuss important security best practices. With all of the attempted hacks and ransomware threats in the news, it’s more critical than ever to protect your core infrastructure. Some of the best practices Carla suggests include:

  • Least privileged access – only giving people access to what they need to do their job
  • Multi-factor authentication – protecting the critical data and applications on your mainframe
  • Data classification – knowing what sensitive data you have on your mainframe that requires protection

Take a brief detour to learn more about these and other mainframe security best practices.

Corvette Karaoke and Journey of a New Mainframer

Katie Juhala, technical support engineer, and I perform Corvette karaoke before she shares insights on what it’s like to become a new Mainframer through the Broadcom Associate Software Engineer (ASE) program. Katie highlights the mentorship program that follows the formal training as an invaluable part of her learning experience. Regardless of degree or background, anyone with intellectual aptitude who can think logically and technically can be trained to become a Mainframer.

Top off your cappuccino with more information on building your Mainframe workforce through education and theVitality Program.

DevOps and Racing to the Finish

Michael Bauer, DevOps product owner and actual race car driver, joins me for a discussion on the similarities between racing and DevOps. Speed and reliability are common attributes, both requiring the right people with the right skills, tools, and technologies working together. You’ll hear about Zowe, an exciting technology that opens up the mainframe to a new world of popular, off-platform DevOps tools such as Visual Studio Code, Jest, Git, and Jenkins. Using the Zowe framework and open source tools, your mainframe development can be part of your existing enterprise DevOps pipeline, eliminating manual tasks, reducing cycle times, and increasing code quality.

Fuel up with a behind-the-scenes look at an open approach to mainframe DevOps with the Developer Cockpit, a tool that simulates a modern mainframe developer experience.

AIOps and Preparing for the Future

Finally, I catch up with Cody Giardinello, senior software engineer with our AIOps development team. Cody participated in the ASE training program seven years ago. He’s since learned about the day-to-day needs of IT ops teams from around the globe. Cody shares the excitement around a new dynamic capability that lets you see your mainframe infrastructure and topology in real time so you can discover how a change to one component could impact another.

Enjoy GSE UK, get your mainframe value revving, and I’ll look forward to us sharing a cappuccino face-to-face next time!

*Corvette is a trademark of General Motors Corporation.

Greg Lotko is SVP & GM, Mainframe Software Division at Broadcom Inc. and is presenting a keynote at the GSE UK Virtual Conference 2021 ‘Colleagues in Corvettes Getting Cappuccinos’

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