Open Mainframe Project Adds New Academic Members for Expanded Global Reach

SAN FRANCISCO, March 21, 2017 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Linux Foundation's Open Mainframe Project announced today an expansion of its university partnerships with eight new academic members joining the project to help develop new talent and open-source innovations for the mainframe.

The new academic partners are: Coburg University of Applied Sciences and Arts, Johann Wolfgang Goethe University, HTL Donaustadt, Academic Mainframe Consortium, Hogeschool Gent, EPSI - Academic Institution, European Mainframe Academy, and Virginia Commonwealth University.

Since its inception two years ago, membership for the Open Mainframe Projects has grown to over 30 organizations, including corporate and academic partners. The mainframe is the core IT system handling critical data and applications for major organizations worldwide in finance, retail, insurance, transportation and government. Linux on the mainframe has been rapidly growing since being first introduced on the platform more than 15 years ago.

The Open Mainframe Project was created to increase collaboration across the mainframe community and develop shared tool sets and resources. A core part of the project's mission is to involve academic institutions to assist in teaching and educating the mainframe Linux engineers and developers of tomorrow.

"The Open Mainframe Project has seen great success in enabling the mainframers of tomorrow through Linux and Open Source," said John Mertic, Director, Open Mainframe Project. "The growth of the project, particularly with academic institutions, showcases the impacts being made in continuing to expand the mainframe ecosystem and attract the next generation of developers to advance the technology."

In addition to the new academic members, the Open Mainframe Project also announced students and focus areas for its 2017 internship program. The project welcomes the following students to the internship program:

• Roy Miner - North Carolina A&T State University
• Kevin Lee - University of Illinois
• Octavia Epps - North Carolina A&T State University
• Isong Uyo Idio Jr - North Carolina A&T State University
• Artem Minin - Syracuse University
• Akanksha Srivastava - International Institute of Information Technology at Hyderabad
• Sakala Venkata Krishna - International Institute of Information Technology at Hyderabad
• Amit Kumar Jaiswal - UIET CSJM University

These students will be working on projects in one of the following areas: OpenStack, Blockchain, Linux Monitoring Tools and Anomaly Detection Engine for Linux Logs. The mainframe has become an important platform for supporting emerging cloud technologies, such as Blockchain and OpenStack, because of its security capabilities and role as the system of record processing some of the most important transactions and data for major institutions.

About New Academic Members for the Open Mainframe Project

Coburg University of Applied Sciences and Arts is characterized by practice-related teaching and research. The instructors develop and test specific methods that enable computer scientists to independently learn new topics and stay up to date. The bachelor's degree in Computer Science at Coburg University is one of the 10 best programs at German-speaking universities.

Goethe University is positioned among the top international research universities in the world and provides interdisciplinary approaches to solving complex problems. The Computer Science program offers the students an in depth perspective into:Soft and Hardware development, Robotics, Computer-based Neuroscience and Web-Technology

HTL donaustadt strives to create a positive, high quality educational environment for all of its students and faculty. Guiding principles in the digital space include:

• Technical computer Science
• Professional software development
• Databases and information systems
• Management, training companies
• Network systems and distributed systems
• Project management

Academic Mainframe Consortium was founded January 2016 at the University of Frankfurt. The main focus areas of this consortium consist of:

• Exchange and sharing of teaching material
• E-learning content
• Infrastructures (LMS, computers, etc)
• Operational Processes
• Cooperation within the mainframe industry
• Research / development
• International cooperation
• Press / Media work

EPSI provides training for a wide variety professionals within the IT space. Its courses offer essential knowledge in:

• Steering, organization and management of information system developments
• Project management
• Provision and maintenance in operational condition of infrastructures
• Support and assistance to users:
• Method, quality and safety support
• Operational management:
• Application life cycle

European Mainframe Academy, founded in 2007, is geared towards training the younger mainframe generation based on the concept of "Blended Learning," involving experienced and competent lecturers and partners. Pillars of guidance include:  

• Continuing further development of subjects and methods
• Transfer of solid knowledge during the training
• In-depth knowledge transfer via specialisation modules
• Accomplishing skills and competence
• Knowledge acquisition, and hands-on training sessions
• ThinkTank access to all virtual class room scripts for repeating and intensifying study
• Exchange of experiences in regular update workshops
• Enforcing self-learning competence
• Intensive supervision by mentors and coaches in the companies

Virginia Commonwealth University Department of Computer Science covers core areas of computer science with a focus on data science and cybersecurity.

Hogeschool Gent Bachelor of Applied Computer Science program helps prepare students for industry with focuses on business, entrepreneurship, and international studies. 

Supporting Quotes from New Members

"We consider the membership in the Open Mainframe Project as a good opportunity to provide our students with latest information and resources on Open Source Software in the context of System z Mainframes. We also hope to motivate students to engage in Mainframe-related Open Source Software (OSS) projects and to encourage new research activities in the field of Mainframe Software Engineering using OSS components." - Professor Dr. Philipp Brune, Business Information Systems Engineering Department of Information Management, Goethe University

"Students can choose among several areas of specialization, such as Software Technology, Business Informatics and Embedded Systems. Accordingly, they are offered a wide range of available subjects, thus topics related to IBM's mainframe technology are a valuable extension to Coburg's CS portfolio." - Michael Engel, Professor, Coburg University of Applied Sciences and Arts

"The open mainframe project presents an excellent opportunity to our students to get experience within the growing market of Linux on Mainframe through internships and projects.  Furthermore, it is an ideal way of making contact with (international) professionals hence allowing our students to start and/or expand their professional network." - Noemie Slaats, Voorzitter Vakgroep Informatica, Lector, Hogeschool Gent

"We from the European Mainframe Academy are educating new Mainframers and beside the 'classic' Mainframe with z/OS, we also teach the open Mainframe with Linux, Docker, different kinds of virtualization, and other open source technologies. We are excited to be part of the Open Mainframe Project." - Wolfram Greis, European Mainframe Academy, Switzerland

"Today's mainframe is NOT your father's mainframe. The Open Mainframe Project is bringing forth today's newest technologies, e.g. learning machines, blockchain, cognitive programming, advanced security and sustainable cloud computing, to the world's fastest, most mature and efficient system. If you thought you knew mainframes... look again.  membership in the Open Mainframe Project has given us a front row seat, in the new evolution of mainframes." - Robert Dahlberg, PhD, Adjunct Associate Professor, Virginia Commonwealth University School of Engineering, Computer Science Department

"Especially for all kinds of academic institutions it's important to get students in touch with mainframes. The Open Mainframe Project offers a lot of opportunities. As contribution to the project, we plan to set up a Docker installation under Linux on z Systems with a gnuCOBOL development environment allowing very easy access to an open COBOL compiler." - Wolfram Greis, Founding Board Member, Academic Mainframe Consortium  

About the Open Mainframe Project 
The Open Mainframe Project provides a neutral home for community meetings, events and collaborative development for Linux on the mainframe and involves key academic institutions in order to increase the future talent pool of mainframe practitioners and technical experts. The Open Mainframe Project identifies ways to leverage new software and tools in the Linux environment that are ideal for taking advantage of the mainframe's speed, security, scalability and availability; seeks to significantly broaden the set of tools and resources that are intended to drive development and collaboration of mainframe Linux; and aims to coordinate mainframe improvements to upstream projects to increase the quality of these code submissions and ease upstream collaboration.

Media Contact
Serena Malkani
The Linux Foundation
925-918-1482 
[email protected]

SOURCE Open Mainframe Project

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