Harnessing IFL and Linux for Accelerated Mainframe Delivery with PopUp Mainframe

Hello, good afternoon. My name is Gary Thornhill. I'm the, uh, founder and CEO of Popup Mainframe.

And today we'll be, uh, introducing popup mainframe and then giving you a demo of the latest and greatest. So, lemme just make a start. The mainframe market is several thousand large successful organizations and institutions across the globe.

The mainframe appeal is universal and prevalent across many sectors. This includes financial services, insurance, retail, logistics, government and transportation. What these sectors and organizations have in common is that it infrastructure is some of the busiest processing billions of transactions as a primary instrument of the global economy.

These are systems too critical to fail to important to use commodity technology. They rely on the IBM mainframe because of its credentials of being the most powerful, resilient machine available on the market. And that's never been truer since the release of the Z 17 with all its AI capability and new processes.

Yet mainframe change can be highly challenging still for organizations today. We commissioned an independent survey earlier this year from a market research agency called Vanson Bourne, and the market came up with these results, and I'm sure some of these hard twos of the mainframe world will resonate with you and your own experience. Nearly all respondents experienced challenges in Devon test when using the mainframe.

Nine outta 10 had concerns around the availability of main mainframe environments, and a third said it required four or more teams to get mainframe deliveries done. And eight out of 10 of those respondents think that staffing and tooling is limiting and hindering the business. It's evident all organizations have challenges.

Availability is an issue, and siloed organizations are very much a problem in the world of mainframe and tooling and skills are getting in the way despite there being exactly the same tools available for the mainframe. It's just just difficult for those to be used. Um, and, uh, we'll highlight today how that can be addressed anyway.

This is not a positive situation for many decision makers. There's too many bottlenecks and this is getting in the way of, um, organizations delivering. So what is the solution to that?

Well, here, here at Popup Mainframe, we think that provisioning a popup mainframe is the way forward. You can relieve these bottlenecks without having to invest in new tin by installing popup mainframe on adjacent Linux platforms. And this can be Linux on z Linux one, um, on-prem X 86, and we can run popup mainframe in any cloud server.

And now with our fast track capability, which I'll talk about in a while, we can combine them and you can move between those different environments based on your use case and need. 'cause you can, you, you can use a a floating license model. So you only need to to have, um, as many licenses in use if you've got, as you've got mainframes up.

So what this means is you can have other mainframes, um, that are actually dormant and down and you can use them for use cases later on and, and use them on a, on a need to need basis. So just just to, just to, I know you're gonna get into it, but just Sure. To, to set the stage.

Yeah. Set the stage, um, that, that middle option pretty obvious mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Emulator on X 86, et cetera, et cetera. Right? Yeah.

Roughly speaking, um, I don't wanna put words in your mouth. The left and the right. Mm-hmm.

Okay. Um, I understand the right, yes, ID I'm, I, I think that I would like you to distinguish between the right and the, the left there, or for a sure. Or a both mainframe and let's say a mainframe interested audience.

Yeah, for sure. So, um, I'm gonna start with the right Linux on Z. So, um, an IFL 'cause not everybody knows.

Yeah. An IFL is, um, an integrated Linux facility. Um, and that is, uh, a specific processor that runs on the, uh, on the mainframe itself.

It's IBM facilities. IBM language for processor. Yes.

Yes. It's a, it's a, it's a, it's a processor, um, but it's not a general processor for running, um, z workload or, um, so z workload, but um, an actual regular LAR. So, um, on the IFL, you're running effectively the same chip, but it's, it's, it's adjusted for Linux workloads and it's, it is completely isolated from the general processes.

So you can run the run popup mainframe on that. So while it's, it can reside on the same physical machine, it's completely separat and doesn't use any of the resources that that chip uses for production workload or regular Devon test. So that's, that's A Z system with this Linux capability.

Yes. Now the left. Yeah.

And so then popup mainframe, you'd be running virtualized mainframe on, on the IFL next door. Now Linux one, you can run exactly the same, um, operating system could be, um, Z Linux, KVM, whatever. And you can run those Linux operating systems on a Linux one, so you can run, so Linux one is a, is a different hardware.

Um, and you would, you can, you would run popup mainframe exactly the same way on Linux one as you would on Linux one Z. So Hopefully that covers it. Yeah.

So my take on this, yeah, please correct me if I'm wrong, including you, Steven. Um, please. Um, is that, um, your customers have a lot of different environments that they use.

