Now serving COBOL on Pi (day)

In this edition

Post Event recap ?? Learn COBOL in a day ?? COBOL training ?? COBOL training & resources ?? Alternative COBOL training ?? What is a COBOL Scanner ?? Comprehensive Guide to VS Code ?? Become a Mainframerz Speaker ?? Post a job request for free ?? IBM Skills Council ?? IBM Skills Depot ?? Become a Speaker ?? Free training on YouTube ?? Potpourri - various stories ??

Intro

I hope everyone has enjoyed the recent action packed number of events taking place in the mainframe community:-

? GSE Dresden

? Share Orlando

? Mainframerz Meetup & After event food

? Pi Day

? Even: Open Text Jaguar TCS virtual tour from Sao Paulo which clashed with our event tonight

Mainframerz: Passionate about the mainframe (follows)

Post Event

Our most recent event has been on the subject of COBOL and hope as promised delivered 3 excellent talks for you around COBOL.

I thought Rob Gould did a great job as our host, now that the event is over I wanted to ask if anyone noticed that Rob had perfected the Ben Elton walk on.

Erik was our first speaker and shared a number of cool things to know about working with COBOL and included how you can get started with COBOL.

Derek stepped up next and gave a talk with interesting facts and figures all about COBOL.

Lastly we finished with Roland who described how the mainframe is an optimal platform for running COBOL and more.

Thank you to my friend Erik Weyler and thanks to fellow speakers Roland Koo & Derek Britton .

A quick reminder that we record our events and if you missed it then a replay of the event will be uploaded to YouTube soon, see the links at the bottom of the newsletter.

I have included a few useful links on the topic of COBOL from the event in the newsletter.

We always love to hear any thoughts you have after our event we have a survey, or you can message me if you would like to pass on any comments.

? LEARN COBOL IN A DAY! ?

As Derek Britton shared along with a number of really cool facts around COBOL, it is possible to learn COBOL in a day, thank you to Jennifer Osborne of OpenText for the following:-

Yes that's right - the COBOL language really can be learned in just one day - especially if you already have some coding experience with another language. Want to give it a try? Take the Micro Focus COBOL online course. It's self-paced with a combination of theory videos and hands-on exercises.

It's completely free, and will issue you a Credly badge upon completion!

If you would like to Learn COBOL in a day, you can find out more click here:

More training for COBOL: Open Mainframe Project

A big thank you to Marcus Davage a fellow member of the Mainframerz Meetup team, has suggested another way to bridge the COBOL skills gap.

Bridging the Skills Gap with the Open Mainframe Project’s COBOL Programming Course

You can find out more about this here:

COBOL training more Open Mainframe Courses

It's a bit like the Oscars here as I am saying thanks to our Mainframerz team this time it's Alan Black who has put forward two more great opportunities to help you with COBOL.

The first link provided is to a landing page with links that will help take you from Learning COBOL to Advanced COBOL which is available here:

The second link is to a GitHub Training materials and Labs to help get you started, which is available here:

Wait even more COBOL training: IBM

When it comes to the big topics like COBOL as a Mainframerz Meetup team we all have helpful contributions we can suggest.

A big thank you to Mat Comer for sharing the IBM help with COBOL: Get started with COBOL which is available here:

COBOL Scanners & more

What is a COBOL Scanner? A COBOL Scanner allows you to find all of the COBOL code on your mainframe whether it is in use or not, a solution such as XINFO allows you to look at Run times, CPU, Storage, etc and cross reference this information with your COBOL code.

Credit here goes to Andy Davey for reminding me that what I am currently working on for a few customers could get a mention this week!

If you want to know more please ask me Andrew (Andy) McCandless - XINFO folks!

During the presentation from Erik Weyler showcased NEO4J running in a Docker container on the mainframe and the graph shown was created from XINFO.

