Join host Steven Dickens in this engaging episode of I Am a Mainframer featuring Brahadambal Srinivasan, Technical Architect at IBM, who leads teams focused on enabling an extensive ecosystem of open source software on Linux on Z.

Brahadambal shares how her career began in Linux, starting as a test engineer before moving through closed source and open source work, including seven years on IBM Power before transitioning to the mainframe side.

She discusses her global team split between India and Canada, and how working with a predominantly Gen Z group has been a rewarding two-way learning experience while helping them see that the mainframe is not legacy technology.

The episode also explores what Linux on Z really means, including how open source packages are ported to s390x, why endian differences matter, and how IBM works with the community to keep changes upstream rather than creating forks.

Brahadambal also explains the importance of accessibility through Open Mainframe Project repositories and GitHub Actions runners, plus the long-term commitment required to maintain around 160 packages and support customers and the community.

Looking ahead, she shares her belief that the mainframe will continue becoming more robust and remain well positioned for the next wave of AI-driven innovation.

Watch full episode here:

Transcript:

This is the Mainframe Connect Podcast, brought to you by the Linux Foundation’s Open Mainframe Project. Sponsored by Phoenix Software International. Mainframe Connect includes the I Am a Mainframer series, the riveting Mainframe Voices series, and other content exploring relevant topics with mainframe professionals and offering insights into the industry and technology. Today’s episode is another in the I Am a Mainframer series, exploring the career journeys of mainframe professionals.

Steven:
“Hello, welcome. You’re joining us on the I Am a Mainframer Podcast. I’m your host, as always, Steven Dickens. I’m joined by Latha from IBM, and Latha, welcome to the show.”

Brahadambal Srinivasan:
“Thank you so much for having me on.”

Steven:
“So Latha, let’s get the listeners and the viewers already oriented to tell us a little bit about your role and what you do for IBM.”

Brahadambal Srinivasan:
“Yeah, I am a technical architect. I lead a couple of teams here in IBM, and our primary work is to ensure that we can enable an extensive ecosystem of open source software products on Linux on Z. My team’s primary work is to ensure we port and maintain currency for open source packages. Some of those packages are very well known, like Kubernetes or TensorFlow, and then MongoDB or CockroachDB are the names that come off the top of my mind, but it’s a big list of packages that we do maintain. And we send patches back to the community. We work with the community to ensure those packages are accepted by the community, so that we circle back to ensuring that our customers have the best experience for Linux on Z with the right important open source packages working for them.”

Steven:
“So this is called I Am a Mainframer podcast. Tell us a little bit about how you got into the platform. Maybe paint some of that story of the career arc. Maybe tell us when you first got onto the mainframe and started playing with the technology.”

Brahadambal Srinivasan:
“It’s a very long career. I’ve been working for nearly 22 years now, and my first job started with Linux. So I’ve been in the platform, or the open source side of stuff, is really, really close to my heart. And that said, I started as a test engineer in a startup and then went on to do multiple other things, and I ended up doing closed source work for some years before I came to open source on IBM Power side. So I was a Linux board engineer for seven years in our Linux on Power, IBM Power, and then about four years back I happened to be able to get an opportunity to come over to the mainframe side. And I was again working on Linux, and I was enabling Kubernetes operators for a product. And then about two and a half years back, this opportunity that the current team that I lead was starting off in India, because I have a parallel team in Canada. And so it’s a global team. It’s a global collaboration that happens across multiple geographies. And so I was brought in to help lead this team. And my biggest pleasure has been that my entire team is Gen Zs. And you know, it was very good.”

Steven:
“Keeping you on your toes and keeping you fresh.”

Brahadambal Srinivasan:
“No, they’re brilliant and they’re a really smart set of kids, and I have really good fun working with them. And I think the best thing that I can say is that we both are learning from each other. But it was the thing that was trying to get them to understand that the mainframe is not legacy. You know, even though the technology is older than they have been. It’s older than me.”

Steven:
“Just celebrated its birthday this week—I’m calling on Friday and September 10th—and it was April 7th that the platform turned 62.”

Brahadambal Srinivasan:
“Yes, it is. And it has kept itself current, right? Just the way we maintain currency for the open source packages that we port, the platform has also kept itself current with the times. There is a lot of research that goes behind that platform.”

Steven:
“Let’s maybe double click there, Latha.”

Brahadambal Srinivasan:
“Sure.”

Steven:
“You’ve said something a couple of times, which is very dear to my heart from my time at IBM. You said ‘Linux on Z’—I say ‘Z.’ Yes, I’m British. You’re among friends here, let’s call it Z. So you don’t call it ‘said Linux.’ And I know why. Maybe let’s find out a little bit on what Linux on Z means. What Linux, the Linux kernel and the Linux packages, as you mentioned—Kubernetes and operators. Yeah, let’s just maybe go deep and technical for a minute. What does it mean to port an open source package onto the s390x chip architecture? How much is different? Is the kernel different? There’s a whole bunch of kind of perception out there that this is weird Linux and it’s different. I even saw from my background, I know the difference and that. But I’d love to get you to kind of explain it. If somebody says, ‘Hey, can you port this?’ what does that involve?”

Brahadambal Srinivasan:
“Oh, yeah. Okay. So let me answer your first question. Wha...

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