Most of them are using X 86, but that's almost practically a different team. Um, but they're also, they may be using z they can use that. They, they may have Apple systems, they may not, they may have Lin Linux one systems, they may not.

So you popup is, um, doing the, the, the tricky technical engineering. So they have choice and don't have to move into some kind of new box or hardware Correct. In order to take advantage Of it.

And that's exactly right. So we don't, you know, if you wanna stand up a popup mainframe environment quickly, you don't wanna have to get in the business of procuring hardware, what can you use? You've already got to get it up and running.

So that's, so now we, before we just had it on X 86, now we've got it on that left and right option. Gary, the way I would see that, and maybe to pile onto guys' question is optionality, yes. If you've got X 86 kitten, you as a mainframe team are comfortable with doing dev test on X 86 popups.

Got you covered. Yeah. If you're a mainframe team and you're not comfortable with X 86 popups got you covered, you can run that on as your mainframe box with an IFL or if you've got a Linux one box in your environment, you can run it there.

The way I take that away is, and am I thinking about, and I'm getting to a question, am I thinking about that as optionality and you'll meet them wherever they are from a hardware point of view, there's no restriction. Is is that the way, am I hearing about it? Right?

That's Exactly, that's exactly correct, Steven. I mean, it's, it's just that some organizations, and we've seen this, do not want to have any mainframe running on X 86 at all. They want it, they want it on, uh, something like Linux on Z, which is the same as running the same hardware and under control of the same team.

So that, that's right. We've got options, and I don't wanna spoil it for everyone, but we can talk about moving between those environments later with our technology so that perhaps you've got, um, an lpar like a production like LPAR on a, on a Linux on Z, for example. And then you can push that to the cloud and you could provide that environment to, um, incumbent, um, uh, outsourcers or someone running A POC.

And you've got that flexibility. Well, I did give the game away now, so you you, you, you took it outta me. But anyway, I, I have, I have another question for you.

Yes, Yes. Steven, maybe you're gonna get to this, but um, Yeah, Steven, that's 'cause there's multiple, You could just say that to any of us. Yeah, I'll Just say that.

Yeah. Um, so now that popup has been, you know, so, so you're not new new anymore. You've got customers, you've got, you know, you're out there doing this.

Um, are people coming to you more for the flexibility, more for the application development lifecycle, more for the, I guess, hardware savings or to run it on cloud? I mean, what is the, what is the, the real customer demand that you're starting to see? Because this product can do a few different things.

Yeah, That's right. And you know, there's, there's so many use cases you can do with this. I think fundamentally, um, most of our customers are wanting pop-up 'cause there's a shortage of environments and they're just, and and it could be for multiple reasons.

It could be contractually, um, they could be doing a data center move or they just want to have the full, what's in a popup included outta the box. That is, because we can install it in less than 10 minutes, all of that's available to start new things without the, I dunno, the overhead of trying to work on the existing lpi, which could be, you know, you wouldn't, you might not have the, the, the theus available to do the work you want. So popup is the answer.

Um, If, if you look at it the other way. Okay. Yeah.

So if, if Steve came to me and said, mark, I need a test LPA to do some development and test it myself as the techie have to go and make hardware configuration changes, clone the operating system, restore it all, configure it, get it up and running, that's four to five days work. Yeah. If you're gonna do it on real Yeah.

Zed processor. Yeah. This stuff gives you, as Gary said, 10 minutes.

Well That's, that's how I saw it. So last year when we talked about this, I was seeing it sort of analogous to like a docker container or something like that. Like, oh, I need a web server, I could build it or I could just, you know, Docker composed, bam.

Now I got a web server and it sounds like this is exactly the same thing except for the mainframe. Yeah. I mean, and we can, we can run these in containers.

You can run 'em so many different ways now, particularly as, as we move across onto the Z environment, which actually gives us greater flexibility. Um, but, um, anyway, let me, let me continue on. Um, and just to be clear, one thing, so the license restricts from running any production workload is just dev test only.

Um, and, uh, you know, that's, that's important. I can hear IBM in the back of my ear just asking me to say that to everybody. Yes.

But let me, so so is it, just to be really clear, is it a license that restricts for dev test or, or restricts out of production? Because, um, I mean I can't, it's hard for me to imagine someone doing, say QA two anywhere but in a, a very similar production environment. But QA one, they might want To.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So as long as you're not, as long as you're not running production workload.

But we've got many different, um, partners, um, and consultancies taking popups now and they could just be doing, uh, you know, pre-work before they take you to their clients. Yeah. Just, I just Developing their own products.