Comprehensive Guide: VS Code for Mainframers

If you were at the Mainframerz Meetup event you will have heard Erik Weyler mention some very cools modern ways that you can modernise use of COBOL including NEO4J, VS CODE & GNU COBOL to name but just a few ideas.

A very interesting article published recently is from Emma Skovg?rd who has shared an article on VS Code which matches my first impression of seeing VS Code for the first time where I mentioned to a colleague that this is going to be useful to all mainframers, currently it looks like the demand for VS Code is coming from DevOps.

In Emma's a System programmers words.

If you want to implement VS Code for mainframe work or have questions about how it actually communicates with the mainframe this is the article for you. I won't cover every single little thing because it's a big topic, but I will cover the most commonly asked questions I have seen and the things that confuse people.

You can read her comprehensive article on VS Code from Emma here:

If you are looking for more code repositories for Open Mainframe then Alan Black has got you covered as he suggested a Code4z repository from Broadcom, which is available here:

Would you like to be a Speaker at one of our Mainframerz Events?

If you have a story or presentation you think others may like we want to hear from you, whether it is LEGO, Barbie or even sharing funny stories (which we covered at our Open Mic event).

Have you been inspired by tonight or a previous event, would you like the chance to share an interesting topic or idea?

We want to hear from you and encourage everyone to give it a go & we will help you practice and prepare if needed.

Add your job posts for free in our Slack Community

To show how quickly an easily you can add a job for free I have added a short video of my uploading of a recent request for a PL/1 trainer.

1. Visit Mainframerz Slack Channel
2. Click on Job-opportunities
3. Copy & Paste job description with any links to YouTube, etc
4. Submit (done)

IBM Skills Council

Have you heard the latest news? IBM announced Mainframe Skills Council with SHARE and other key organizations to support New Generations of Mainframe Talent.

Thank you to Shari Chiara for sharing this with me.

IBM introduced the?Mainframe Skills Council?during the recent share conference in?Orlando, to provide a forum where global organizations will foster a skilled, diverse, sustainable workforce for the mainframe platform.

You can find out more at the IBM newsroom here:

IBM Z Mainframe Skills Depot.

Thank you to Rituraj Mahato who has asked me to share a link to his post which I think could be very interesting.

Skills Depot offers different learning paths tailored to specific roles in the mainframe environment:

? System Administrator: Learn how to manage the security, performance, and resources of a mainframe system. You'll gain skills in working with technologies like CICS, Db2, and IMS.

? Application Developer: This path focuses on developing and modernizing applications for the mainframe. You'll learn about Agile practices, Big Data, and languages like COBOL, Java, and Python.

? Modernization Architect: This path teaches skills required to modernize existing mainframe applications using the latest technologies.

Access over 700 hours of self-paced IBM Z? learning content.?Experience hands-on content and labs and earn industry-recognized badges and credit certifications to build in-demand skills.

You can read the full post from Rituraj here:

Help in finding your 1st or 2nd Mainframe Role

A large number of people have reached out to ask me questions about how to find a first or second mainframe role. I have put together a small guide that is packed with hints and tips that has supplied mainly by the readers of this newsletter.

If you would like to read "Climbing the z ladder" an article I posted which I try to keep updated, aimed at helping primarily mainframers to find a mainframe role can be found here:

Training

At the Mainframerz Meetup event we heard from Erik about the various option for training.

If you are lucky enough to land your first or possibly second role you may be lucky enough to be treated by your employer to training by a Mainframe Training company such as Verhoef Training Ltd or Interskill Learning .

If you are looking for more ways to grow your skills but you are on a budget or for free then I would take a look at one of the free resources which can also help to get you started or serve as a good refresher such as Mainframe Forum I have included a link to a training video on JCL which is here:

I hope that anyone who is looking at the mainframe as a possible career route can see that we are all as a community here to help you. ?

But wait there was more Erik Weyler also very kindly shared his own GitHub library which had some sample code to help you learn COBOL including what I thought was a very cool Sudoku solver written in COBOL.

