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Guest: Rick Perret (LinkedIn)
Company: Broadcom (Twitter)

Broadcom recently announced the donation of a z15 mainframe to the Open Mainframe Project (OMP) to help scale and accelerate its projects. This is the first time the OMP will have a dedicated resource for development and training.

In this episode of TFiR Mainframe Matters, Swapnil Bhartiya sits down with Rick Perret, Head of Analyst Relations, Mainframe Software Division at Broadcom, to discuss their company’s open mainframe strategy, its collaboration with—and recent donation to—the OMP as well as its approach to attracting the next generation of mainframers.

Key highlights from this video interview:

  • Perret explains Broadcom’s open mainframe strategy: to help its customers drive growth by modernizing their platforms and becoming more agile. It is the same reason they joined forces with others and founded the Open Mainframe Project in 2015.
  • As a platinum member of the Project, Broadcom is involved in the governing board, the technical advisory committee, and the marketing committee. Perret describes their most impactful project, Zowe, and how it is helping organizations and technical teams develop on the mainframe.
  • Perret goes into detail about Broadcom’s open mainframe value stream and how it is cross-cutting through all their different value streams (DevOps, security, AIOps, IT operations management). He explains how the open-first approach needs to come from the top down and how their SVP and GM, Greg Lotko, has been driving this initiative.
  • Broadcom recently donated a z15 mainframe to the Open Mainframe Project. It will help scale the projects and accelerate development, which will have an impact on the mainframe community as a whole. It will also increase the levels of collaboration, not just within OMP, but across other groups in the ecosystem.
  • While many mainframe developers are looking to retire, efforts are underway to bring in the next generation. Perret notes that they are not here to force anyone down a specific path, but rather to give people career options.
  • Broadcom’s enterprise customers are running multi-cloud hybrid environments so it is crucial that the mainframe platform is positioned in a way that its value can be highly leveraged and realized, just like any other platform, because there is always going to be some new technology coming down the pike.
  • Complexity and cost continue to be pain points for cloud native, but Perret believes that the solution lies in being open-first.

The summary of the show is written by Emily Nicholls.

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