But yeah, you, nothing stops running UA TT want dev test and feel like that, that that's the restriction. It's more not at all. Not production.

Not production. Exactly. Right.

So you could be doing production fix for example. It's just, and it's a really, that's a really good use case Yeah. To do product production fix.

'cause you can match a popup to any LPAR PTF and you've got that film flexibility. So that is a great use case. Um, anyway, so we've designed popup mainframe to ensure it's compatible and therefore credible as a solution.

Um, data compliance is a really important part of our offering and, um, we, we, we can talk about how we can use advanced masking technology to help bring that compliant data in, and now we can ensure that data never leaves z And we've got a couple of of ways architecturally how we, how we do that, how we do the masking and provision downstream environments, um, key. We integrate with all of the existing mainframe environments and tools. Um, we also have the added advantage that we have, um, the I-B-M-B-M-C along with third party and open source tools already pre-installed and pre-configured.

So when you install that popup, you've got all that other software available that you can use straight out the box and start doing work with. Um, and I think that's, that's a huge advantage of, of the product. So yeah, just just to retake, we're compatible with anything zero s that organizations are running and we've got all sorts of weird and wondrous things, um, running in, uh, strange legacy bespoke code.

We've got it all working on a popup. So that's, that's a really important, um, point to make and all form, you know, some, some of the older ca databases, IDMS and Alibabas as well, we can run those so it doesn't hold anything back at all. Um, and we're delighted with, uh, what we're seeing with our clients.

Um, this is just a, a short summary. We can use their existing environments to accelerate dev tests and protect those production mips. Um, we can flexibly initiate, um, dev test training, um, training environments at any time.

Um, and uh, that, that is really important, um, to start any form of r and d projects. And we have an existing client that have managed to quadruple their mainframe, uh, delivery philosophy, um, and just through efficient resource usage and, um, as well as ensuring that for the first time they can get proper compliant data into, into their test environments. Um, importantly and increasingly to all CIOs, popup improves, uh, sustainability reduces emissions and power usage because you can unplug unused environments and we've actually got automation built in.

So if you don't use it for two hours, because a flag, obviously it will switch itself off in a clean fashion. So you can just start it back up again as and when you need to. Um, Sorry, that Sure.

On those, what do you think, like of your customers, what's the top three, um, things that your customers are using? Yeah, That's what I was curious about too. Uh, Yeah, I mean definitely, um, probably the top three.

Um, it's just if you having run, um, uh, mainframe delivery teams myself, um, you know, you might wait a week to get a DB two change made in a, in a, in a set environment because that might be done by another outsourcer. Um, and it's on a queue. There might not be any, um, uh, there might not be an SOW available, so it has to be signed up before that, that DB two environment is, is created and the dev teams just stop or do something else.

It's things like that. Um, so putting it, yeah, giving it in the hands of the developer that this can be done themselves and not relying, I mean, it still will go to a formal environment, but so much can be driven out in the earlier stages of development and testing. So I mostly an open source person, so.

Okay. Let me ask you a Big, we love open source. We do loads of that.

Okay. So like basic baby question mm-hmm. If, well, open systems is what I meant to say.

So baby, baby question, if, if, if you get your dev team, uh, popup mainframe and they're able to start working on something while you're waiting for all of the business side stuff to be checked off, you know, t's crossed i's dotted, what happens to, uh, the data that, that are the things that they develop? Do they have to then replicate those in, in the environment or the data? Are they able to transfer what they've Done?

Yes, that's right. Well, that's right. So we have, um, and I, I think that's, I might move on to the next slide to answer that question.

That's a pretty good diagram without it, Here's, here's some, uh, foundational, um, architectural elements. So, um, we work with this, we work with this concept, um, of a gold copy that acts as the master instance that you can see there. And so we have, we've developed our own IP and approach to move, uh, data and config across to the gold copy.

Um, so that the environment that they're familiar with is replicated onto a, into a popup. Um, and I'll, I'll get into the masking of the data in a while, but once we've, once we've created that gold copy and that obviously, um, you know, we might, we might approach it and we might be 90% working and then we can just, just toggle it, refine it, go back, look at the physical system, maybe make a tweak. Um, but once we've established that and, and it's been tested out, then we can push that goal copy, um, to other instances for whatever use cases you want.

So when you've got one, you can then have as many as you like. And it literally takes, so, um, on the IFL, we can create a copy of, you know, two or three terabyte gold copy and then it's another virtual machine in five minutes for another use case. So that is, you know, pretty powerful once, once you've invested in the first one.