You can access Erik's personal GitHub library here:

? ?? Potpourri {mainframe & non-mainframe stories} ?

?? Thank you: Fellow DevOps Meetup Group

Can I give a personal shout out to Leah who very kindly shared our upcoming event on COBOL.

Leah currently runs the world's largest DevOps meetup - DevOps Exchange and kindly helped to promote our event.

You can visit the group here - https://www.meetup.com/pro/devops-exchange/

NSA releases zero-trust guidance to limit adversaries on the network

The The Cyber Security Hub? have recently shared two articles that I thought may be interesting, even for an awareness if you are not directly involved. The first article is around "Zero Trust"

“Organizations need to operate with a mindset that threats exist within the boundaries of their systems,” said NSA Cybersecurity Director Rob Joyce.

if you would like to read this article in full, which I found interesting it can be read in full here:

NIST Releases Version 2.0 of Landmark Cybersecurity Framework

The The Cyber Security Hub? are at it again with a second great article on Nist 2.0.

This is the first major review of the NIST Guidelines which were first issued in 2014; these are the second issuing of major Guidance around NIST which is we they are called NIST 2.0.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has updated the widely used Cybersecurity Framework (CSF), its landmark guidance document for reducing cybersecurity risk. The new 2.0 edition is designed for all audiences, industry sectors and organization types, from the smallest schools and nonprofits to the largest agencies and corporations — regardless of their degree of cybersecurity sophistication.

Here is the link to the full article here:

International Womens Day

On Friday 8th March women from around the world celebrated International Womens Day, it was great to see events taking place everywhere to celebrate this event, I could have chosen from GSE Dresden, Share Orlando, London Data week and many other events caught my eye.

In the end I have opted for a post from Kyndryl as it is good to see companies celebrate International Womens Day and to note that these events are taking place at more than just events taking place they are also being recognised in many large companies.

Here is Kyndryl courtesy of Malgorzata Trzebinska who has posted pictures of the celebrating of International Womens Days in Poland, here:

z/OS Open Tools

A quick reminder to everyone that the The z/OS Open Tools digest is back with a fresh edition! ??

To find out more you can see the post from Haritha D which is available to read here:

?? Subscribe and never miss a another newsletter post!

?? Connect with me and send me 'feedback & ideas', 'become a speaker', or 'join our event team'. You can help shape our future Mainframerz events ?? ??

Mainframerz newsletters are designed to help you grow mainframe expertise, keep you on top of industry news and update you about upcoming events.

Useful Links

?? ?? Join our Slack Channel (Link expires - 31st March 2024) here:

{"job opportunities - Job info", "General - General queries" plus much more}

?? ?? Join our Meetup page & visit out latest event here:

{stay up to date on our events "event agendas" "dates" "Link to join event"}

?? ?? View Jobs (if you have already joined our slack channel) here:

{new job postings added this week - free to post jobs and ask job questions}

?? ?? NEW: Help find a Mainframe role here:

{"are you looking for help with a 1st role", "making a 2nd move in your career". Many new updates from everyone in the mainframe community added}

?? ?? Save Mainframe Licensing costs newsletter here:

{"do you have an ELA upcoming" or "major hardware event"}

?? ?? View our list of useful Guides, Tips & Resources here:

{lots of helpful resources recently updated}

?? ?? Message/connect with me here:

{talk to me about any mainframe questions}

?? ?? Mainframerz YouTube - watch replays of our events here:

{missed an event - catch-up on our Replays on Youtube}

?? ?? DevOps Meetup: https://www.meetup.com/pro/devops-exchange/

{the worlds largest DevOps meetup event}

?? ?? Mainframe Calendar: https://rebrand.ly/mainframe-event-calendar

?? ?? Calendar How to: https://rebrand.ly/calendar-instructions

{check out upcoming mainframe events}