The Open Mainframe Project has announced the availability of a z15 Mainframe system dedicated for training next generation talent and the development of new open software technologies in ways that will further strengthen the integration of mainframe and cloud.

Donated by Broadcom Mainframe Software Division, the z15 will be available for use by all Open Mainframe Projects and the open source community at large beginning in 2023. Open Mainframe Project’s work as an open innovation pipeline enables organizations to gain the most value from their mainframe. This major donation by Broadcom enables Open Mainframe Project to continue evolving its mission as the primary clearinghouse for community involvement and scale it across the ecosystem of vendors, academic partners and the next generation of mainframe talent. As a result, Open Mainframe Project is now positioned to deliver a new level of value to the ecosystem.

With more than 20 current projects and Working Groups, several technical communities have a need to be able to test open source code on hardware. The new z15 not only offers them an opportunity to test their contributions, it also equips them to build use cases and better plan a road map.

Additionally, this mainframe infrastructure will be available for broad open source projects as a development, test, and continuous delivery environment, enabling developers within these communities to be able to support both z/OS and Linux on s390x. The z15 will be hosted at Marist College.

Availability of these tools and resources also serves as the catalyst to train a new pool of mainframe talent.