And some organizations know their environments better than others, but, um, we have experts to really unpick that and get it, get it established. So There's no additional configuration when you take it from a Z 17 to something else? No.

Um, for, well it's the, the most important thing is, is the version of ZOS. 5, then we would provide the same version of ZOS on the popup. Okay.

And then which case of moving over, um, probably load libraries and, um, and doing some, doing some binds and things like that kicks. Kicks. So the hard the hardware then has to be the same then, right?

Um, well, I mean this is hardware emulation, so, um, there are, there, there are certain, um, parts of the, depends on the load library, but that all the hardware is, is emulated onto, um, using the underlying IBM technology. Okay. We establish on the popup.

So it doesn't, it doesn't really matter. It's less about Z 15 16 17. It's more about the, the, the level of ZOS.

Yeah, because I was thinking, you know, you have the Z 17 in the office and then you create a home lab just for testing environment. Um, and of course you don't have a Z 17 at home, so No, most people don't. May may, maybe Ross Murray has if he's fortunate enough.

Yeah, yeah. No, but, um, yeah, that, that's the, that's the idea. We're not, um, it, it, it's about getting, um, you know, providing production-like environments to, to test early.

But I think as I get through the presentation, more and more will be revealed, um, what I was gonna say here. And the other thing that we can do is we can install any SCM onto the popup. So you could just use it as a node and then, and move virtual popups into your es into your end-to-end SDLC and promote members up to say UAT, um, and then do testing back on the physical mainframe.

So there's, there's lots of different ways of, of, of how you would use popups end-to-end. And you might just use them individually for, say, testing new functions of DB two, once you've created your goal copy with a full application on, it's an ideal opportunity to try and, um, use those versions of DB two that you might never get to do on a Yeah. Regular physical environment.

So, So, So to pull on that a little bit that, 'cause that was gonna be my question. Yeah. You, you're fitting within, um, a software development lifecycle manager that, that, uh, that a customer might be using with these features so that they can, they can, you know, manage that gold copy and its, its deployment and implementation within their SDLC?

Yes. Um, again, it depends on, we're trying to, we can understand how the client's working today. There could be a, some of them might want to work exactly the same way they did before and just create popover as an lpar, but we're trying to encourage them to work new ways and just, I'm just gonna use the bottom end of this, this slide here to show that.

So, uh, with popups you can get regular refreshes of data, um, into the popup gold copy, and then you can push those copies down to, to different environments. So it's up to them if they want to take those refreshers or not. Mm-hmm.

So that could be a new way of, of working. Um, but uh, with this fast track facility that we've developed, and uh, this allows us to refresh pop-up instances, but it also allows us to create multiple snapshots of different popups. And that could be on different versions of code, different versions of subsystems.

Looks like I've got a question mark. No. So I, I, and this is the bit that got me the last time because to try and do this in a real mainframe environment mm-hmm.

It's, it's, it's now on impossible because the amount of, the amount of hoops you would have to go through to make sure you've got a backup of the data and then restore it. And what I liked about this, you might have a 12 hour testing window and you get four hours into it and it breaks and you think, oh, so you can roll it back to the last snapshot, do the little fix that you've gotta do, then roll it forward another eight hours, break something else, roll that back a couple of hours, or go through the whole thing and it works, and then quickly reset it and then do it again to do that on, in the real mainframe space, because this is obviously em emulated disc onto the covers. This is so much more efficient.

Yeah. And with the Z it's going five times faster than the X products as well on the, on the IFL. Um, but, and, and just to add to that, we, we are showing this today, but, So Gary, I'm gonna, okay.

'cause you said something really fascinating, but you went quickly. Yeah. And I think it's worthwhile capturing.

So you mentioned you've now ported popup to the IFL. Yes. You said is it fast five times faster, Fast, faster.

So It's on average five times faster. Some of it's 10 times faster. It's all about whether disc io is, because as you know, with, with with on Z, the CPU is not emulated, goes straight to the chip and, but the disc is still emulated.

So depending the balance between IO and CPU, but on average we are seeing five times average performance. So the advantage isn't just mainframe team, you don't have to deal with X 86, you can stay dealing with said mm-hmm. That's one advantage.

The other advantage is it'll run five times faster than running OnX Eight IFL. Yeah. So you've got optionality, you can run it on X 86, but there is an advantage to run it on the IFL.

It is, and really we didn't have any complaints from, from, uh, clients around performance, but it, it would just allow us to, um, to be more efficient. So sometimes you need a multiple, you need to multi to license multiple CPUs. So it is a more cost efficient option, but you are running it on obviously slightly more expensive hardware than some of the eight x 86.

It's More, it's more expensive hardware and Steve's be more knowledgeable about, you know, if you, if you, if you have normal processors Yeah. Yeah. We cap 'em.

So I'll use a car analogy. I've got, I've got four general purpose engines at a thousand cc, but the actual processors could probably go up to 5,000. Yeah.

Ifls are full stack. So you get the whole thing no matter if the other ones are capped, you get the full stack of the I ffl so you get the full power of the IFL when you do the math, it's not that expensive. No, no, no.

I agree. These shops may have spare IFL capacities hanging around anyway. Yeah, you, your, I'd imagine the footprint of this is pretty small and an IFL as you say is pretty big.

Yeah. They're tall. This, this system, the, the, the wider point is you're probably not having to buy AFAs to run popup.

You're probably able to operate on the if FFLs you've already got. Yeah, No, that, that's, that's what we're hoping a Really Point. And this, and this is where this, this capability that we're talking about now on the IFL to me is a complete game changer for how, uh, environments are managed in dev and test.

Yeah. It's always, it's a little DevOpsy to be honest, like very DevOps, you know, like, but absolutely. But without having to use Silicon Valley lingo, which really appeals Oh, my famous don't like that very much.

Yeah, well I, I, I'm, I'm with them on that. Yeah, that's wonderful. Yeah.

But, um, and the great thing is, so we, we've talked about the benefits of the IFL and I'm running, running it. So we could, um, we could, uh, build a gold copy in a secure zone on the IFL master data there, and then we could push out copies, exact same copies to, um, cloud systems if we wanted. And that, and that could be to partners, you don't wanna have access to your mainframe, they could be testing out POC.

So you start getting, you start getting all the benefits but control as well. Um, in fact, I'm gonna go back to that slide in a minute, uh, just, just to show it here. So this is what we're talking about.

So we could, you could run whole full dev test environments on, on the IFL, have that capability with Fast Track being able to rewind checkpoint branch, um, publish out, um, and create copies. Um, and then some of those could be in the cloud if you wanted and you wouldn't have to do anything to them to run them there. So I, I, you know, I think that shows great flexibility based on use case.

And you know, if you've got some you want, you want something in Azure, then you can have it. Um, if you need the power in, in the, on the ffl, you, you've got that. But let me skip back.

Yeah, sorry. Just Because it's kind of open the door since we're talking about putting these, um, these snapshots every place. Um, are you gonna talk about security and like how these are secured?

And if they're secured, We don't go too much into that because you can just, you've got all of the security that's available you would have on the regular mainframe and you can as well as you've got full rack f security that you had put on say the application level and then you've got the full, uh, Linux layer capability of security so you can, you know, there's so, there's so much to the whole security. Well, we're not trying to address that in this presentation, but, um, But generally, if I put this in the cloud, is it like me having a database that's wide open in the cloud that maybe, no, I'm just not clever enough to, to change the password that, so is there, Well, you would have, you would, you could use cloud level securities to access to the servers. You've got that level, you've got the security of the, of the Azure VA for the zero or AWS virtual machine, and then you've got all the regular zero os, um, securities.

It's exactly the same emulated, it's just emulated as well. So you've actually got multi-layers of security that you can, you can implement and with whatever, you know, authentication. So I'm not an expert at security, but I know is anything, whatever an organization is, is how they're working today, they can reproduce that onto the popup in the multiple ways.

Yeah. The most, the most important thing though is masking the application data, masking the business data. 'cause all the other controls we've got there, multifactor authentication or all that kind of stuff, that's you just out the box.

But the fact that they mask the data, that's the, that's the good part. Even if you get Access to it. Yeah, If you could get, yeah, if you could get access to it and the chances of getting access to it through all those layers, you know, you, you, So the chances are that it's locked down when you emulate it.

Yeah. Okay. So, so When the snapshot is em emulated, it's not, it's, is it like an is ISO or is it like a It's using, it's using ZFS under the covers.

So it is using, um, read The, The Z file system in, in American English. Okay. Yeah.

It's using, it's using read write technology. And the good thing is is that it's just measuring the, it's just using pointers to the changes. So the downstream copies here, the three on the side, they've actually worked with 90% compression.

So you've, you're not using dasd, you're using commodity disc and that's 90% compressed as well. So if you've got a terabyte footprint of the gold copy instance, then these popups call them that they're a hundred Gig. So you get, you get huge amounts of, you point In what he said around da these what mainframe is called direct trust storage device equals expensive bit of storage.

Yeah. Yeah. It's much better than it used to be, but still versus Number of magnitude more expensive than your NetApp filer would be.

I was trying to figure out if it was going, if it did sector by sector, uh, copy or if it does, like It just measures changes. Anything like third party, uh, programs get loaded on after the fact Or No, they're, they're just already there. It snapshots the whole image Okay.

Of everything. And I'll, I'll show you that. Okay.

Like a Be snapshot. So just let me, let me quickly introduce to you just the Concept for the mainframe, The, um, delivery pipeline we'll be using today. This is just an example of how we set up a popup to support a modern mainframe delivery environment.

Um, this is a modern mainframe delivery, um, DevOps setup. And it's using new tools like VS code I-B-M-I-D-Z and open source, including GSA and co check for using test automation. Um, if we zoom into the build and test part of the lifecycle, and just to reiterate, this is just one example, um, we can plug in whatever clients are already using.

So whatever they're using in the enterprise is much better to reuse it. So it's, but this is just one example. Obviously we have to go with something, but it's very flexible how you can move between different technologies.

But this is what we're gonna show you in the demo. Oh, cool. And any tools can be swapped in at any stage.

They're cool. Oh, good. Yeah, we don't, we, we don't.

It's Just reinforcement, not a question. Good, good. We don't insist on you use this or that apart from just using a popup.

Um, Gary, you mentioned IBM and BMC. Yes. There's Rocket and there's Broadcom.

Yes. Are they supported as well? Completely.

Um, everyone, everyone's supported. Um, I'm using Endeavor as a source code management tool that's, I can use that. Yeah.

We've got clients, we've got Endeavor installed on the popup. No issue in multiple, multiple clients, it's just what we have here is pre-installed and ready to go. So there's options.

Trying to have every combination would be very difficult. Oh, So that's a good point. So IBM and BMC and some open source are pre-installed?

Yes, I've got the flexibility to use Rocket and Broadcom, but it's not pre-installed. It's not just pre-installed, otherwise it's just trying to, trying to keep up because we are releasing popups and up updates. Just trying to update and release all that software would be quite a big overhead.

So we, we, we've gone with two, um, I'm sure we're do more as we grow and, and, um, more successful with our clients. But, um, you can run anything on there, but we, we have those two choices. Um, just in case main framers are scared of DevOps pipelines, um, there's still loads of value, um, using a pop-up just to have a clean environment, um, to test against.

And one of the most obvious use cases is to provision a pop-up. So upstream systems can test against the mainframe quite often, um, upstream applications on different platforms, they're struggling to find a, a mainframe environment to test against. So this is a key, key use case, Expensive and uh, and it can take a while to get the, uh, mainframe team up up to give reassuringly.

Yes, reassuringly expensive indeed. Yep. And uh, just to go back to, I think we've covered data, um, compliance a bit.

So again, to help our clients, we've got a pre-installed offering now, data vantage, this has been around, uh, since the late seventies. And um, it makes it very easy to use ISPF to do, um, data compliance and, and do that masking. So if clients need to test things out and are worried about, um, uh, their data being insecure, then we can mask it for them, um, very quickly using this technology.

Of course you can use others, but this is just on a pre-installed as well. Um, so You are partnering with somebody for a data masking capability? Yes, that's right.

Um, we've got existing partnerships as well, but this is just one that, this goes in with our whole keep everything on Z So if the masking software's on z, um, running on popup, which is also running on a IFL on Z, then not then, then no data doesn't ever leave the mainframe. And that's very important to tier ones that, um, data, data. Thou shall never leave the ma leave the mainframe.

So we are meeting them by working this way. Um, just to quickly, um, uh, summarize, uh, the two versions we have available, um, we renamed our original product exhibition, uh, running on X 86 on my sleeve there, and we've got Zed on the other side over here. Um, So what are you, the popup upon that said is new?

Yes. Since you were here last time, what are you seeing as that reaction? Has that unlocked demand for you guys?

Um, it, it very much does. So because, um, before, um, when we presented to some big banks, they loved the product, they loved the flexibility and what the product did. But some of the, the larger mainframe teams I think saw running, uh, mainframe into the cloud as an existential threat.

And so maybe put off, but where if it's actually running on the, on the mainframe then, and they, they see that as a more secure option. Their, their SecOps teams, um, mandate that data shouldn't go to the cloud, for example. So it solves that problem.